Driving Efficiency Through Consumer Led Technology

The shift to remote working in 2020 has helped turn enterprise software companies such as Zoom into a household name. The use of Zoom jumped 30-fold in April 2020 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52884782) and has become a vital communication tool for both businesses and individuals to stay connected during the COVID-19 global pandemic. It has made working from home feel not clunky, but chic (https://www.economist.com/business/2020/06/20/can-zoom-be-trusted-with-users-secrets). 

Video conferencing technology existed long before 2020 and was dominated by some of the world largest and successful corporations including Microsoft, Google & Cisco. Similarly to Zoom, Slack, a business communication platform has also played a pivotal role in enabling remote teams to collaborate. Like Zoom, it has faced fierce competition from some of the large corporations listed above but is used by corporations of all sizes across the globe. The need for global teams to connect remotely existed before this pandemic but this event has placed significant importance on having the right tools in place for the business. 

As a user of both Zoom and Slack, it is easy to see why the organisation I work has placed so much emphasis on providing employees with tools that are simple and easy to use and to be quite frank, helps us get the job done. I love the way the Zoom link appears when I open a new calendar invite, saving me the need to navigate between different apps to schedule a meeting (and the pain of coordinating the times, guest ect).  This,  I'm sure is a sentiment shared by businesses across the globe when they procure solutions for employees to use. 

This in my view is no longer a "Millenial"  or  "Gen Z" point of view but now an expectation by all employees that the technology we use in the workplace has that same user experience as products we use in our daily lives. When we will eventually return to some kind of normality, the events of 2020 will have forced businesses to become more efficient and provide greater emphasis on finding these efficiency wins across the business. 

TravelPerk, the global business travel management platform is using the same consumer led approach we have seen with solutions like Zoom and Slack to revolutionise the business travel industry. Employees who need to travel for business are demanding the same user experience they have come to expect from the websites they book their holidays through (and expect to see the same or lower prices than these websites). Providing an online booking tool is a good start but if that tool isn't as intuitive as your favourite travel websites, you're already fighting a losing battle.  

Having great UX is a good starting point but the platform has also got to contain all the content the employee may need to book. If your employees need to go outside the platform to book a train in Italy or a Travelodge in the UK, you are creating additional reconciliation work further down the line. All TravelPerk clients have access to the world's largest inventory removing the need to ever book outside of TravelPerk (https://www.travelperk.com/product/). 

Centralising the travel booking process for all employees globally enables businesses to have real time visibility and control. With data insights at your fingertips and the ability to control policy and approval process with the click of a button, controlling travel spend has become seamless for management. TravelPerk also provides full prepayment of travel so the days of pay on departure at a hotel and retention of recipes are a thing of the past. The finance team receives a consolidated invoice with all the spend for a predetermined period of time (for all employees) which can be integrated directly into your accounting software. 

As platforms like Zoom & Slack continue to consume our day to day activities at work, employees will become increasing disgruntled with workplace solutions that lack simplistic design. The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 has forced businesses to look for ways to become more efficient whilst preserving cash. As we have started to see business travel retuning across the globe, TravelPerk will continue to support its clients base drive company wide savings through technology employees want to use.