Corporate travel management can be a complex, expensive undertaking. But by planning ahead, you can reduce your business travel costs while giving employees a comfortable, safe, and reliable experience.

In this article, you’ll get all the advice you need to ensure your corporate travel management offering is in the best possible shape.

What is corporate travel management?

With the rise of global business comes the need for employees to travel. And managing this travel (along with the expenses that go with it) has made having corporate business travel management software, and processes in place crucial.

Under the umbrella of corporate travel management is everything related to the management of business-related trips. And there’s plenty to consider:

Building and maintaining travel policies (they should be sustainable travel policies, too).
Ensuring compliance with your policies.
Setting travel budgets and tracking spending.
Trialling corporate travel management software.
Having clear expense management guidelines and processes.
Booking flights and accommodation.
Arranging ground travel (many companies overlook this!).

Note: You’ll sometimes see corporate travel management shortened to CTM.

The many challenges of corporate travel management

Business travel management can throw many challenges your way.

For upper management, the challenges revolve around keeping spending within budget, gaining control over how employees travel, and knowing that every trip makes efficient use of time. But management expectations also need to align with the needs of employees.

You must ensure your employees have safe, reliable, and comfortable transport — whether in the air or on the ground. Many employees are also conscious of their environmental impact when travelling — but you should already factor sustainability into the equation as part of your business goals.

The period following a trip is when companies don’t realise that their employees are losing hours of valuable time. And it all comes down to expenses.

A smooth expensing process

The thinking often goes that filling out expense reports is necessary — but that’s all changed.

Collecting receipts, holding onto them (how many taxi receipts have you misplaced?), and typing up all the details into an expense form has become a thing of the past. This is great news because your team can focus on more valuable tasks knowing they still get their money back.

That’s if they even have to spend their own money at all. Let us explain. 👇

Take Bolt Business as an example. By setting up your account, your employees will see your company as a payment method in their Bolt app.

That way, they can charge business trips to the company without using their own money — and they can only spend as much as your pre-set budget allows.

That means no overspending and no expense reports — corporate ground travel has never been easier to manage.

Ensuring employee compliance

Regarding business travel, employee compliance ultimately depends on whether your team follows your corporate travel policy. Making sure this happens will benefit the company as a whole in several ways:

Maintain (or even improve) your company’s reputation.
Avoid situations where employees overspend.
Removes the need for micromanagement.
Keeps travel-related risks to a minimum.
Keeps all data safe and secure.

The best corporate management software ensures employees comply with your travel policies by preventing actions that don’t fit the policy. But your efforts to increase employee compliance shouldn’t come at the expense of flexibility.

Accepting the importance of flexibility

For some businesses, giving employees flexibility when they travel can be a hard point to face. It’s worth accepting, though, because having an element of flexibility will make travelling for work far more comfortable.

Meetings often overrun, and you can’t plan for unexpected chances to network. In these moments, your employees need confidence they can easily return to their hotel or next engagement in comfort.

Giving your team various travel options is essential — cars aren’t the only way to travel around a city. In many cases, an electric scooter or e-bike is far more convenient.

As crucial as travel policies are, they shouldn’t hinder your employees’ success on their business trips.

Keeping employees safe

Following a global pandemic, the attention given to corporate travel risk management is at an all-time high. As an employer, you should keep your employees safe when they travel for work.

How safe they feel comes down to how you’re managing your corporate travel — including the software, services, or apps you choose to use. Always keep safety top of mind when comparing corporate travel services.

Overlooking ground travel

When an employee heads away for business, they might need a flight (although a multimodal approach would be more sustainable) and often need accommodation too. While these are both highly important, they shouldn’t overshadow ground travel arrangements.

Arriving in an unfamiliar city or country can be stressful and nerve-wracking — especially for first-time business travellers. And knowing that transport to meetings, their hotel, or the airport is all sorted removes some anxieties.

An even better option is to invest in a corporate travel management app which allows employees to easily book transport themselves at the company’s expense (such as Bolt Business).

Employee travelling for business in a work taxi thanks to a corporate travel management policy that includes ground travel

Finding the right corporate travel management tools

To help lighten the load of all these challenges, many companies use corporate travel management solutions which automate much of the process. Depending on the size of your company, you could also see the benefit of hiring a corporate travel manager.

The duties of Corporate Travel Managers

When a business traveller has a question or concern regarding a business trip, they can turn to the Corporate Travel Manager. This person has to handle everything related to business travel, such as:

Building the company’s travel policies.
Ensuring compliance with travel policies.
Booking transport.
Arranging accommodation.
Reporting on business travel expenditure.

Anyone in the Corporate Travel Manager position will also be working with corporate travel management software for booking transport and managing expenses.

Worth noting: The average Corporate Travel Manager in the EU expects a base salary of around €70,000 — far less than their counterparts in North America (€109,300).

A Corporate Travel manager working from an office.

How corporate travel management software can benefit your business

You’ve been introduced to the idea of corporate travel management software, but let’s find out how it can help your company.

There are 3 essential things that any corporate travel management tool should take care of:

Managing travel expenses.
Ensuring employee safety.
Streamlining the booking process.

With these areas covered, a corporate travel management system will help your business save money, reduce travel-related stress, and maintain a professional image.

Travel within budget

By developing travel policies and setting guidelines for travel expenses, companies can reduce costs and ensure that employees follow best practices regarding business travel. This can include everything from booking flights in advance to staying in budget-friendly accommodation.

Employee safety and well-being

You should always provide your employees with travel insurance and access to medical services when they travel for work. While taking these precautions has always been essential, your corporate travel management software should allow employees to share their location as they move.

Track and report on travel

Leveraging technology allows you to manage travel more efficiently, automate expenses, ensure compliance, and improve employee satisfaction. On top of that, you’ll also be able to monitor your team’s travel data and analytics from one location. With easily accessible data, you’ll find identifying opportunities to control costs easier.

Best corporate travel management software

A lengthy list of corporate travel management solutions is out there, making finding the right one for your business a tough job. But if you follow the guidance above, your search becomes much easier, and you’ll overcome all the everyday challenges of corporate travel management. These are 5 of the best tools:

You can compare these corporate travel management companies in our article about Travel and Expense Management Software.

Don’t overlook corporate ground travel

Your company’s corporate travel management system needs to make life easier for your business travellers while making management easier for your team. You want to avoid a travel policy that fails your employees. Ground travel has a role to play in every business trip — domestic and international — so it’s essential that you don’t overlook it.

Partnering with a corporate ground travel company will save you money and ensure the safety and well-being of your employees — which is where Bolt Business comes in.

Get it all with Bolt Business

Bolt Business is a corporate travel management tool that gives your team a comfortable, safe, and reliable way to travel for work across Europe and Africa. And as the admin, you’ll be able to set travel rules, track orders, and pay for all travel from a single dashboard.

When you add employees to your account, they’ll see your company as a payment method in their Bolt app. This allows them to charge work rides straight to the company — as long as the journey meets the travel policy and spending limit.

Sign up with Bolt Business today to take corporate travel management within your company up a gear.

Affordable work rides, without the paperwork