The World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) has been promoting animal welfare for more than 25 years. The largest alliance of animal welfare societies, WSPA has a vision of a world where animal welfare matters, and animal cruelty ends.

WSPA Senior Management Team had been aware for some time that their travel procurement was a cause for concern: they had suspected that they were paying more than they needed to for their travel and accommodation, and certain members of staff were not happy with the incumbent Travel Management Company (TMC).

Chris Byron of Expense Reduction Analysts was managing the account and had already introduced his colleague, Derek Hodd, who was undertaking a print cost reduction project on a gain share basis.Derek consulted with Henry Bennett, Finance Director at the charity, on the travel project. Derek takes up the story: “My initial analysis showed clearly that WSPA did not have an optimal travel set-up for their travel bookings. The incumbent TMC was not providing a good service with the result that some members of staff were booking their own flights and hotels online.

This had led to a lack of managerial control over travel costs, losing the charity money. “There was also the ‘duty of care’ dimension to consider. I explained to WSPA that, since the Hatfield rail disaster, the onus was now totally on the employer to ensure its staff’s safety whilst travelling and that consequently a travel policy should be put in place, covering everything from when and how to book travel, through to what to do in emergencies and rules on aspects such as not driving within 24 hours of an overnight flight. Without this policy in place, WSPA could be liable under both Health and Safety legislation and the Corporate Manslaughter Act.

“This meant that the travel project was quite a wide-ranging undertaking, but I have to say that, throughout, WSPA was a pleasure to work with because they were very open-minded and receptive to my input. From the start, it was decided that I should act on a consultancy basis, rather than earning a percentage of their savings. This is slightly less usual practice for Expense Reduction Analysts than the gain share arrangement but it allowed me to spend the time I needed in developing WSPA’s travel policy and procurement channel.”

Step-by-step, Derek implemented the systems that WSPA needed. At the heart of this was the concept of traveller tracking. Every piece of communication and every booking could now be tracked so that management could easily see the location of staff in the case of any emergency and also that staff were acting within the requirements of the travel policy. In order to achieve this, all online booking was outlawed and a new payment method, via a virtual credit card, was introduced so that every transaction was visible.

Derek Hodd explains the significance of this: “If a staff member repeatedly refuses to accept the best deal on flights and insists on travelling on a more expensive airline, this is now immediately apparent to WSPA management.”

Once the policy was written, Derek created and distributed a tender document to select a new TMC. The short-listed companies were asked to cost several sample routes, and this exercise showed that savings of 20-30% could be expected from a new travel partner, when compared with the prices offered by the previous TMC. The benefits of the new policy, systems and TMC are manifold for WSPA. Complete visibility enables tighter management and therefore reduced costs. The new TMC itself offers better prices and the policy protects WSPA from liability and their employees from harm whilst travelling.

The next phase of the project is to automate the entire travel expenses system, to give WSPA an end-to-end picture of any trip – from initial request, through managerial authorisation, budgetary allocation and booking through to the capture and integration of incidental expenses occurred whilst abroad. This will give WSPA a hugely valuable database of travel information.

Derek Hodd summarises, “Travel procurement is not easy to control. It’s not like selecting a telecoms provider with a clear set of unchanging tariffs. The purchase of every flight and every hotel room is a separate operation and, as such, is subject to inefficient handling and uncontrolled spending. WSPA’s openness to change means that they now have a set of watertight policies, which will save them money, time and the risk of liability.”

Henry Bennett, Finance Director at WSPA, comments on the project so far, “We knew that we needed a travel policy, but without Derek it would never have happened. We were very happy to retain him on a consultancy basis, because, right from the outset, his knowledge of the whole area was obviously superb. In addition, his tenacity in making sure that each process was implemented is to be commended. He has transformed this vital part of our expenditure.”