Open for Business: A Corporate T&E Podcast Powered by TripActions

To introduce the suite of product features of TripActions Liquid and illustrate how the technology will revolutionize everything from payments to reconciliation for everyone from employees to CFOs, we’re sitting down with Robin Gandhi, TripActions VP of Product Management, Payments, and Omar Ghani, TripActions Director of Strategic Sourcing.

Companies that had long pushed their travel & expense programs down the list of priorities were forced into a rude awakening in March 2020. Suddenly getting travelers home safely, tracking unused tickets and waivers, adjusting policy to new travel restrictions, and fulfilling duty of care was put to the ultimate test.

In the six months since, we’ve seen a huge appetite for modern T&E management from TripActions among enterprises who found themselves ill equipped with their antiquated, legacy TMC when COVID-19 hit. They are now looking for a more innovative solution that can meet the challenges ahead. T&E is such an integral part of business growth that it is critical that enterprises use this time to arm themselves with a tech-forward T&E solution and partner that their employees actually want to use.

Today we’re sitting down with Jonny Bryan, Chief of Staff at Unit4 to talk through their decision to make the move to modern T&E management in the midst of the global pandemic, and how the situation awakened them to what was needed to really protect their travelers and control costs through their T&E program.

TripActions Enterprise Edition marks the start of a new era of modern enterprise T&E management. Two years in the making, TripActions Enterprise Edition gives enterprise leaders a comprehensive, unified T&E solution combining the best online booking experience, robust global inventory, expert 24/7 365 TMC travel agents, and modern payments and expense tech — all from a single, trusted partner.

We're sitting down with TripActions CRO Carlos Delatorre and Chief Travel Officer Danny Finkel to explore the who, what, and why of TripActions Enterprise Edition.

TripActions has always believed in the power of data. Now we need data to restore business travel and ensure the industry remains as innovative and disruptive as it was before COVID hit. TripActions is taking an active role in advocating for testing, contact tracing, and an open data program that helps our customers and industry colleagues get back to business safely. We sit down with Noah Kowalski, Principal at Invariant, and Sai Jahann, General Counsel at TripActions, to discuss the importance of advocating for public policy that gives our business travelers the confidence needed to safely resume their work travel.

Our podcast episode covers:

The COVID-19 global health pandemic has greatly impacted the business travel and expense industry, along with those responsible for managing T&E within their organizations. So we recently sat down with Michael Levie, COO at CitizenM, and Amber Simonsen, Director of Guest Product Delivery at Alaska Airlines, to talk through how airlines and hotels are handling hygiene and safety so business travelers can return to work travel with confidence.

The role of corporate negotiated rates has significantly shifted in the past six months. We’re sitting down with Elaine Kennedy, Vice President of Hotel Market Planning at Pegasus, Calvin Anderson, Chief Commercial Officer at Domio, and Tara Stangel, Head of Lodging Supply at TripActions, to talk through these changes, what to expect from the future of corporate negotiated rates and hotel RFPs, and what you need to do to properly prepare for this new reality.

Although we are already seeing signs of travel rebounding, with booking activity recovering steadily week over week, most frequent flyers are uncertain what business travel actually looks like today. We sit down with Louise Miller, Managing Partner of Areka Consulting, and Mark Goldberger, Director of Enterprise Travel Management at TripActions, to hear about their travel experiences on the ground and in the skies since the onset of COVID-19 to get a glimpse of what other travelers can expect when they head back out on the road.

TripActions co-founder and CTO Ilan Twig led his team to quickly develop business-critical solutions that helped customers manage through COVID-19. These new products, sometimes built and released in days and over weekends, fundamentally changed how customers were able to respond to the crisis. New products and enhanced functionality released in the days and weeks following the virus outbreak include the coronavirus dashboard, regional blacklisting, automated unused tickets and waivers, and policy setting options with deeper customization and more granular control.

In this episode of Open for Business, we sit down with Ilan Twig, co-founder and CTO at TripActions, and Rob Winters, Director of Data at TripActions, to learn how their teams tapped into the power of publicly-available data along with data proprietary to TripActions to build the product features and functionality that the industry needs to get back to business and travel safely and cost effectively, when ready.

Corporate travel by train has grown in popularity amongst business travelers in the UK and around Europe for more than two decades. With advancements in technology, changes in network competition, and shifting consumer expectation, it is poised to become a preferred mode of transportation for millions of business travelers, and not just in Europe.

As business travel picks back up, the numbers are clear: Not only are 74%+ of frequent business travelers comfortable or somewhat comfortable traveling by train right now, but business travelers are now more frequently booking rail over air travel. There is also legislation in the pipeline that would make rail transportation even better for consumers in the future.

Today we sit down with William Phillipson, longtime travel technology executive and leader, veteran of ITA Software and founder of SilverRail, along with Stephanie Weaver, Transport Supply Director for Rail at TripActions, to discuss the future of train travel in Europe and beyond.

In a world in which remote work replaces traditional offices, corporate travel is positioned to play an even more important role in the lives of professionals than before. The value and importance of in-person connections and conversations haven’t gone away -- and organizations with remote employees will need to navigate this. In-person connections will be what makes remote work -- and all of its benefits -- possible for millions of more people. Business travel should be something that we look forward to -- we have the technology available today to make booking, check-in, and changes easier than organizing a daily commute. 

We’re not on our own in figuring this out. There are enterprises and leaders who’ve long understood the benefits of remote work complemented by regular business travel who can help guide us on this new path. 

We sit down with Darren Murph, Head of Remote at GitLab, and Job van der Voort, Founder and CEO of Remote, to talk through the elevated role of business travel in remote-first companies, and how distributed workforces will come together to fuel the in-person connections that enable employees to build relationships, close deals and drive growth in the future.