Tightening the belt on travel and entertainment
When the going gets tough, the tough tighten up on travel and entertainment spending.
This is what we’re hearing from customers and the theme has filtered down to the mainstream media, as reflected by this article in the Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/05/05/cccity105.xml
And it makes sense. Cost savings in T&E are significantly less painful to achieve than the alternative of cutting staff.
What’s more, a slight tightening in T&E processes and policy sends a message. In other words, a focus on one set of costs (T&E) will likely result in a positive spillover effect on broader costs within the organisation. Reducing costs is contagious.
Here’s our advice for WebExpenses users:
Introduce a couple of policy changes under the ‘View Policy’ link on each user’s Welcome page:
- Focus on an area that will make a difference. In the article above, Deutsche Bank determined that business lunches should cost no more than £51 a head while Goldman Sachs has pushed back an hour, to 10pm, the time at which it offers free meals and taxis home.
Encourage self-policing by letting staff know that the reports functionality of WebExpenses is used by senior staff. For example, you could:
- Ask the MD/CEO to send a message saying “Times are tough and we all need to contribute to cost saving efforts. Travel and entertainment the ares in which we’re looking to save costs. So use your common sense, and be aware that I’ll be logging in to WebExpenses regularly so that I can monitor the savings that we’re making in that area”.