CASE STUDY

Powering pre-trip approvals in high-risk travel

This FCM client — a global marine manufacturer headquartered in Australia — is a key player in the defence and commercial marine industries. Designing and constructing ships, and helping to keep them moving long after they first left the dry dock.

Since partnering with FCM five years ago, the relationship has evolved alongside the company’s changing travel demands. With engineers and specialised technicians frequently dispatched at short notice to service vessels in remote or high-risk ports, travel requirements are complex, urgent, unpredictable, and essential to the success of the businesses they support.

The challenges

ravel for this client doesn't follow a neat pattern. One day it's a callout to a mechanical issue off coast of Spain, the next, it's urgent support needed in the USA. The destinations are often difficult to access, the timelines are tight, and the trips are not something we would classify as risk free.

But behind the scenes, the pre-travel process wasn’t set up to move at the same speed. Instead of one smooth workflow, pre-trip approvals were split across multiple departments — risk assessments, health checks, permits to work, safety documentation, costs — all managed via separate documents and manual email threads. Despite everyone’s best efforts to maintain compliance, the outdated process was creating unnecessary risk, especially with international travel to challenging locations.

This meant:

Trips were being booked through unofficial channels
Expensive fares or out-of-policy bookings slipped through
No central risk or safety review for destinations or scope of work
Duplication of work and manual follow-ups
No reliable record of who had approved what, and when

Our approach

Internal stakeholders had already begun flagging issues and inefficiencies. The team then approached FCM with a clear need. Help streamline the approvals process, bringing structure, speed and clarity. A process that would keep things moving without compromising on safety or compliance.

Enter FCM’s Pre-Trip Approve (PTA). A configurable solution that acts as the digital hub for every required sign-off, document, and policy step before a trip can be booked. It doesn’t approve travel directly, but enables businesses to build structured, multi-layered approval flows that fit their exact needs.

Here’s what changed:

PTA became a home for all the required documentation, per trip, and person
A tiered pre-approval flow was built to align with internal trip risk levels
Traveller routes and destinations were flagged for risk automatically
Language and form fields were customised to match internal terminology
No booking could be made until the full PTA workflow was completed and approved

Implementation wasn’t all tech. FCM worked with stakeholders across departments to run workshops, deliver hands-on training, and gather feedback to make sure the process felt natural. For the client, PTA became the single source of truth for every trip, creating a clear, trackable process that aligned with their duty of care obligations.

Outcomes

The shift was immediate. While there's no official time-saving metric yet, internal feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. PTA has:

Brought full transparency into who's travelling, where, why, and how
Increased compliance and consistency across teams
Removed the need for chasing approvals or hunting down paperwork
Made urgent travel requests easier to manage with less stress

Most importantly, PTA has improved the business' ability to manage duty of care. In high-risk locations, nothing gets booked unless all checks and approvals are locked in. The ship manufacturer now has a consistent, auditable way to manage travel to difficult situations, no matter how quickly things change.

We built a customised, fit for purpose tech solution that does exactly what they need and brought their pre-trip approval workflow into the twenty-first century. Their travel policy is complex due to the nature of their work and clientele. As their business grows, we will continue to review what's next and offer continuous improvement.