Here's How IBM is Coming Up with New Ways to Connect to its Travel Community

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With many of its employees travelling on the company's behalf, technology and services leader IBM is looking to mobile technology for new ways to connect with its community and make more intelligent procurement choices.

IBM began life as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR) in 1911. CTR was itself an amalgamation of the companies of four other computer technology pioneers - Julius E. Pitrat, who patented the computing scale in 1885, Alexander Dey, who invented the dial recorder in 1888, Herman Hollerith, who patented the Electric Tabulating Machine, and Willard Bundy, who invented the clocking-in machine in 1889. The company was renamed International Business Machines (IBM) in 1924.

Today, IBM is one of the largest companies in the world. Its employees have been awarded five Nobel Prizes , six Turing Awards, ten National Medals of Technology, and five National Medals of Science. The company has revenues of $79,919 million, placing it at #32 on the Fortune 500.

Most of IBM's 380,000 employees engage in business-related travel, leading the company to place great focus on improving related departments - such as procurement - to make the traveling experience as pleasurable as possible.

IBM and Concur

The first step in IBM's evolution in the way it facilitates travel for its employees was by porting it's booking and expenses programming over to Concur - a mobile technology-based business travel service developed by SAP . Concur came with many innovative features which would streamline the travel procurement process for all persons.

Its mobile technology enables staff to manage their travel itineraries on the go. Automatically generated e-receipts ensure expenses can be settled without a pile of paperwork or missing proofs of purchase. And travel procurement managers can approve, reject or request changes at any point during an employee's booking process, giving them more visibility and the flexibility to adapt - as well as having access to powerful reporting software for budgetary insights.

However, with IBM arranging travel for employees in over 100 different countries, it was important for the company to communicate these changes to their staff in a clear manner. "In the very beginning of the communication design phase, there were several ideas that were surfacing about our communication plan," IBM Global Travel Sourcing Lead, Shari Quackenbush , said. "And from that generated a whole focus on the travelers and on the users."

When IBM launched Travel@IBM (powered by Concur), it also set up an online forum where employees could share any questions or concerns about the new procurement process. The forum was then leveraged to create FAQ documents and training videos to instruct employees on the new mobile technology. "We weren't going to set up specific help desks to help them service their travel booking or their expense reporting processes; that's supposed to all be very intuitive," Quackenbush said.

IBM Watson

As time went on, the number of FAQs and other documents was growing. However, it was noticed that employees weren't accessing the archives to get answers to their questions. This gave IBM the idea of creating a brand-new chat bot - powered by the company's proprietary AI software IBM Watson .

With this new software, IBM employees can ask direct questions without the need to hunt through a database of FAQ files. Watson can then provide the answer to the query - together with an instructional video if one is available. Once the employee has their answer, they can give a thumbs-up or thumbs-down to the response's usefulness, or leave a comment on how the entry might be improved.

"We're going to continuously update the bot with new information on an as-needed basis," said Quackenbush. "There are other traveler experience features to the Travel@IBM platform, too, such as the Ideation Blog , on which users can submit suggestions for the travel program and others can upvote their favorites."

Final Thoughts

In leveraging the power of mobile technology to streamline its travel procurement processes, IBM started on a road which not only helps the company make smarter decisions when it comes to arranging business trips for its employees, but also fosters a sense of community within those staff members who use it.

The final word goes to IBM Global Travel Sourcing Lead, Shari Quackenbush .

"Additionally, an app could create a connected traveler community as the Travel@IBM platform does. It would be able to notify IBM travelers in real time when a colleague is on the same flights, in a nearby hotel or going to the same restaurant. Such opportunities to meet in person, then, would extend the online traveler community that IBM has built into a face-to-face traveler network, proof that mobile technology really can bring people together, not only online but also in real life."

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You can hear IBM's Global Category Lead of Travel & Expense Shawn Busby speak at ProcureCon Travel 2018 in May at the Green Valley Ranch, Las Vegas, NV.

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