Travel businesses in the US are looking less to their traditional supplier relationships and looking towards the implementation of sourcing practices, it has been claimed.
While not necessarily using staff from procurement organisations, buyers in the industry are increasingly using procurement standards such as scorecards and metrics, Business Travel News Online reports.
It states that procurement practices are mainly driven by attempts to save money and measure expenditure, while firms are also noticing the benefit of transforming their sourcing plans.
Tom Wilkinson, president of TRW Travel Consulting, said: "Increasingly, travel management is viewed as a metric-driven purchasing exercise by an ever-growing number of companies."
He added that the benefit of these techniques in sourcing is not in doubt, but noted that the question of whether issues relating to vendor management require an alternative approach is an open one.
In October 2003, Travel Analytics noted that travel is different from other industries when it comes to procurement, with travel being a large budget item with high and complex pricing, in addition to high "what's in it for me?" factor.
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