Aerospace & Defense company reduces travel costs from last-minute bookings through DecisionSource® reporting

The customer at a glance

Industry: Aerospace, defense, and security
Headquarters: Texas
Presence: Manufacturing, sales, and service facilities in 25 countries
Number of employees: 3,300
Annual travel spend: $10.8 million

A long-time BCD client has been providing innovative solutions to the defense, homeland security, and aerospace communities for more than 50 years. With a mission to defend, protect, and support its customers, its cutting-edge businesses design, manufacture, field, and support enduring solutions for a complex world. An increase in travel expenses in the last year coupled with strict budgets from government clients called for a new strategy.

Challenge

The client’s travel expenses increased throughout 2023 for a variety of reasons, including the volume of last-minute air bookings made by its travelers. Travel expenses surpassed budget limits, which concerned travel programs servicing government customers. These travelers all operate under government contracts with strict spending supervision.

The company needed to develop a travel booking strategy to reduce travel costs from last-minute bookings.

Approach

The client required a comprehensive system for quarterly travel cost reporting using its cost centers as the foundation. This approach would provide a detailed breakdown by department, facilitating a more granular understanding of travel expenses.

At the suggestion of BCD, the company turned to the Travel Report Card available via DecisionSource, BCD’s proprietary reporting and analytics platform. Together they customized the Travel Report Card, tailoring it to showcase only cost centers operating under government contracts. This ensured the report focused on key departments to provide a more insightful analysis of travel behavior. The report concentrated on three critical areas:

• Percentage of advance-purchase tickets ≥ 21 days before departure
• Average number of days for advance-purchase tickets
• Average ticket price for domestic and international flights

This enabled a detailed and nuanced analysis of travel metrics.

Results

The improved report was presented to the government-contracted
travel programs during a monthly meeting with the clients’ Global
Mobility team. After implementing the new report, tickets purchased
.21 days in advance increased by 5% on average in
just one quarter.

BCD’s customized Travel Report Card increased savings and is
influencing more long-term solutions:

• The Global Mobility team is tracking booking trends to encourage better travel behavior and reduce travel costs.
• Travel Report Card data is now used as a baseline for contract proposals and budget tracking.

This strategy drives financial responsibility and maximizes resource
allocation by incorporating DecisionSource data into program and
project activities.

BCD’s service and technology have allowed us to not only reduce our costs but also provide our teams with data-driven insights to better understand our travel behavior and make more informed decisions in the future.

Director, Total Rewards at Aerospace & Defense company

At BCD, we know that not all solutions will work for every situation, which is why we embrace flexibility and personalization from our strategies to our technology. Our collaborative problem-solving with our customers is a great example of this commitment.

Lisa Longley
Vice President, Program Management at BCD Travel