A Travel Industry White Paper By Tom Ruesink Ruesink Consulting Group, Inc.
Three Mindset Shifts for 2011
“Less is more.”
I was at a dinner with some folks from Cornerstone Information Systems, and I chided the Vice President of Development that he talked in straightforward, to-the-point three word sentences. He smiled, chuckled and said, “Less is more”. There are many reasons that I signed a long-term partnership to help enhance and re-launch the Cornerstone corporate offering, but if I had to characterize one moment where I knew I was in the right place to make a real difference, it was during that conversation. Over the past several months, I have had the opportunity to work with some outstanding companies that make and deliver products and services to address some of our industries most complex and crucial issues. While the recognition of these problems and the reasons for these problems is spot on, I have to admit the proposed solutions are troubling. It seems that these solutions fall into one of two categories:
1
Provide access to every piece of information available.
2
or
Deliver more “features” to address every conceivable concern no matter how inconsequential.
In essence, the problem is – More Is Less Published courtesy of
Three Mindset Shifts for 2011 Tom Ruesink Ruesink Consulting Group, Inc. I understand our desire to be all things to all people. It makes us feel good to meet every customer demand, and we aren’t panicked that we missed an opportunity. However, I believe the continuation of this mindset will do us a disservice.
“You have my data, bring things to me, don’t make me hunt and search.”
With that said, I would encourage you to adopt three distinct and straightforward mindset shifts regarding your use of travel technology and its impact on your program.
Mindset Shift 1:
Less Drill-Down, More Bubble Up I challenge you to name a consumer products company that hasn’t spent a whole lot of cash to make it easy for customers to have enough information to buy from them. Entire industries have been created just to make it easy for people to buy stuff while sitting on their couch. I am not talking about Pay Per Click or Search Engine Optimization. I am talking about businesses that say “I know enough about you and other cool people and I KNOW you should buy this.”
As It Relates to Other Industries :
Here are a few examples of corporations that understand this with their offerings:
Amazon and Netflix:
Based on what I’ve bought and searched before, they are bringing suggestions forward to me immediately on sign-in. They still make it easy to buy if I don’t use their suggestions, but I appreciate them trying to understand my likes and attempting to be helpful without being obtrusive.
Target:
Every time I check out of a SuperTarget, a few relevant coupons are automatically printed out at the register based on my buying history. They know me. They save me time. I don’t need to read through the 100 pages of the Sunday paper to clip coupons.
Apple:
Check out the “Genius” bar if you buy songs from iTunes. As I listen to John Mellencamp’s Pink Houses, they recommend a few Bob Seger and John Hiatt tunes. They even take it one step further. Use the “Ping” feature and I can follow celebrities and friends and see what they are buying.
Published courtesy of Cornerstone Information Systems
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Three Mindset Shifts for 2011 Tom Ruesink Ruesink Consulting Group, Inc.
As It Relates To Travel : While we’ve done a decent job of being helpful with suggestions at the time of booking, our industry struggles to connect the dots in terms of outputs and deliverables that can be passed on to company stakeholders.
“Death by spreadsheet.”
Reshaping the Drill-Down Mentality: “Bigger is better” is still a mindset that prevails, and I am amazed at the amount of demos that are being done today saying, “Look at the 100 things that you can drill into in order to uncover savings.” I’ve witnessed so many “death by spreadsheet” presentations where every conceivable travel metric and data point is passed off from a travel provider to a travel manager and ultimately to a department manager. The accompanying message is “Here is everything you need to know to be smart, impress your boss and save your company money.” The small print says “user must have hours of available time, a doctoral level knowledge of pivot tables and the ability to create interactive 3D graphics.” Even then the information recipient “only” has knowledge. Where is my recommendation to order “The King’s Speech”, buy the Springsteen box set or the latest Grisham novel? In essence, a lot of information is produced very little insight is provided. It’s a subtle mindset shift, but one that will cause landmark changes in what we present to our stakeholders in 2011 and products that our industry develops. If we are taking cues from the Amazons and Targets of the world, the best companies and most valued partners will ”bubble up” clear, concise and relevant opportunities that save time and deliver insight and guidance.
Published courtesy of Cornerstone Information Systems
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Three Mindset Shifts for 2011 Tom Ruesink Ruesink Consulting Group, Inc.
Mindset Shift 2:
Focus Less on Features and More on Function Put simply, our technology is too hard to use. It needs to be very straightforward to navigate, and our outputs need to be one-page, compelling, consumable and easy-to-distribute. Other industries deliver this to their consumers; travel needs to join the movement.
“Nobody ever had to go to a full-day training on how to navigate Facebook”
As It Relates To Other Industries:
Three examples of companies who have taken this mantra to heart are Facebook, 37Signals, and the evolution of FICO scores in the credit industry.
Facebook:
At the time Facebook came along we weren’t void of social networking sites. There was Friendster, MySpace, and a whole host of other companies competing to share all that is unique and clever about you. Facebook, in some ways, is the perfect example of not trying to do too much but bringing information to you in easy-to-manage, consumable chunks. They kept their interface very easy to use. They kept the site from having downtime. Most importantly, they resisted trying to make the site itself do more than it should - it is still very foundational. It is a clean, crisp, straightforward way to share information, pictures, and status updates on your life.
37 Signals:
The premise of this fast-growing company is basically discreet, no-installation web applications to help you do one facet of your business – whether it is contact management, project management/status, information sharing, etc. The applications have clear guardrails and aren’t trying to be the “end-to-end product that does everything.”
FICO Scores:
This industry took a large chunk of disparate data, applied a methodology, and came up with a digestible way of understanding one’s individual credit risk and borrowing power. The industry pundits can argue the weighting of measure A or measure B, but at the end of the day you are left with one score that is directionally correct. It is up to the individual to improve it, and it is easy for the borrower to make decisions based on that score.
Published courtesy of Cornerstone Information Systems
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Three Mindset Shifts for 2011 Tom Ruesink Ruesink Consulting Group, Inc.
As It Relates To Travel : Reporting Products and Scorecard Tools: Almost every product demonstration for reporting and scorecard tools promise that it can “do everything.” Again, getting back to the Facebook axiom, I’ll settle for: • Quality data. • The ability to answer 90% of the basic questions that I have quickly (at the snap of my fingers). • Easy to consume outputs I’ll get more into quality data in the subsequent section. Somehow in the quest for “more” from our products, the quest for “simplicity” has gone by the wayside. If I’m off base, then perhaps I can pose this question: think of all the times you needed information in the past year from your travel data. Were the answers immediately at your fingertips or did you need to connect, compile, swear once or twice, and then ultimately cultivate? I would offer up that 90% of the requests people have from their data are relatively straightforward. It is the responses that are complex and confusing. We, as an industry, do not serve up the straightforward nearly as fast or as clean as we should. How much can you “set it and forget it” in terms of what you deliver to your stakeholders? It is incumbent on all tools to make the distribution of these outputs as easy and seamless as possible so that once a deliverable is set up, it can automatically be run and distributed. The industry is further along here, but the touchless mantra is even more important to a customer base that doesn’t have the time to compile, distribute, and dig.
Measuring One Viable Number
At the drop of a hat, I could come up with over 20 metrics that a company could measure for an air booking. Some metrics conflict with each other, some metrics don’t necessarily support the travel policy, and many metrics are out of the traveler’s control. That’s why we felt it was important at The Coca-Cola Company to scale things back, focus on exactly what you’re asking the traveler to do, and then roll those five to six critical behaviors into a one-number score methodology that has viable dollars attached to changes in behavior. Each trip, department, traveler is assigned a score based on their compliance to key behaviors. The result, as presented at the Published courtesy of Cornerstone Information Systems
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Three Mindset Shifts for 2011 Tom Ruesink Ruesink Consulting Group, Inc. ACTE conference in 2010 and written up in Management.travel has been significant savings via positive change in desired behaviors (30% increase in self booking, 16% increase in advance purchase, 19% increase in preferred hotel compliance, etc). It also had the added benefit of moving from a “punishment” mentality associated with traditional policy enforcement programs to a “praise” mentality by recognizing preferred behavior in an objective manner.
Mindset Shift 3:
Less Chasing Quality, More Managing Quality “Bad data is good – it shows us errors in our processes.”
“...decision makers want unbiased, straightforward and accurate information quickly.”
No joke, I actually had a developer say this to me. My reply: “The customer doesn’t care about us and our processes– they just want it right.” It seems that often time we forget the old “GIGO” lesson garbage in, garbage out. Whatever happened to the mantra that any decision made based on bad information is inherently a bad decision? Here is what I know; decision makers want unbiased, straightforward and accurate information quickly, in an easy to consume output.
As It Relates to Other Industries : Consumer Product Shipping:
The consumer products shipping industry has done an excellent job of communicating accurate information pro-actively. They succeed by setting realistic expectations that can be tracked. I appreciate that when I order something online I have an estimated ship date, and I get notifications when the product actually does ship. I also enjoy the fact that when my friends or cohorts send me packages they’ll email me the tracking number and I can follow that package straight through to delivery. If you are a parent and have ever ordered something online during the holidays you know how critical and valuable this service is.
Published courtesy of Cornerstone Information Systems
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Three Mindset Shifts for 2011 Tom Ruesink Ruesink Consulting Group, Inc.
Financial Services:
I can’t believe I am singling out this industry for any praise but they do a very good job of delivering accurate information. For example, my credit card company provides me the ability to access my statement online with transactional updates as of 20 minutes ago. I can set up email and SMS alerts for charges in excess of a set amount as well as balance threshold and activity within a defined period. This is critical information that has no room for error.
Energy Efficiency Rating:
I chose this because it provides a nice, discernable way for me to understand the ROI of the product that I am buying. I have a choice in quality. Just like the Octane rating is displayed at the gas pump, I now have the ability to compare how efficient my new refrigerator is, and I can do my own cost-benefit on how much more I want to spend to achieve greater efficiency.
As It Relates To Travel The situation is all-too-common. A request is made; reports are run, and distributed. Stakeholder opens the report and knows that the data is wrong because of A, B, C, and D. Travel client blames report tool. Report tool blames agency. Agency blames lack of good input/ traveler. Cue campy Sonny & Cher music – the beat goes on. Lots of finger pointing exists today. It is time to move from fingerpointing toward clear, concise communication. We don’t necessarily need 400 fields; we need 40 fields entered well and need better communication mechanisms to drive quality. Often, data quality is a choice on the front-end. To what degree are we willing or able to provide hierarchy feeds directly into profiles? To what end are we managing that process to ensure that it happens seamlessly? How are we ensuring that low-fare fields are entered within the true parameters of the policy allowing for a viable lowest logical airfare? How are we cross-referencing and managing our preferred hotel programs so that we can optimize throughout the year?
Published courtesy of Cornerstone Information Systems
Often, our industry has only measured the timeliness of data and whether or not it “passes” (i.e. critical fields are entered or defaults are entered). Can you imagine taking a test, being given a failing grade and then told to take the test again immediately with the expectations of a different outcome? Improvements can be made in data accuracy as long as we work together to identify the problems and take the time provide clear guidance on the steps that need to be taken. In short, less finger pointing, more handshaking.
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Three Mindset Shifts for 2011 Tom Ruesink Ruesink Consulting Group, Inc.
Conclusion Countless studies tell us the traveler expects more, not less. Travel manager responsibilities are increasing while allocated resources are decreasing. Compounding this situation is an ongoing downward pressure to pay less. As ominous as this may sound, there is a silver lining to this cloud. In fact, this is an ideal opportunity for aggressive and innovative travel managers to practice sound financial stewardship and deliver excellent customer service. All you need to do is embrace a subtle mindset change and begin demanding what other industries expect. Specifically you need: • • •
Timely and accurate information. Not more bad data. Easy-to-use technology. Not more complex bells and whistles. Recommendations. Not instructions on how to find more questions.
With this in hand we are a major step closer to producing the procurement Holy Grail - the ability to do more with less.
Published courtesy of Cornerstone Information Systems
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About Ruesink Consulting Group, Inc.
Tom Ruesink President Ruesink Consulting Group, Inc.
Ruesink Consulting Group is a Minnesota based travel management and technology consulting company focusing on delivering strategies to drive savings and improve travel program management for Fortune 1000 companies. Prior to co-founding RCG, Tom Ruesink was a Director of Solutions Technology at Carlson Wagonlit Travel. He was a key contributor in growing the travel consulting practice and expanding their analysis capabilities. His two key strengths were: • •
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Cornerstone Information Systems is a professional services company helping travel management companies, corporate travel departments, airline and global distribution systems work more efficiently and more profitably. Founded in 1992, Cornerstone Information Systems is a privately held company based in Bloomington, Indiana with personnel in eight locations worldwide. Further information about the company is available at www.ciswired.com.
Creating deliverable sets that answered new questions in the air and hotel industry. Presenting complex data in crisp, one page, deliverables that are easy to cascade to departments, executives, and vendors. He utilized many different tools over the years to create interactive and exciting outputs.
Before joining CWT, Ruesink was a data warehousing consultant and trainer for RZ Solutions. The company was the first training and consulting partner in the Twin Cities for the Cognos reporting suite. Prior to RZ, Ruesink was an analyst and reporting application developer for West Group, a legal publisher now owned by Thomson. Ruesink describes himself as a communicator who got “hooked on data”. He is an entrepreneur at heart, helping bring the fun improvisational comedy show ComedySportz to the Twin Cities in 1990. It is still going strong – 4 shows weekly.
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