For Multinationals, Uber Doesn’t Always Cut It

Ride hailing or ride booking. However you might term it, summoning wheels to get to where you need to go conjures names such as Uber and Lyft. But what about for corporate travel, where exclusivity and global reach may matter and might especially matter for multinationals, with the need to have a presence in disparate locations?

KDS, which provides corporate travel and expense management software, said earlier this month that it has partnered with TBR Global Chauffeuring. Clients can use the former’s Neo software to book travel across the latter’s 15,000 vehicles located in 3,000 cities globally.

In an interview with PYMNTS, Annicka Lofstrand, senior director of global suppliers and partners at KDS, said that, although corporate travel expense solutions have spanned, for example, air and hotel bookings, vehicle or ground transportation has been relatively unmanaged as an area of spend, in part because it has historically been “such a fragmented industry.” For platforms, such as KDS, the executive said, the steps involved in booking TBR and integrating those services into a trip’s continuum include information across the firm, meeting, destination and time and date.

Lofstrand also said that the fleet extends across luxury cars to coaches and noted that the far-flung locations dictate that security be top of mind — in short, she noted, among larger multinationals, “there are different demands for different services.” In riskier environments, she said, there is the knowledge that TBR’s drivers have been vetted and have extensive training (TBR itself can assess risk factors of certain itineraries, and in those potentially heightened situations, chauffeurs have training in first aid, defensive driving and protective services). Verticals that may employ such services extend to blue-chip companies, including financial institutions and oil and gas firms.

Neo provides live journey tracking across the globe. The syncing with these added ground transportation services takes place with flights and hotels (also via mobile), but for back-office functions, there is the need for cost control. Thus, the platform displays and books those services within the confines of users’ corporate travel policies. According to Lofstrand, the finance department can benefit from the greater visibility of costs (and the employee does not have to pay cash) that are presented as part of the entire travel itinerary, whether payments are being charged to accounts or on cards.