There's something out there in life that will delight and amaze you.
Get up, get moving, and go find out what it is. - (Ralph Marston)

Thursday, January 12, 2006

A Brief Insight to Corporate Travel Management Systems

o Brief introduction

Almost any company which operates globally where there many sectors physically located in various places would require its employees to travel for some work related activities quite often. In an instance like such, it is very important for the company’s finance and logistics or admin to track their employee’s information for various reporting and tracking purposes.

One such solution would be a corporate travel management system (CTMS). A fully web based- distributed system that would enable multiple users across destinations to track, record and report.

Following are some of the basic features in a typical CTMS.

Ø Employee information upon approval
Ø Passport, Visa and Ticket tracking the status and the obtained information
Ø Logging, transport and food
Ø Arrivals and departures with transit information
Ø Payments and expense claims
Ø Length of stay, its extensions


o What is a Corporate Travel Management System?

With in an organisation; upon an employees travel from one location to the other is vital to be tracked. Why is it so? Since the management might expect the presence of that employee or might inquire where will he be at a stated time of the year? Or in certain cases if the company provides logging, the logistics may search for how many employees have occupied the apartment X till a stated date. In the other hand, the finance may request the total claims made by a particular employee with in his travel. And the same employee might be subjected to arrangements at the source as well as the destination.

A distributed web-based system; which has customized for each user group would eliminate the conflicts and will offer a clear solution to many of the corporate with similar requirements.

The work flow (process) the company’s user groups (management, logistics, admin, finance) operate on the activity of tracking and employee will certainly differ from one company to the other, based on company’s operational structure and the size.

But for a general CTMS the above motioned features will be adequate.

o Advantages and benefits a corporate can obtain by using such a system.

Companies can gain an estimation of the cost per employee on travel.
Can do advanced visa process for the required employees after travel approval.
For the employees who have the confirmation of travel; could proceed with the other necessary arrangements.
The company’s logistics would not have a hassle in the arrivals for the transport and logging.
Payments and the claims could be settled in the appropriate time lines

Above are some of the basic benefits.
But a company could benefit more since the entire process is organised and there fore each users (user groups) will have its own set of work/duties pertaining to the process of an employee’s travel.