The Situation

A globally positioned International NGO (INGO) had a lengthy travel approval process and, while that had delivered required levels of compliance, it was recognised that process delays added costs to the final travel booked.

The Problem With Financial Savings for a Major International NGO

Bookers were giving feedback that they were unable to take advantage of the full range of fixed cost fares and products that could lower cost due to the elapsed time from the required approval process. Lack of satisfaction with the process was also leading to off-contract spend directly with suppliers that impacted management reporting and compliance audits.

Our Solution

Through close collaboration with stakeholders in the client’s Finance, Governance, IT and Procurement teams, we co-created a new integrated workflow that better aligned internal “Form Fills” to the Purchase Order process. This reduced the time required in the approval process through:

  • Building a “Unique” code capture for the booking process, taken from the internal form fill process.
  • Removed booking Purchase Orders (PO), migrating to an annual PO, coded to each department.
  • Introducing payment codes, selected from a data-file “Drop-down”, improving the user experience and speeding up the booking process.
  • Introducing an automated approval workflow so that approvers were presented with policy compliant, coded bookings with comments for approval.  The approver can also see the alternative lower cost options not chosen.

The Results

Speed to booking from initial quote was halved, improving the user experience and helping approvers to complete their process without any delays.

Initial cost savings were tracked at 12%. Also, less flexible lower cost booking options increased as the transition enabled more agile choices. These options accelerated savings and improved choice at point of sale.

Savings are on target to deliver £0.5m from the initial phase of the new process. Full year savings in scope will be £1m+.  Online booking also accelerated to over 75% adoption, which further delivered fee savings.