Finding the right Travel Management Company (TMC) to partner with your organization requires strategic planning, a methodical process and involvement from the right travel stakeholders. The TMC should demonstrate broad experience in managing travel for organizations like yours. Identify the specific services you need from them, such as ability to connect travel program strategy to company mission and purpose, sector experience, hotel program expertise, sustainability, travel policy compliance, risk management, or a defined approach to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I).

Travel buyers are responsible for how an organization uses travel and meetings to help achieve their broader goals. Partnering with the right TMC leads to improved safety, productivity and wellbeing for business travelers and streamlined processes and cost savings for your organization.

Qualities to look for in a travel management company

A good TMC should provide robust travel management technology and digital experiences that facilitate easy booking, itinerary management, and real-time traveler tracking. Check if they offer a mobile app for travelers, simple digital travel and expense management solutions, and guest travel solutions, should you require them.

If your company has international travel needs, ensure that the TMC has global reach and partnerships with travel suppliers worldwide. They should be able to handle complex itineraries and visa requirements and offer support across different time zones. 

If you want to measure the performance of a travel management company, look at whether it’s doing better than last year, last quarter and last month. Continuous improvement indicates a TMC’s ability to evolve in an ever-changing business travel market. 

So, how can business travel consultants and the companies they serve dig deeper into a TMC’s capabilities?

Look at the long game. 

Has the TMC been able to keep clients satisfied over the long term? Look for indicators like client-retention statistics above 90% and industry and customer awards and recognition.

Understand the finances.

Ingenuity emerges from investment, and investment emerges from financial stability. Weigh how the TMC’s financial stability might affect the quality of service over the life cycle of a corporate travel program contract. Is the TMC in this for the long haul? Or is it a candidate for a merger or acquisition? 

Look for sustainable business practices. 

Find out how the TMC is regarded by third-party organizations that analyze environmental impact and workforce development. Think about whether doing business with the TMC will help – or hurt – your company’s ability to reach environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals. 

Consider what’s next. 

Is the TMC risk-averse or innovation-ready? Is it bringing new ideas that are improving the traveler experience and aiding the industry’s ability to evolve, like TripSource®,  the BCD marketplace and BCD Invite? If the thinking is old school and old tech, think twice before signing on.  

Ask for proof points. 

What do existing clients say about the TMC? Are they willing to put their names behind success stories and case studies?

Seek a true partner. 

Once you’ve seen the stories, ask for testimonials. Is an existing client willing to talk to you about the TMC’s commitment as a partner? This kind of one-on-one conversation really slices through the marketing and helps you gain a true understanding of whether the agency can deliver the goods day after day. 

The business travel industry is filled with complexities that can disguise less-than-optimal performance. But if you ask the right questions and look at success over time, you’ll find a TMC partner that can drive value for your travel program today, tomorrow, and beyond. 

Make sure the TMC’s culture matches your priorities and objectives

Cultural synergy is a vital aspect of the TMC-client relationship. It fosters mutual understanding, effective communication, progressive collaboration, and the ability to design and provide tailored and future-fit solutions for managed travel programs.

For example, if digital innovation tops the list of company objectives, seek a partner with a demonstrated record of investing earnings back into digital services, technology, and innovation. If sustainability is a priority, your TMC partner should exhibit long-term commitment to all aspects of corporate social responsibility, including but not limited to conservation, reduced carbon burdens, accessibility for all travelers, and safety considerations for different traveler communities.  

Starting the process of choosing a TMC

The process of choosing a TMC involves multiple phases which should ultimately lead to a successful, long-running partnership aligned to your organization’s values, culture, and objectives. Aspects of your TMC selection process may include: 

1. Gathering the team: Assign stakeholders, roles, and responsibilities, including an executive sponsor, well ahead of the TMC search and RFP process (typically 12 to 18 months before the planned RFP).  

2. Transparency and discovery: Set meaningful goals and be open with your suppliers (12 months prior to RFP issuance). 

3. Workshops and discussions: Get the most out of your conversations (typically conducted 6-9 months prior to RFP issuance. See more information below on how to maximize these workshops). 

4. Time to tender: Issue your RFP with confidence. Allow enough time for the TMC’s response (this should be a minimum of 3 business weeks for a single market bid and 4-6 business weeks for a global bid, not including holidays). Leave ample time for the TMC to finalize RFP responses after clarification questions and responses have been shared with all bidders. 

The responsibilities vested in travel programs encompass executives, technology, legal, finance, data analysis, risk management and security, human resources and more. Meetings and sustainability groups may also be involved.

Stakeholders who can help manage change are critical to this process. If they aren’t involved in the entire process, it could derail your plans in the event you want to change TMC.

Asking travelers what they think is an effective way to get the insights you need to build a strong travel program with the right TMC or improve policies already in place. One of the simplest ways to capture traveler voices? A survey. 

Finding the right TMC: Set meaningful goals and share them with potential suppliers

Now that you’ve gathered your team, it’s time to consider your goals. Begin to develop your decision-making process, scorecard and weighting. The key is to think through where you want to take your program next.  

It’s no good approaching potential suppliers if you haven’t determined what you want your program to achieve. Knowing your goals and the achievements you want to make with your program makes it easier to assess various suppliers’ ability to help you reach them. Plus, you want to consider a supplier’s ability to meet your short-term and long-term needs. Can they grow with you, whether that’s a case of expanding your program network over time or aligning with your evolving priorities such as sustainability, duty of care, payment, and savings? 

Ordinary proposals don’t yield extraordinary results

To avoid receiving a standardized (and unimaginative) proposal from your bidders, be open and communicate not only what you want but also how you’re assessing suppliers. There’s no need to gatekeep; giving all prospective suppliers the same information means you’ll be able to compare apples-to-apples. The discovery process might be the most valuable step.  

Set up discovery workshops with potential TMC partners

The TMC selection process can be a long one if not done right. To find the right supplier, it’s important to set up workshops with each of them. That way, you can start to build a deeper understanding of who you’re buying from.  

Workshops can take multiple forms, but we see real benefit in making space for open conversation, more discovery and getting to know one another. After all, you’re not just buying a company’s service, you’re buying from people. Workshops are a great way to measure cultural fit.

Questions to consider: Are our values aligned? Does the TMC understand our needs? Does the supplier display creativity? Like every stage in this process, you need to lay out your aims and objectives before starting your workshops, but also allow yourselves to be surprised. Take the work you’ve done in your discovery process and use it as the framework for your conversations. You may find that together you’re discovering solutions to challenges in new and exciting ways. 

Workshops offer an introduction for your travel stakeholders and the bidders to familiarize themselves with your company, needs and current program, and allow you to learn about more about the bidders company and their teams. They are typically two to four hours long and can be done in one or multiple sessions. Some added benefits might include: 

• Ruling out unqualified bidders ahead of the RFP 
• Helping shape and streamline the travel RFP process  
• Leveling the playing field to ensure all bidders (and not just the incumbent) work with same information, which will ensure an “apples to apples” comparison 

Typical workshops address the following: 

• Company business drivers and culture (overview of your company) 
• Stakeholder “meet and greet” and travel program governance structure (it’s important to include all stakeholders in each of these workshops) 
• Company global program goals/your vision of a best-in-class program
  • Service excellence
  • Traveler Engagement
  • Sustainability goals
  • DE&I objectives
    
• Current program overview: 
  • Air, car, hotel, ground transportation spend and number of transactions and/or bookings 
  • Current service configuration, including VIP and group set-up, dedicated versus designated staff, etc. and desired service configuration moving forward 
  • Languages required 
  • Payment and reimbursement set-up   
  • Program management set-up, governance structure and alignment to your stakeholders 
  • Detail of ad-hoc service requirements such as guest bookings, candidates, expatriates, etc. 
  • Technology and tools used (online booking tools (OBTs) and adoption, expense tools, etc.) 
  • Overview of meetings program 
  • Preferred supplier overview (air, car, hotel) 
  • What’s currently working well in the program  
  • Pain points 
  • Program “wish list”  

Before the workshops, send a brief overview of your company, travel program and travel stakeholders/titles/roles for those planning to attend. This will ensure prospective bidders plan accordingly and bring the right stakeholders to the workshops to support a successful outcome. 

Issue your RFP with confidence 

If the workshops have gone well, they will have given you a lot to think about. What you thought might be the most important questions to ask your prospective suppliers may end up being irrelevant to the program you want to build. Having taken the time to align your goals with key stakeholders across the business, and meet with TMCs to workshop your program, you’re ready to issue an RFP with confidence. Knowing what’s most important means you can now get an all-encompassing proposal from each TMC.  

Remember, this is the beginning of a long-term business partnership. You need to be sure that the TMC you select meets your needs now and can grow with you in the future. Maybe this time you’re looking to consolidate four countries in Europe, but you know that further down the line you want a truly global program. Can the TMC support you?  

With the right RFP, you can feel confident that you’re able to shortlist a smaller number of suppliers to join you at best and final presentations. This is an exciting opportunity to meet with suppliers again and dive deeper into their proposals.