1999 Travel Managers of the Year award winners
hether sending spies on their way, crafting cunning contracts or transforming temporary duty, this year's Travel Managers of the Year award winners exemplify the "faster, better, cheaper and more customer-friendly" ethos of best-in-class travel programs.
Now in its third year, Government Executive's awards program celebrates excellence and rewards innovation in government travel. This year, the CIA, Transportation Department and U.S. Army in Europe took home the honors bestowed by a panel of seven judges who are leaders in federal travel management. Criteria for the awards included:
- Application of reengineering principles (including process simplification, integration and innovation);
- Verifiable savings;
- Improved customer satisfaction;
- Partnership with the private sector;
- Agencywide application;
- Use of paperless/electronic commerce;
- Excellence in buying or administering travel;
- Replicability.
Intelligence on the Road
"As an international organization with a global presence, an efficient and cost-effective travel support process is essential to the overall success of the CIA's mission."
With these words the CIA launched TRIAD - Travel Reengineering Integration, Automation and Development. The goal: Cut travel processing time by at least 50 percent.
Three years later, the agency has declared victory. It has reworked its travel process from top to bottom, building a new software system, changing agency policy, requiring use of the travel card, using digital signatures for approval and more. The program became mandatory agencywide in October.
"As a result of time savings, we have been able to reallocate staff workload to more mission-critical tasks and eliminate accounting backlogs," says Thomas Beall, deputy director of the CIA's office of finance and logistics.
Before TRIAD, CIA travel was a nightmare, exemplified by the agency's 40 travel forms. "We had account permission slips - agencywide forms plus local forms - and then forms for after the trip - again, centralized accounting forms plus local forms. We were drowning in forms," says Mike Gibson, who was chief of central travel services during TRIAD's development.
The new system is paperless and provides one-stop shopping for travelers: travel preferences, reservations, policy checks, estimated costs, and interfaces for medical, passport/visa and security are all taken care of by the automated system. Reimbursement is quick, too, making for happier travelers.
Government Executive's Travel Managers of the Year award judges praised the agency for totally reengineering the way it conducts travel, especially its use of in-house software and charge cards, the agencywide implementation, and the change of agency culture all of this required. "It's a revolution in CIA business practices," declared Karen Cleary Alderman, executive director of the Joint Financial Management Improvement Program.
Contact: Mike Gibson, automation center chief, at (703) 613-7701 or kslaf@erols.com.
Crafty Contracting
The Transportation Department overhauled its contracts with travel agents, saving money and winning improved travel services in the bargain.
Until recently, travel agents, including those who contracted with the government, made their money by collecting commissions from airlines, hotels and motels, and car rental companies. But in 1997, airlines (the bread and butter of the travel industry) slashed their commission rates.
Starving for income, some travel management firms started charging clients directly for the services they provide. As a result, many private-sector companies have restructured their contracts with travel agencies and now pay them on a fee-for-service basis. But government contracts weren't open to renegotiation, so travel firms looking to make up for lost commissions were under pressure to reduce services to government clients as well.
Enter the Transportation Department, which broke new ground by setting up the federal government's first fee-for-service (also called "transaction-based") travel contract. By collecting all commissions itself and paying travel management contractors directly for services, Transportation hopes to improve customer service, build in savings incentives and encourage automation.
Under the contract, Transportation is charged less for booking by e-mail or fax than by phone, and even less for self-booking via computer. Vendors must meet standards for accurate reservations, phone response time, and customer satisfaction.
With the old structure, federal agencies negotiated contracts that entitled them to a share of the commissions collected from travel suppliers. As a result, contract awards focused on economic factors rather than quality and service.
"Fees avoid the scenario where a travel management contractor may want to negotiate preferred deals with vendors to increase their income," says Arnie Linares, special assistant to Transportation's deputy chief financial officer. The agency contract rewards the vendor for saving travel money by moves such as negotiating preferred car rental and hotel rates and tracking frequent-flier miles for free tickets.
"We're basically following commercial travel practices," Deputy CFO David Kleinberg told those at the Society of Travel Agents in Government's September meeting. "I thought, 'the other guys seem to do it well; why can't we?'" The new contracts also do away with "a fundamental moral conflict," he says, "and put the travel agency on our side of the table."
The judges lauded the contract's innovative approach, noting that "it has become the model for the world."
Transportation's contract with World Travel Partners went into effect in February 1998 for all Washington-area offices and some nearby field installations. It affects some 30,000 trips a year and is designed to save the government half a million dollars a year. Expansion to other Transportation regions is planned.
Contact: Andrew Julian, chief, financial management IT deployment, office of the secretary of Transportation, at (202) 366-5623 or andrew.julian@ost.dot.gov
Army TAPS Into Savings
When day is done for the men and women of the U.S. Army in Europe, they will have their travel reimbursements in hand. That's because the headquarters in Heidelberg, Germany, developed TAPS - the Travel Automated Payment System.
The fully automated system uses commercial, off-the-shelf software with a custom interface to implement all the concepts of travel reinvention: charge card use, electronic payments, random audits, and more. Processing costs are down 86 percent to $60.98 per voucher, and the time it takes to process a claim decreased 84 percent from more than 15.68 hours to just 2.49 hours. The voucher turnaround time fell from an estimated 14 days (though vouchers as old as 45 days were not uncommon) to 2.3 days.
"With TAPS, [temporary duty] travel becomes a mission support activity instead of a mission unto itself," says Capt. Brian Myers, TAPS project officer. "TAPS allows travelers to focus on the mission without worrying about tedious rules and lengthy reimbursement times."
The Army tested TAPS in 1995 and 1997 as part of the Defense Travel System and put it into operation in June of this year. TAPS serves the head-quarters of U.S. Army-Europe, adding a new site every two months. Ultimately it will serve 10,000 travelers.
In 2000, the first full year of implementation, the TAPS office expects to save more than $1 million and 36,273 processing hours on 2,750 trips.
"They had to overcome tremendous barriers," said awards judge Alderman. "They had a terrible performance baseline - 15 hours of processing time, lack of connectivity, problems with foreign nationals not wanting to change their business procedures. They were among the most expensive and customer unfriendly organizations in DoD."
The judges applauded TAPS for its training program, including quick reference cards and detailed guides for travelers and authorizing officials. "An educated traveler is your best friend," noted Col. Albert Arnold, a judge and the project manager of the Defense Travel System.
Contact: Capt. Brian T. Myers, TAPS project officer, at DSN 370-64-59 or myersb@266fc.heidelberg.army.mil
Special Mention
The judges also recognized an interagency team, lead by Eileen Rollyson, that updated the Joint Financial Management Improvement Project's travel system requirements. The document sets the baseline for civilian temporary duty, local, and relocation travel government-wide. The requirements it lays out are the foundation for all travel management programs and systems.
"This kind of work, though not as visible as some travel projects, is an essential underpinning to how government travel systems work," said judge Jack Kelly, of the Office of Management and Budget.
As project leader, Rollyson, an accountant in the General Services Administration's financial systems planning division, coordinated the drafting, vetting, reviewing and editing processes of the documents. She also made presentations to help groups of government CFOs, government accountants, private-sector companies, and travel officials understand JFMIP's mandates.
Contact: For a copy of the travel system requirements, call GAO document distribution at (202)512-6000 and ask for JFMIP-SR-99-9 or go to www.financenet.gov/jfmip.htm and click on "reports." To ask questions call JFMIP at (202)512-9201.
You May Be a Winner!
Next year will bring yet more streamlining, cost savings, morale improvement and customer satisfaction in the travel arena. If you know of a federal travel team or project, big or small, that merits recognition, contact Elizabeth Husser at (202) 739-8435 or bhusser@govexec.com for a nomination form.
1999 Judges
Karen Cleary Alderman, Executive Director, Joint Financial Management Improvement Program.
Col. Al Arnold, U.S. Army, Project Management Office, Defense Travel System Defense Department.
Bonnie Britten, Chief, Travel Policy Division, Veterans Affairs Department.
John W. Kelly, Policy Analyst, Office of Management and Budget.
David K. Kleinberg, Deputy Chief Financial Officer, Transportation Department.
Sue M. McIver, Director, Services Acquisition Center, General Services Administration.
Rebecca Rhodes, Deputy Associate Administrator, Transportation and Personal Property, Office of Governmentwide Policy, General Services Administration.
Thank You
To the sponsors who make the Travel Managers of the Year awards program a success: Gelco, OAG, Visa, US Airways and Cendant Mobility.
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