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Business travel software can make a world of difference to the trained eye. You get it. We get it. But now it’s time for your manager or board to get it.

Winning over a crowd full of potentially untrained eyes isn’t as simple. The features and benefits that won you over to a business hotel booking platform like Roomex won’t necessarily be the same advantages that those who give you your financial sign-off will want to hear.

Take a second to make sure you have all your facts, arguments and hills to stand on before you step into a room to pitch business travel software.

Find the right way to frame business travel software

Even if you’re pitching the new technology to your immediate supervisor, craft your argument with one audience in mind: the board of directors. This is because regardless of whether your company is public or private, your angle needs to be focused on what’s best for the long-term success of the business and boards have a good understanding of those needs already.

In total, there are eight topics that sit atop the average European board of director’s list of priorities in 2019, Ernst and Young (EY) research found. The growing importance of business travel software applies to one: disruptive technologies.

Disruptive technologies could mean a lot of different things to any number of companies, but here’s the context you should view it in for your pitch:

  • The ability for a technology to disrupt the status quo; to provide a sort of market advantage that non-users wouldn’t have.
  • The advantages of being early adopters as opposed to late adopters.

Any argument or point you make should loosely align within those two discussion points. For example: How do the benefits of business travel software help the enterprise disrupt the status quo? What would the company lose out on by not adopting it?

Give a detailed overview of the problems business travel software solves

While disruptive technologies are a high-priority topic for companies, managers or boards of directors won’t just adopt any solution that’s ready to disrupt the market. There needs to be a clear need and an opportunity where a solution will provide immense value.

This is where your expertise comes in. Key points in your daily routine for booking travel or managing the finances of it that you should expand on include:

  • The frequency and volume of workforce travel, coupled with the average cost of accommodation. Those who don’t work with the figures on a daily basis can sometimes overlook the magnitude of an issue. Relaying exactly how much money the company is losing by forgoing business travel software is a great place to start.
  • The time spent searching for the right hotel room. Whether it takes you 10 minutes, 20 minutes or a half-hour, you know better than anyone else that all that time adds up at the end of the year. Explain the opportunity cost behind sticking with traditional methods, rather than switching to a business hotel booking platform that can shorten booking time to just a couple of minutes.
  • The stress caused by the old system in place. When workforce travel doesn’t go as planned, everyone involved sees their stress levels go through the roof. Compared to their non-stressed counterparts, stressed employees are more likely to be absent, are more likely to work unproductively and are more likely to be disengaged, according to a study from Towers Watson. These conditions lead to a poor workplace culture, which can boost turnover and make it difficult to bring on talented individuals in competitive industries.

Book a Roomex demo to learn why business travel software is in a league of its own.

Bringing in testimonials from employees or the finance team about the conditions and real-life impacts of your workforce travel strategy can help provide a sense of immediacy to the above topics. Ultimately, your goal should be to walk them through exactly how booking hotels currently works at the company – not how it’s supposed to work – so that they have a clear idea of how business travel software would benefit the company.

Explain the features and benefits of your solution

Now it’s time to show off a little. Run through the benefits of the business travel software solution in relation to the company and each individual user – the travel booker, the CFO and the travellers on the end of it all.

Case studies can be a really powerful tool in showing how useful a platform is. They can give context as to just how disruptive technology can be by relaying real-world use cases. Roomex has case studies with high-profile clients such as Musgrave and KN Group which can be used effectively as collateral to secure buy-in.

Don’t forget to include the benefits of improved employee morale – due to better quality hotels closer to the worksite – and a better company culture – due to reduced stress – from adopting business travel software.

Last but not least: numbers talk. Show your manager or board of directors exactly how much the company can save on its annual budget (P.S. it’s up to 21 percent on average!) by switching to Roomex.

Make business travel easier

Hannah Harrington
Post by Hannah Harrington
July 30, 2019
Hannah focuses on all things product and content marketing for Roomex. When she's not writing, find this Dublin transplant uncovering all that Ireland has to offer.

 

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