In The Big Chair - Doug Anderson of American Express Global Business Travel

Doug Anderson, CEO

American Express Global Business Travel (GBT) provides travel management, meeting and event management and business travel consulting services to companies of all sizes in more than 140 countries. The company works with more than nine million travelers and has sales of more than $30 billion annually. 

Doug Anderson was named CEO of GBT in 2016. Previously, he was CEO and president of Carlson Wagonlit Travel (CWT), and prior to joining CWT, Anderson was senior vice president and CFO at SITA.

It’s been three years since you joined GBT. What do you know now that you didn’t know then?

I have a better grasp of how to manage in an environment where capital is available to make significant investments in technology and mergers and acquisitions, and I now know the value of a digital platform built primarily on proprietary technology. I’ve also had the rewarding experience of leading the successful merger and integration of two global travel management leaders in GBT and Hogg Robinson Group.

After you came onboard, GBT acquired KDS and Hogg Robinson (HRG). What have those acquisitions added to the company and what’s on your radar for future M&A deals?

The acquisition of KDS in 2016 and its Neo online booking platform was a key marker on our investment strategy roadmap for developing an industry‐leading suite of digital services that sits on top of GBT’s core technology platform. The KDS engineering teams brought a deep expertise in travel transactional models to the GBT ecosystem. This has allowed us to improve the Neo user experience and enrich our cross‐device offering to better meet the needs of our customers.

It has also brought us a world-class development team to deliver on many of our technology priorities. Neo is part of GBT’s mid-market offer, as the only major travel management company able to offer our own proprietary technology in addition to our third‐party booking tool partners for more choice and a better experience.

The acquisition of HRG is delivering benefits to our business and our customers, as the integration process continues to bring together the best of both worlds – technology, people and a comprehensive geographic footprint. One year after the acquisition, our dedicated transformation team continues to work on a successful integration process, so we can remain fully focused on the "business as usual" of giving our customers a best‐in‐class service.

We are also focused on our technology roadmap and investment strategy, and on growing by winning new clients of all sizes. In terms of customers benefits from the acquisition, we’re still only scratching the surface.

In terms of further acquisitions, we would always look at opportunities to add value for clients and our business. Our announcement of our intended acquisition of leading German agency DER Business Travel earlier this year is pivotal to our plans for mid-market growth in Europe.

Last November, GBT announced a partnership with Lola.com, giving you access to tools intended for the slightly managed market of corporate travel ‐ a segment that doesn’t necessarily need your traditional products. How do you decide whether to do a partnership like this with a specialist versus building your own solution or acquiring a technology provider?

There’s sometimes a misperception that as a global TMC we only serve global organizations. In fact, we work extensively with small and mid-market businesses. The partnership with Lola.com in the U.S. helps us cater to the specific needs of companies with less mature corporate travel needs.

By combining Lola.com’s agile travel management software and nimble approach with our global footprint, supplier relationships and platforms, we can now offer a simplified, self‐service corporate travel solution. Companies can now onboard a solution in a day, easily set guidelines and policies and streamline the overall travel experience.

As part of our technology roadmap, GBT proactively monitors key trends to identify and invest in solutions that provide simple and effective experiences for our clients and travelers. Whether this is built, bought or brought in through partnerships, what’s most important is that we swiftly and effectively meet evolving needs. We are always reviewing what is out there, from mature players to startups. Our core technology platform enables us to partner and integrate third‐party offerings extremely quickly.

We also look at a third option, which is starting out with a partnership before adding proprietary features and integrations into products to make them more powerful and useful for our clients. By doing so, we get some of the best of both – we leverage the external ecosystem for innovation but also deliver a differentiated and deeply integrated experience for our customers.

Ultimately, many travel programs are a blend of all three solutions to form the perfect program. Our top priority when looking at a potential partnership or acquisition is to ask: Does the technology solve a client or traveler need that we can’t already solve ourselves?

What's the biggest pain point in the lives of business travelers that still needs to be solved, and how can technology help?

As a global TMC, we manage travel disruption all over the world, every day. While technology won’t allow us to control the weather, prevent industrial action or even stop meetings from running over, it will provide fully automated, proactive disruption management for business travelers wherever they may be.

There is an increasing expectation, set by ourselves as much as anyone else, that we have the traveler’s back while they’re on the road, and that our support must be proactive and personalized.

We’re already in the game with push notifications and live messaging with travel counselors in the mobile channel. We can make recommended itinerary changes when a traveler’s plans change.

With detailed individual traveler profiles embedded in our core technology platform, both travel counselors and online booking tools are armed with the knowledge of a traveler’s trip history, work role, loyalty program profile, requirements and preferences to instantly offer the best choices. But more can be done, and we’ll keep investing in technology as we strive to provide the best experience possible.

How is NDC impacting your products and services, and what are your thoughts about distribution in the coming years?

We are clear on our strategy and objectives for air distribution, based on five key principles that underpin delivering value to our customers:

• Content: access to the widest possible selection from all providers, including traditional and API sources
• Aggregation for consistency and transparency: globally aggregated content with clear comparability on fares and value offered – content that can be integrated into all point‐of‐sale tools, whether digital self‐service or agent tools
• Simplicity: avoiding fragmented shopping and servicing environments. As content gets more complex, the display and user experience need to make sense of this and ensure travelers know the best choice for their programs.
• Cost efficiency: economies of scale are vital to maintain low costs on servicing corporate air programs and avoid distribution surcharges.
• Servicing quality: visibility of travelers is essential in corporate travel programs, both from a duty‐of‐care perspective and so that TMCs can service them when journeys are disrupted or changes to bookings are needed. Direct bookings can diminish this visibility

To this end we are collaborating with many airlines and all the major global distribution systems to look at how new standards could improve distribution and shopping experience for our customers, while adhering to these core principles.

Based on these principles we are channel agnostic – but we see in the industry that NDC is often confused with a channel, which it is not. It is a standard for APIs, and as such we embrace any new technology or standard that could add value.

But seven years since NDC was announced, the industry has yet to get clarity on what value it brings to corporate customers. We also strongly disagree with the term NDC being misleadingly used by airlines as a rationale for removing fares from the GDS channels.

Mobile has impacted so much in corporate travel. How can it be used to further enhance the process and traveler experience?

Mobile is a key element of GBT’s technology roadmap, as we continually invest and develop further enhancements to capabilities, functionality and the user experience. This includes our proprietary native mobile app built by GBT, and mobile channels like SMS, iMessage, third‐party apps and other functionality from which the always‐connected traveler benefits.

I see the future of mobile as a single touch point for total travel and expense management. Mobile technology, supported by artificial intelligence, will power a fully integrated, seamless end‐to‐end journey, from search and book, to payment, to traveler support and communications while on the road, to expense processing and reimbursement.

While the front end provides a stress‐free experience for travelers, the back end provides travel managers with the actionable data insights they need to drive better efficiencies, savings and duty of care in their organizations. This is not some distant future: A total travel and expense managed environment is something we have been investing in for a while now and we are already a long way down the road towards it.

We also strongly disagree with the term NDC being misleadingly used by airlines as a rationale for removing fares from the GDS channels.

Doug Anderson - GBT

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Where do you see opportunities for future growth for GBT?

We see mid-market business, particularly in North America but also elsewhere in the world, as a key area of growth for GBT, and we are investing heavily in this sector. We are competing successfully for this business, offering local expertise and service combined with the global scale, support, content and leverage of the world’s leading TMC.

Companies tend to have the same objectives for travel whatever their size – from small businesses to global organizations: combining cost control and efficiencies with a good traveler experience to help drive productivity, compliance and talent retention.

The TMC can add value across these objectives: reporting, pre‐trip approval processes, special negotiated rates, personalized content, traveler communications, 24/7 online and offline support. And smaller companies are increasingly understanding both the cost and value of business travel and its impact on the bottom line. As they look at achieving greater returns on investment, many companies are focusing more strategically on their travel programs.

Duty of care is rightly considered a sacred element of corporate travel. Do you see the fulfillment of that responsibility changing in any way in years to come?

The challenge for travel managers and those that support them, is balancing the demand for self-driven, customized experiences with policy controls to promote traveler safety and security. Duty of care has evolved, and will continue to do so, especially in light of new challenges to protect rich business traveler data and its governance.

It will continue to be a key differentiator between managed and unmanaged travel, and why responsible organizations invest in driving policy compliance in their travel programs. Technology development will continue to play a key role in supporting duty of care, with enhanced predictive analytics, two‐way communication, information and geolocation capabilities.

As the work of TMCs has shifted from a focus on transactions to a focus on the overall customer experience, before, during and after travel, how have you had to shift staffing and training to meet those broader needs?

High-quality, efficient booking is a fundamental requirement of TMCs. But the value is in the cost management, analytics and traveler experience that wraps around the transaction; before, during and after the trip.

Training, development and additional staffing in those areas that enable us to invest in and develop, including management of third‐party relationships, the technology that drives the traveler experience is today’s challenge and today’s opportunity. We continue to invest in the technology and the people to lead this shift while at the same time ensuring that our travel counselors have the tools and training they need to provide best-in-class service.

We were fortunate that our transformation in this way has taken place over the last five years since the creation of the joint venture. It gave us a fresh platform to recruit new and diverse talent from within travel, and outside, and from technology companies, all with the goal of changing the DNA of our TMC to be design‐thinking focused, tech‐first and progressive in our approach to the industry.

Why are financial investors getting interested in corporate travel‐focused startups in a big way in the past year? And do these huge investment rounds in startups put pressure on an existing player like GBT?

Most of the startups making the news today are basically offering pretty‐looking, B2C mobile booking interfaces. These are good for traveler engagement, but the booking interface is only a small fraction of the managed travel ecosystem – to bring value to your travel program you need the service, data and insights, the savings through higher-value content.

Otherwise you’ve basically got an OTA, without the 24/7 support and backing of a global TMC. Of course, GBT has a mobile app with a range of capabilities including booking, live chat and facial or fingerprint login. But behind that is a wide array of tried‐and‐tested products, services and solutions to support every size and scope of travel program. These include benchmarking tools, automated air and hotel re‐shopping, trip approval and auditing solutions and traveler care tools for flight disruption and crisis management.

You’ve been in corporate travel for several decades. What advice do you have for someone just entering the field?

Take the time to understand the rapidly changing dynamics around technology and distribution. Focus on creating sustainable value for your clients and your supplier base. Ensure your leadership team is broadly diverse. You will benefit greatly from the wide range of skills, perspectives and experiences that a diverse team brings.

Listen, learn, be creative where you can, take risk now and then and if it doesn’t work, back down and look for the next opportunity. Use every experience as an opportunity to learn because inevitably it will manifest itself again and you will be better prepared.

Tell us something about yourself that we wouldn’t learn from your resume.

I grew up in rural Nebraska. I was 18 before I ever flew on an airplane and 27 before I had my first passport, and now I have lived in 10 cities in six countries on three continents. I’ve lived outside of the U.S. for 28 of the last 31 years and have thoroughly enjoyed the personal and professional experiences afforded me as a result.