Stakeholder
management is sometimes considered a ‘necessary evil’ in managed travel, but, when executed
effectively, it can drive cost savings and promote meaningful change. That is how
British American Tobacco’s (BAT) global sourcing manager for travel, Celine
Diriberry, consolidated the company’s global travel programme across 89
markets.
With a
background in procurement, Diriberry joined BAT in 2016 tasked with defining a
hotel and airline sourcing strategy for the company. Last year, however, she
turned her attention to the company’s fragmented booking model and launched a lengthy tender process
to appoint a global travel management company after 12 years with an incumbent
that, while not global, managed 80 per cent of the company’s travel spend.
Celine Diriberry is global sourcing manager for travel at British American Tobacco. She was named Travel Manager of the Year at the Business Travel Awards Europe for her achievements in successfully consolidating a vast and disparate travel programme with very limited resources.
For
Diriberry, a global RFP (request for proposal) represented an opportunity to
elevate the BAT travel programme with new technology that would streamline
processes for booking and payment, drive policy compliance and align the travel
vertical to the company’s wider ESG goals.
Without an
executive mandate, nor a travel team to support her, Diriberry alone was tasked
with convincing BAT’s 18,000+ global travellers to adopt new booking practices
and make the transition to a new TMC.
“I love a
challenge, and I love to learn,” Diriberry told BTN
Europe after being shortlisted as a finalist for the Travel Manager of the Year
award. “I’m still
learning and what’s nice, after eight years, is seeing how we’ve managed to
transform end-market engagement because that’s so crucial when you don’t have
an official sponsor or business owner.”
The run up to
the global RFP was therefore strategically long and required a heavy dose of
internal campaigning. Diriberry had to first seek approval from the BAT board and
then worked to secure buy-in from travellers and travel bookers across 89
markets.
This included
engaging stakeholders within larger markets, such as Australia and the US, where
BAT previously worked with local TMCs, as well as with smaller markets that
were not previously involved in BAT’s managed travel programme and where the
global team had limited visibility over spend.
To help steer
the company towards consolidation, Diriberry wrangled cross-functional support
from leaders across finance, legal, security, HR and IT, communicating the
wider benefits of a global travel programme. She also enlisted the help of France-based
consulting firm Areka to launch and manage the tender process.
BAT has
strict codes around corporate governance, which required Diriberry to engage
internal stakeholders “one by one”, said Aurelie Duprez, founding partner at
Areka. “Celine was always
focused on traveller benefits – what changing the TMC would bring to the traveller, and what a new online
booking tool would bring in terms of experience and efficiency,” Duprez added.
“That was always the key message… and the end markets could feel that.”
Each market
in which BAT operates has a local travel policy derived from the company’s
global travel and expense framework. Diriberry utilised the RFP process to
create greater consistency for travel bookers and, where possible, broaden the
scope of the company’s corporate card programme to make payment and expense
processes easier and more widely available for travellers.
“Payment is
not a benefit. It’s a
tool,” she said. “If we’re asking our
employees to incur expenses on behalf of the business, we need to give them the
tools to be able to pay for it.”
She also helped to reshape
the global framework to include a stronger focus on sanctions and duty of care
as well as introducing language that specifically addresses how travel
contributes to the company’s CO2 footprint – with guidance to reduce carbon
emissions linked to travel, such as avoiding same-day trips and adopting a virtual-first
approach to meetings. “We’ve reworded the
policy to address the end-user and make it more relatable,” Diriberry said.
Celine was one of our first clients to include sustainability criteria in the airline sourcing process, with very closed questions”
Sustainable sourcing
Carbon
emissions related to business travel represent less than 1 per cent of BAT’s
overall emissions. Nevertheless, the company has a goal reduce its travel footprint
by 50 per cent by 2030 (against a 2020 baseline). And Diriberry is determined
to raise awareness of the company’s efforts.
In 2023, she completed the Global Sustainable Tourism Council’s
four-week-long Sustainable Business Travel Course and, following an assessment
of BAT’s travel programme, presented her findings to executive leaders. This, in turn, helped to
inform the TMC tender process as well as affect wider travel policy changes.
“Celine was one of our
first clients to include sustainability criteria in the airline sourcing
process [in 2023], with very closed questions,” Duprez said. “She then shared very transparently how they each scored against their
competitors and this feedback was very well received.”
Diriberry applied these
learnings to the TMC tender, which, among other things, included “very clear
questions” around sustainability. Based on responses, a score was attributed to
each TMC and contributed to the overall evaluation criteria. Ultimately, FCM
was awarded the BAT contract.
“Throughout the tender we
could feel that FCM was the right cultural fit for us,” Diriberry said. “They
were looking for a partnership and that’s what we were looking for… and their
sustainability reporting and technology also filled the gaps I had with the
incumbent TMC,” she explained.
The partnership includes a
company-wide rollout of FCM Extension, which integrates sustainability-focused
nudges across the six online booking tools that BAT uses globally, as well as
pop-up messages on internet browsers to drive policy compliance and prevent leakage.
For
example, if an employee opens marriott.com on their interest browser, a
pop-up message appears outlining the duty of care principles of the BAT travel framework
and directs them instead to its approved booking channels. “It’s not only about
sustainability, it’s also about the safety and security of travellers,” said Diriberry.
Meanwhile, the OBT nudges will
help to influence more sustainable travel choices by communicating CO2
emissions in relatable terms. And in markets where rail travel makes up a “significant”
number of trips, such as in France or Belgium, local travel policies already recommend
rail over air on viable routes, Diriberry said.
Setting clear
objectives
Similar to her hotel
and airline sourcing strategies, Diriberry’s new TMC contract includes regular
KPI reviews with a focus on driving travel policy compliance and OBT adoption.
There’s also “a very detailed service level agreement”.
Beyond the “usual”
performance indicators, like response times to phone calls or email requests,
Diriberry said her new SLA also covers invoicing and reporting accuracy, cost
saving optimisation and the introduction of new technology to help optimise the
travel programme.
“The SLA covers a lot
of topics, 35 per cent of which is focused on end-user satisfaction,” she
explained. “This includes a commitment to deliver the SLA at end-market level.
So, regardless of whether the global SLA is achieved, if targets aren’t met in
local markets, penalties will be incurred in those markets.”
Commenting on the RFP process, Durpez added: “Celine made it to the finish line by combining passion
and commitment. She’s also very
respectful of suppliers. She’s always extremely respectful of our time and
ensures that we’re on the same page – and I’ve seen her operate in the same way
with TMCs and airlines; working in a transparent way.”
The hardest part is change management. In some countries, I’ve given them the shock of their lives”
Effective implementation
Global implementation began
in July and is ongoing, with the last of BAT’s 89 markets set to onboard
with FCM in November, when Diriberry will also have a team of six outsourced
regional travel managers.
Throughout this
time, Diriberry has created and distributed educational materials for
travellers and conducted OBT training sessions in each market. She’s also
worked with local teams to create promotional campaigns in the lead up to the
go-live date across various geographies.
At the culmination of the
six-month-long implementation, 48 of BAT’s 89 markets will have an online
booking tool, 10 of which are new to the global travel programme while 11
had not previously used an online booking tool.
“The hardest part is change management,” Diriberry
said. “In some countries, I’ve given them the shock of their lives.”
In less mature markets across Africa, Asia and the
Pacific, where content from local vendors is still not accessible via GDS
channels, Diriberry said BAT’s travel booking will – for the time being, at
least – remain offline. “There’s no point deploying an online booking tool
until the market matures,” she said.
Meanwhile, to provide consistency for travel
bookers, BAT has implemented Concur “as the master” to create traveller
profiles in 83 markets.
“There’s a lot of moving
pieces [across the markets], but they all come together for my implementation…
[and] I will finally have a team to drive the travel programme, ” Diriberry
said.
Looking ahead, Diriberry has her eye set on
refining CO2 data and performing a “deep dive” on key city pairs to formulate
further emissions reduction strategies. “This has also been part of the
implementation, but until I’ve got everybody under one roof, I can’t connect
all the dots.”
She also has plans to create a global quarterly
travel newsletter and is working with her new team of regional travel managers
to ensure they can provide the necessary operational support and drive policy
compliance “because my day job is procurement, I’m not a travel manager,” she
said.
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