Road Shuttle Category Procurement Intelligence Report

The market for Business Travel and its sub-segments such as Road Shuttle are at an interesting intersection. As costs rise, companies will be pushed towards finding better cost efficiencies in their travel and entertainment programs. Buyers are leveraging new management tools to analyze the costs using a Total cost of trip/event approach as against cost of an individual trip/event cost item. It is now also expected of suppliers to assess the cost effectiveness of any service they provide from a more holistic point of view.

Travel managers have begun to understand the implications of their colleagues' personal data being handled by a third-party provider, more so after several high-level data breaches. While it is still not possible to completely avoid the data sharing, buyers are more diligent in inserting elaborate data security and confidentiality clauses in their contracts. These developments increase the risks and compliance requirements, which in turn adds to the cost of services.

With regional and national boundaries blurring in today's corporate world, companies increasingly find themselves with a latent need to bring together geographically distant teams, customers and stakeholders. Therefore, the demand outlook for Road Shuttle is expected to remain strong.

Trends like these and many others discussed in this report are necessitating a relook at the way Road Shuttle is procured and the procurement cost saving opportunities that exist.

Road Shuttle procurement best practices are moving towards a level of sophistication which is typically seen in traditional procurement categories. Category managers now have an attractive opportunity to adapt the best practices seen within this category as well as those being leveraged in other non-related categories. This report summarizes the best practices picked from across multiple categories that could work well for category managers involved with Road Shuttle procurement strategy.

For example, Engage with suppliers that use technologies, such as SMMPs and holograms, to enable buyers to track expenditure and save on travel costs. This will significantly reduce overheads for buyers.

Large organizations seek engagement with global category suppliers. However, they must try to achieve the right blend of regional and global suppliers in order to ensure availability of management services at locations where global players do not have necessary capabilities.

Buyers should seek collaboration with suppliers to identify demand patterns within the organization. This includes data sets for the time of booking, duration, and preference for time and days. Using such analysis, buyers can build a comprehensive corporate guideline and ensure that a specific set of service providers are used for services. Moreover, these data sets can be used to identify cost-saving opportunities.

Road Shuttle procurement managers also need to proactively identify and mitigate potential risks that can arise in the supply chain or contracts for Road Shuttle procurement. Some examples include: