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Jane Bordenave talks to the CEO of Uniglobe in South Africa, Mike Gray, about his company’s expertise in the business travel arena and how it offers increased value to its customers.

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ravel agent Uniglobe is a unique provider of specialised products for the business traveller. The South African branch of the company was established 10 years ago, while the Vancouver-based organisation has been in operation for an additional 40 years.

With a staff of 500 across sub-Saharan Africa and working on a franchise basis, it is an important employer and contributor to the local economy.

There are 50 outlets based in subSaharan Africa, including South Africa, Swaziland, Botswana, Namibia, Lesotho, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Nigeria and the Regional Head Office is in Johannesburg.

The company’s route to market and marketing strategy is far from standard in the tourist industry, as CEO Mike Gray explains: “The vast majority of our clients are business travellers – around 80 percent in total. With this in mind, we do not buy advertising in the general press or TV; instead we use direct marketing, meaning our efforts are more focussed. We also make sure that we are available to our customers by stationing our franchises not in malls or high streets, but in business parks and in large office blocks.”

The 80 percent figure for business travellers is divided between those who are going abroad with diverse intentions and those who are visiting particular events. Those with diverse intentions may be governmental officials, representatives of non-governmental organisations and charities, members of large, medium and small businesses and entrepreneurs.

These customers will all be making individual trips to see individual clients, suppliers or similar and make up around 70 percent of the company’s whole business.

The remaining 10 percent goes into what Gray calls “MICCE” – Meetings In Centres, Conferences and Events, where more than one customer may be travelling to the same www.southafricamag.com

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times are harder, as Gray explains. “During the good times customers’ attitudes are more relaxed in terms of cost consciousness and value for money. They’re not as interested in squeezing every last cent of value from their dollar, which makes them less discerning and less demanding of the service or product.

Fast-forward to the recession and these sorts of things are under much greater scrutiny – even traditional loyalties don’t apply because people are so concentrated on getting better value for money. So throughout the downturn we have actually experienced a period of growth, as we have been able to develop offerings that offer greater value at a lower cost.” Further investment has been made into mid and back office support systems and shared services solutions. All 800 of the Uniglobe offices worldwide are now fully networked, which enables staff to find the best deal for customers. “Sometimes the best deals are not to be had in South Africa,” says

place for the same event, without ever having met each other. “It is the smallest individual segment of what we do, but it is one that is growing very fast,” says Gray.

As well as its expertise in business travel, the company also has a strong online presence, which makes it easier, quicker and often cheaper for customers to use Uniglobe when making international travel arrangements. This has been a significant area of investment for the organisation, giving clients better value for money and providing a ‘one-stop-shop’ for all their needs, including controlling their travel policies and procedures, as well as finding and booking their travel.

Gray. “You might find a much better fare, for example, in Moldavia. So this network gives us a way to find these best prices and then book them.”

TAKING OFF DOWN UNDER The company has also established itself in Australia this year, having taken over Qantas Business Travel. “It’s an interesting situation, because, while the Uniglobe name is new, in reality this is a long established Australian company. However, QBT felt that it would like to enhance its service by joining Uniglobe in order to take advantage of this mid and back office network.” says Gray.

Training is something that is of great importance to the business, and has been another area of significant investment. “We are only as good as our staff, and they in turn are only as good as their expertise,” Gray muses. One of the important steps in building this body of expertise is selecting the right

SHIFTING DESTINATIONS Customer destinations have changed over the 10-year period since the organisation was founded. “When we first started working in South Africa in 2000, nearly all our customers went to either the United Kingdom, Europe, or the US,” says Gray. “Now they are predominantly heading for the Middle East and Asia. As these economies develop more and more, there has been a definite shift from west to east in terms of travel destinations.”

It will perhaps come as a surprise that, although it is a travel agent, the recession and global economic slowdown has been good for business. By providing greater value for money, the company is able to take full advantage of people’s prudence now that

The vast majority of our clients are business travellers – around 80 percent in total

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Uniglobe FEATURE

Mike Gray, Uniglobe CEO

Fares and connections available from Europe.

people to become franchisees of the company.

“One of the most important things is that the person in question really needs to have a professional selling skill and to be able to sell solutions to customers. In order to do this, the franchisee needs to understand the customers’ needs and hear what they are saying, so good communications skills are a must. Finally, they have to be able to problem solve and analyse the financial aspects.”

Once someone with these skills has been recruited, training them for the job as a franchisee is done via online training.

Gray puts forward the case for these virtual classrooms in terms of reduction of time and fiscal cost: “People just do not have the time to travel for training any more and, even if they did, taking people out of the office to train them is very expensive.So this form of training is ideal, not only for the franchisees but also for other members of staff. For permanent employees, this is backed up with

apprenticeships, on-the-job and classroom training too. “ In the future, the company has plans to extend its presence in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa. “Currently, we are mainly in the former British colonies in Africa, i.e. the countries in East and Southern Africa,” explains Gray. “We hope to have changed this by 2015, creating a bigger presence in francophone and Portuguese Africa, which will give us a footprint in every country south of the desert. We also hope to extend and improve our online presence and services even further.”

With ambitions to expand on an already impressive global reach, both physically and online, Uniglobe is setting the bar high.

But with its unique combination of market expertise in every country, a worldwide network of branches and a simple yet highly effective online presence, it is already most of the way to achieving its ambitious goals and establishing itself as the leading authority on business travel in the world. END

When we first started working in South Africa in 2000, nearly all our customers went to either the United Kingdom, Europe, or the US

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