Our client is a global auditing giant based out of the UAE and Oman who also focus on providing tax and other advisory services. Their offices serve a wide range of industries including finance, construction, healthcare, and energy, offering expertise in areas such as risk management, digital transformation, and compliance.
Their commitment to innovation and quality is commendable and their work in helping businesses navigate complex challenges and seize opportunities is out there for the world to see.
PROBLEM STATEMENT:
One of the major issues that the client was facing was rooted in the manual process of booking travel arrangements for their employees; they were using a travel agency and going back and forth with them through emails and phone calls. Needless to say, this was an exhausting experience. This also gave rise to multiple problems:
The manual process complicates even further when there are changes that cannot be mapped out in real time.
With a vast network of employees and users the travel manager caters to, he manual process is susceptible to failure on multiple touch points
The approval process consumed too much time
Our client needed a way by which their travel policy across multiple markets could work in tandem with the needs of their employees in a completely automated manner.
All of the clients’ travel bookings have to be verified using a PR number that is generated by their finance ecosystem.
OUR SOLUTION:
The mbiz platform is able to create customised dashboards that work well within the framework of existing travel policies and is able to create new travel policies as per organisational requirements as well. Keeping our client’s travel policies in mind, we created a customised dashboard for the client’s detailed corporate travel policy to digitise their entire approval process with the PR number system into the musafirbiz dashboard.
The benefits of this process is multi-faceted:
All travel requests are now routed to the Line Manager who is in charge of verifications and approvals.
Every travel coordinator has been assigned access to the mbiz dashboard with a Travel Planner role so that they can make bookings and look for travel options, individually.
This daThe coordinator can access from a range of flight timings based on the convenience of their staff using the filters provided to select the appropriate arrival and departure timings.
Depending on the ask, the coordinator can select multiple flight/travel options together and these will be saved as items in their dashboard’s shopping cart
The coordinator can then share all the curated travel quotes to the approver [Line Manager role in musafirbiz] directly via email in a single click.
This process is what the coordinator can follow if the request is of a generic type where the staff has no specific request.
Our Tailored Solution for Specific Requests: Some employees may have an airline preference; mbiz’s dashboard is customisable wherein it can cater to these requests as well.
For instance, if a partner wants to fly only by Emirates, the following are the steps that they can follow:
Select their preferred airlines from the filters; in this case, Emirates on the SRP page.
They can select the trip and then simply click on BOOK!
With the beauty of automation, the checkout page will have the traveller’s details auto-filled [no manual entry required].
Click continue to see the Approval Workflow which shows the Line Manager who will approve, the PR number*, reason for travel*
Click continue to send the booking approval to LM via email, who can either approve or reject
Advantage: reduces turnaround time from 2 hours to 20 minutes
The coordinator can then proceed to click continue where they can see the Approval Workflow which shows the Line Manager who will approve, the PR number*, reason for travel*, etc.
They can then simply click on continue to send the booking approval to LM via email, who can either approve or reject.
This entire customised workflow reduces the TAT from 2 hours of back and forth to about 20 minutes.
Flowchart of Old Process:
Partner/C manager wants to travel
The secretary raises the request which goes to Travel Coordinator [TC] who contacts
Old travel agency/travel consultant
Travel guy gives some options to the TC
TC sends the options back to the Secretary
Secretary sends the options to the Partner
Partner approves costs / approves the travel
Secretary raises Purchase Request [PR]
PR Number shared to TC
TC sends confirmation to old travel agency/consultant
Old Agency books the confirmed option IF it’s still available
If NOT AVAILABLE then agency will share alternate/revised options with updated costing → this goes back to TC → then whole process starts again from point #4
