One of the key pieces of any well-managed corporate travel program is a corporate credit card program. Corporate credit cards are the fundamental payment mechanism for travel, centralizing payments, providing visibility into spend and enhancing the intelligence travel buyers can use to approach supplier negotiations. After purchasing one of Atlas’ biggest competitor, the Atlas corporate credit card program has become fragmented.
Considering the Atlas corporate card programs, we found that cards were divided between two suppliers and were not disseminated to all travelers. Additionally, the contract with one of those suppliers was quite old and in need of renegotiation. As card programs have changed over the years of this agreement, it was the perfect time to revamp our thinking as to how the program should work and how we could make it easier for our employees to use. With that in mind, we put together a team including representatives from procurement, finance, audit services, and information technology. The team formulated objectives for the project which included securing higher rebates on dollars spent, leveraging card spend for improved travel discounts, reinventing expense reimbursement efficiencies, reducing expense report fraud and identifying travel program inefficiencies. In addition, we were exploring the possibilities of credit
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You will not be allowed to do that any longer. So, what benefits will this program bring you? You won’t have to use your personal credit limit for business expenses. You won’t have to wait to be reimbursed for your expenses to pay your credit card bill. You won’t be floating the company personal funds while waiting to be reimbursed. We will also be working with US Bank and Concur to implement a feed so you can continue to have your charges downloaded and available for importing into your expense
This part of Ceridian is the number one supplier of electronic cash card and related services to the over-the-road trucking industry. Comdata's proprietary credit and debit card is a multi-service card, which allows payment for a range of personal and company related expenditures through a single card. Comdata serves over one million truckers in the United States with its proprietary card for over-the-road truck carriers and with a co-branded Comdata MasterCard® for local fleets. This is the credit card of choice for large local fleet operators including Pepsico, SYSCO and Frito Lay. Comdata is also a leading provider of retail gift, cash and stored value chip cards. In 2003 Comdata shipped more than 250 million cash cards to retailers, grocery and restaurant chains, and entertainment companies. Retailers including The Gap, Lowe's, Applebee's, Safeway, J.C. Penney and Kroger take advantage of Comdata's stored value card services.
Costco Wholesale Corporation was an uncommon type of retailers called wholesale clubs. These clubs differentiated themselves from other retailer by requiring annual membership purchase. Especially in case of Costco, their target market is wealthier clientele of small business owners and middle class shoppers. They are now known as a low cost or discount retailer where they sell products in bulk with limited brands and their own brand. The company is competing with stores like Wal-Mart, SAM’s, BJ’s, and Sears. The case begins with an individual shareholder, Margarita Torres, who first purchased shares in 1997 and who is trying to evaluate the operational performance of the business in order to make a decision rather or not purchase more shares
WestJet is the second-largest carrier in Canada, which mainly focuses on economic airlines. In decades past, WestJet expanded its destination network form all western Canadian cities to international scope. During this development period, IT played a important role. For example, electronic ticket is used in the airline reservation system. However, some IT-related issues also hinders the company’s development.
As Frontier approached its 10th year of operation, Frontier officials realized an image shift was in order. The airline had established a reputation for friendly and reliable service, and reasonable airfares, mainly appealing to leisure travelers. But they reali...
In addition, “if American Express going to be successful as a brand and as a marketer, they need to understand where consumers are doing it, how consumers are spending their time, where consumers want to access information, and how can American Express engage them. American Express has be used in countries all over the world for decades. It simply grew up with the baby boomers’ generation and has earned its reputation as a card with distinction. Through the years, the company has consistently reached consumer by keeping in step with the changing needs of the population. They also has acknowledge that it is the consumers who really decide what American Express stand for and not the company pushing out marketing messages. Further, American Express belie...
American Express has always been known for its benefits to travelers. Some of the new travel discounts; such as the “Bahamas Getaway” packages offer significant discounts for planning a vacation in the Bahamas through a travel agent. The catch is that one must charge it on the American Express card to get the discounts. Coupon books that offer discounts at many shops, restaurants and attractions are given to those who buy a package. Over $11 million in “Bahama Getaway” packages were sold in 1999. Other getaway packages are available to consumers all over the world. American Express has successfully used this marketing strategy, as it realized that consumers want an opportunity to enjoy an exotic vacation, while at the same time, getting value for their dollar. Saving money is important to most consumers. Once again, American Express aims to please its customers.
Before to select the proper alternative, three alternatives were analysed and evaluated under four decisions criteria: customer experience, cost, growth rate / market penetration and ease to implementation (See Exhibit 2: Factor Analysis). Between all the alternatives, it was suggested that Southwest Airlines enters to New York City by bidding the slots and gates at the LGA (See Exhibit 3: Alternatives Analysis). This alternative sustains the challenge of changing the customer experience which means adding more flights from and to the East; furthermore, entering to new markets will reinforce “the power of the network” through LGA. At the same time, this decision will allow signing more code-sharing agreements with other airlines flying to international destinations and offer new products and services to LUV customers as loyalty rewards, in-flight internet, onboard duty-free purchases, etc.; as a result of this, it will increase passenger’s insights and experiences by flying with Southwest Airlines. Nevertheless, there is potential risk by selecting this alternative, in the recent years the energy prices has had a huge increase affecting costs, fares and even capacity needed, however Southwest Airlines has been able to hedge fuel for decad...
Third Star Financial Services is an “un-banked” business that was built from a foundation of several money transfer operations that can be transact through an agent or an online facility since 1996. Third Star’s goal and objective is to develop and implement an enterprise architecture platform for the organization that is more streamlined and leaned with consistent policies and procedures throughout the company. A consolidated, centralized and standardized single version of the business structure and a modernize technology that can provide ease and flexibilities to their new and existing customers, in addition to their support staff and management teams.
During the past year Wells Fargo, a well-recognized bank of the United States, has been trying to clean its name and the mess it got itself into, when it was brought to the public that the bank was involved in generating fraudulent checking and savings accounts for its clients without their knowledge or their authorization. “The way it worked was that employees moved funds from customers' existing accounts into newly-created ones without their knowledge or consent”
Allen, Paul (2000, 25 May). Hearing on Competition and Innovation in the Credit Card Industry. [On-line]. Available: www.senate.gov/~banking/00_05hrg/052500
In recent years, business tourism has become increasingly prevalent and prevailing in the tourism industry. There are large quantities of significant changes which have far-reaching implications for all consumers and suppliers of business travel such as consumption patterns, great developments in transport and communications technology, and the world´s political and economic changes related to tourism industry. All these developments have brought large effects on business travel as well as the main challenges to this sector for the coming years. Every day, tens of thousands of people are beginning or ending their business trips all around the world, while numerous conferences or exhibitions are being held globally, so business tourism is a
David Neelman realized his vision of creating an airlines company that is focused on customer service by starting JetBlue. During the startup phase or entrepreneurial stage, typically most of the companies go through the activities of marketing the service and /or product. But Neelman, perceptive of the industry needs, went about raising enough capital before starting JetBlue, as airlines industry is a capital intensive industry. His entrepreneurial style and previous experience enabled him to identify the core value of the service “To improve the passenger experience at a low cost” that he wanted JetBlue to provide. Neelman wanted to utilize technology to bring better customer experience at a low cost. Some of the technological activities that JetBlue planned include state-of-the-art revenue management system, paperless tickets etc. His in-depth experience enabled him to identify the external factors that would affect the business such as simple check-in and boarding process, hassle free ticketing procedures etc. This emphasized his knowledge of adapting to the ever changing customer needs. Neelman instilled the culture of...
An alternate strategy for JetBlue to return to profitability is to expand the market it services. A large part of JetBlue’s business is transporting cust...
The consumer, due to the economic decline, has developed a taste for an economical traveling experience, these substitutes offer cost undercuts. According to the United States Department of Labour, the unemployment rate in the US averaged to 8.9% in 2011. Higher unemployment rates strains discretionary spending, which in turn reduces the leisure travel by the customers. Sluggish wage gains and a credit crunch are all expected to keep customers relatively cautious in 2012. Thus, a weak economic outlook for the important markets of Hilton Worldwide would put pressure on its top line and bottom line growth (Hilton Worldwide, 12).
CPS Energy, the largest municipally owned energy provider in the nation, was basking in its present bond ratings (which were the highest among all the energy providers), contented workforce, generally satisfied customers and profitability. However, they noticed that there was a huge difference between their business operations and other companies who had large mobile workforces like their...