Results at a glance
- Best practice governance followed to expedite client’s global implementation needs
- Travel industry expertise enhanced global implementation process and helped balance the internal workload
- Positive reviews of the outsourced person led to extension of initial one-year agreement for an additional 6-month term
Challenge
A United States-based healthcare client, with CWT since 2017, had gaps in their travel management team that they desperately needed to fill.
With many worldwide locations, they were working through numerous challenges within their global travel program, in large part relating to a lack of resources.
A recent acquisition of another healthcare company increased the global travel spend by 30-40%. This, combined with the reduction of team resources due to budgetary constraints and departures, had severely stretched their resources.
The team was also implementing CWT globally, finishing a global airline sourcing project, and reviewing all airline contracts, along with numerous other internal projects.
The results-driven organization was at risk of not meeting critical implementation deadlines and found themselves without the resources to manage all projects at once.
Solution
The client had been working closely with CWT across the TMC implementation, so when they needed a project-based resource with a mix of travel and consulting expertise, they were pleased to learn that CWT Solutions Group could help them.
CWT Solutions Group recommended its outsourcing service as a seamless solution to quickly fill the client’s needs. Drawing from its global resource pool, CWT Solutions Group easily found the right candidate: Christine, a skilled project manager with over 20 years’ experience in travel management. Her background included working on implementation and operations with global companies. Additionally, she brought strong experience supporting client’s strategic goals and business requirements, including systems integration, strategy development, and benchmarking with similar organizations and processes.
Additionally, the outsourced person would not increase overhead, as there would not be an additional full-time employee (FTE) added. When bringing Christine into the team, CWT Solutions Group ensured she was well-integrated with the internal team.
A company email was set up, allowing her to work as a fully functional role within the company.
Ready to start quickly, Christine was ideally positioned to support the company during business transformation.
Results
Christine immediately contributed to the travel team’s knowledge base and increased their overall expertise in the travel category. She helped to manage the multiple projects of the merger, implemented CWT globally, and finished the sourcing, implementation and contracting project.
CWT Solutions Group’s resource supported the six-month implementation across 79 countries, partnering with IT to develop a global HR feed to ensure all profiles were created under the correct legal guidelines.
Christine also worked closely with the procurement lead for airline contracts, to ensure processes between travel agents and airlines were aligned, and the new programs were executed effectively.
Amongst the complex and technical demands of delivery across multiple countries, collaboration with multiple stakeholders, and balancing the ongoing merger and sourcing project, the implementation was done successfully, on schedule and on within budget for the client.
The client gave strong reviews of Christine’s performance, resulting in the extension of the initial engagement, which was set up for a year, to an extended 6-month contract.
Christine said: “I really enjoy working with different customers. When I start with a company, I quickly try and understand their business needs and what needs to be done to meet our goals on the project. In all my years of global travel management, I try to help my customers achieve program improvements and be successful.
‘‘The CWT Solutions Group resource was ideally suited to support the company during business transformation.’’