Less Corporate Travel Long Term?

Status
Not open for further replies.

JB expat

Active Member
Joined
Jul 14, 2011
Posts
585
Qantas
Platinum
Those of you who work for large companies which typically have a hefty travel expense line item - have you received any subtle (or direct) messaging that they like the expense savings so much that they are going to be much stricter about who travels/how often, when COVID-19 is not a concern?
 
Sponsored Post

Struggling to use your Frequent Flyer Points?

Frequent Flyer Concierge takes the hard work out of finding award availability and redeeming your frequent flyer or credit card points for flights.

Using their expert knowledge and specialised tools, the Frequent Flyer Concierge team at Frequent Flyer Concierge will help you book a great trip that maximises the value for your points.

I work for one of those Silicon Valley "mega company". All local and International travel has been scrapted for at very least July 2021. In the long term, it will go back to where we were. But that is very far off. If I would have to guess, at best, end of 2022. But more likley sometime in 2023
 
My work in international development assistance has ground to a halt, and the industry has been somewhat hamstrung. A trickle of work from home since I arrived back for day 1 of quarantine in March, but it has been prep work. The industry has been ticking over throughout, and I know several people from EU and US who decided to ride it out in Africa. Others have been stuck in all sorts of places because of travel restrictions - in many places, not just Australia.

Since July in particular things have ramped up again, with people returning to my current project from UK, Germany, Africa and NZ. But there are questions raised about viability of the industry and working models are changing. A lot of uncertainty among funding Government agencies and NGOs alike with some tendency to extend, defer or drop contracts, and major new ones less likely to be let. Apart from COVID, which has generated a lot of work in the health field. Unfortunately travel restrictions make that work much more difficult as well.

I’m probably locked out by the travel ban - we haven’t put it to the test yet - and likely to be forced into retirement. That would be preferable to slow death by Zoom; the satisfaction in the work is the people aspect. Not huge in the economic scheme of things, but the ban limits the ability of Australians to participate in the industry and earn export income, while it is likely to push DFAT contractors toward more use of overseas based consultants who are not travel banned. A lose-lose scenario for the balance of payments.

cheers skip
 
This was a good article:


with some great comments:

"The International Air Transport Association reports that "video conferencing appears to have made significant inroads as a substitute for in-person meetings," with corporate travel budgets expected to be "very constrained" as companies continue face financial pressure, even as the economy improved.

But Qantas Group CEO Alan Joyce says "we know personal contact, people interacting with each other, has a huge difference from doing it over the Internet."

"I’ve talked to a couple of our biggest (corporate) customers, and one of the CEOs said he was relying on contacts built up over decades to get through the pandemic, but he would eventually need to rebuild those contacts,” Joyce remarked at a Griffith University function on the Gold Coast in late July.

"Most companies" are "people organisations", Joyce reasons, "so I believe that (business travel) will come back. Maybe there will be a hit but it will come back substantially."
 
This was a good article:


with some great comments:

"The International Air Transport Association reports that "video conferencing appears to have made significant inroads as a substitute for in-person meetings," with corporate travel budgets expected to be "very constrained" as companies continue face financial pressure, even as the economy improved.

But Qantas Group CEO Alan Joyce says "we know personal contact, people interacting with each other, has a huge difference from doing it over the Internet."

"I’ve talked to a couple of our biggest (corporate) customers, and one of the CEOs said he was relying on contacts built up over decades to get through the pandemic, but he would eventually need to rebuild those contacts,” Joyce remarked at a Griffith University function on the Gold Coast in late July.

"Most companies" are "people organisations", Joyce reasons, "so I believe that (business travel) will come back. Maybe there will be a hit but it will come back substantially."
Ooh I hope the airlines read this and actually take up some of the suggestions people made!
 
The place I work is like the ones Joyce referred to in the article QF WP referred-to above, where there’s quite a lot of ongoing work at the moment due to relationships built-up in person. We’re actually run off our feet with software implementations, and a few of the guys I work with would’ve been flying back & forth to Johannesburg for probably 2 weeks every 6 ... we did have one guy scheduled to be there for 6 months. A little surprisingly it’s all still on schedule despite nearly 6 months without in-person contact, but I think that’s due to more long days than usual being put-in by the consultants doing the implementation work.

Mind you, when you’re based at home & you usually spend more time at home than away, when you do then work away from home, it does feel like you’re “at work” 24x7 once the novelty wears off. This would have to be different for people who normally work away from home (there’d be plenty of people living that way on AFF)! Anyhoo, it’s probably the case that while they’re putting in long days it probably doesn’t feel any longer than if they were working at the customer’s site.

Anyhoo, putting all that in context of the thread’s question, I think we’ll be back to normal levels of travel after a couple of years; we do very little pure sales travel, most travel is paid-for by our customers, and will continue to happen so long as they want us there. That not-directly-reimbursed sales travel is needed to start new projects though, although personal relationships are a lot more important in some markets than others. We lucked-out a little with the timing & being so busy now, time will tell whether we end-up with a lull in work in 2 year’s time due to an inability to start negotiations to feed work into the ‘pipeline’ early next year.
 
So have you had many clients who have taken the gear out and shipped it back to you for maintenance @TomVexille? Then you need to ship it back and someone needs to be onsite to re-install? Not so easy....
 
So have you had many clients who have taken the gear out and shipped it back to you for maintenance @TomVexille? Then you need to ship it back and someone needs to be onsite to re-install? Not so easy....

No, generally they can't afford the downtime. We did have one in Tasmania ship us the gear for modifications prior to installation.

I currently have a trips to SYD and NZ on hold as there's only 3 of us in the country trained in a specific procedure. In my case I expect that travel will return pretty quickly once we're allowed.
 
For me another issue that is keeping the corporate travel down is the internal border closures, and the various quarantine requirements. Some of my clients are ready to "risk" face to face training again, but not willing to run the risk of the disruptions and costs associated with short notice border slamming closed. So I think we will need to get the states all under control and singing at least from the same songbook before corporate travel resumes for me, at least.
 
For me another issue that is keeping the corporate travel down is the internal border closures, and the various quarantine requirements. Some of my clients are ready to "risk" face to face training again, but not willing to run the risk of the disruptions and costs associated with short notice border slamming closed. So I think we will need to get the states all under control and singing at least from the same songbook before corporate travel resumes for me, at least.

High court might help them all come (be dragged) to the table on how that might work
 
The Frequent Flyer Concierge team takes the hard work out of finding reward seat availability. Using their expert knowledge and specialised tools, they'll help you book a great trip that maximises the value for your points.

AFF Supporters can remove this and all advertisements

High court might help them all come (be dragged) to the table on how that might work
I hope the High Court will take medical opinion into account. IMHO those pursuing legalities to force reopening borders should pull their heads in. The 60 minutes report tonight should be required viewing.
 
The article on AFF identifies only two types of travel, 1, those who do it for the joy of travelling and 2, those who treat it as a burden but must travel because of their expertise.

I am in another category. I travel because of my expertise and enjoy it. There must be other shades of traveller.

I can travel from NZ to NSW on Qantas, but flights are limited and I need to quarantine on my return. As soon as the NZ quarantine stops, i will be on a flight to NSW and any other state (or territory) with an open border with NZ I have jobs pending in NSW, QLD, NT, TAS, WA, SA, ACT and VIC.
 
I've worked for a global software company (Oz, US & UK) for the past 13 years. Zoom has been a part of our working life for many years, but our policy has always been as much face-to-face as is possible, particularly when it comes to servicing our clients. It has certainly been a tough six months but our firm was better prepared than most. Our Execs are all very keen to get back in the air, as am I. I averaged two o/s trips annually and countless domestic I suppose for the past 10 years and never got tired of it.

With regard meeting with colleagues, Zoom is fine, participants are attentive and contribute well. But with our client base results are very mixed. It is certainly quite difficult to engage effectively via Zoom, particularly with training-related issues.
 
I've worked for a global software company (Oz, US & UK) for the past 13 years. Zoom has been a part of our working life for many years, but our policy has always been as much face-to-face as is possible, particularly when it comes to servicing our clients. It has certainly been a tough six months but our firm was better prepared than most. Our Execs are all very keen to get back in the air, as am I. I averaged two o/s trips annually and countless domestic I suppose for the past 10 years and never got tired of it.

With regard meeting with colleagues, Zoom is fine, participants are attentive and contribute well. But with our client base results are very mixed. It is certainly quite difficult to engage effectively via Zoom, particularly with training-related issues.
I agree with the training. I've been involved with webinars and they are a very sterile environments, though I have used an occasional Youtube video to learn how to service the carburetor on my chainsaw.

On international travel, my son's partner works for US software company in NZ. Even though NZ is at Level 1, they are told to work from home, with no International travel.
 
I am in another category. I travel because of my expertise and enjoy it.
+1.

The article also works from the perspective that relative normalcy will return ... sometime. In fact my industry, which is global, has been up and running again since about June, travel and risks and countermeasures and all, but the travel ban is stopping Australians’ participation in it, and the export income that generates. There’s life out there, but not as we know it here.

cheers skip
 
My work is still minimal and consists of desk based consulting only - no training at all, and so no travel at all. My government and private sector clients are all worried about booking interstate travel as they regard things as too unreliable for arranging training classes with participants and trainers from here there and everywhere. My Japan 2021 holidays have just been cancelled as well. I will not even manage the 4 flights required for retaining FF status this membership year :(.
 
We were spending about $250,000 on travel and accommodation that is now closer to zero. We just varied this years budget which runs to June 30th, 2021.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Enhance your AFF viewing experience!!

From just $6 we'll remove all advertisements so that you can enjoy a cleaner and uninterupted viewing experience.

And you'll be supporting us so that we can continue to provide this valuable resource :)


Sample AFF with no advertisements? More..
Back
Top