INSIGHT
Risk management: no risky business
If your company is considering revamping their approach to risk management, you’re not alone. According to a recent industry survey, there are quite a few companies that could do with a spoonful of TMC expertise and a shot of tech intelligence.
This study conducted by FCM in partnership with ProcureCon and the Worldwide Business Research (WBR) team, surveyed 100 business travel leaders from across the US and Canada who highlighted some of the key gaps in their company’s travel risk management capabilities. Survey respondents represented large organizations, 44% of which had annual revenue worth $1 billion to $10 billion and 27% with more than $10 billion in annual revenue.
The study revealed:
- 53% of respondents considered poor risk and security assessments for travel destinations to be a major gap in their current travel programs
- 36% thought their company’s travel and risk management policies were unclear
- 35% said difficulties in communicating with travelers or sending alerts was an area of concern
- 28% said they were experiencing challenges in tracking travelers’ movements.
Additionally, a further 43% of respondents also expected their TMC to provide support for their compliance with duty of care.
Whether the travel risk is health oriented (e.g. COVID), around employee security or weather related, it’s critical that companies can tap into tools that enable proactive, automated and omnichannel risk management support. A partnership with a TMC that has strong relationships with other industry leaders in risk management and technology will also help your business to strengthen its approach to risk management.
That said, what are the most important tools to ensure your business has the right tech infrastructure in place for a robust risk management program?
FCM’s Global Product Leader of Safety and Risk, Matthew DeMaris, says that while it depends on the needs of each travel program, most companies want automated capabilities to track and communicate with travelers.
Key tools within your risk management program should include:
A centralized portal
Your risk management and duty of care tools should be contained in a single online location that’s easily accessible by all your travel stakeholders. The FCM Platform will be the home base for all things safety and risk. It houses a client’s tools for sending travel alerts, monitoring trips, traveler tracking and reporting. Coming soon is a new custom messaging feature within the FCM Platform that allows travel arrangers to quickly communicate with their travelers. Travelers will also be automatically updated about incidents nearby with FCM’s itinerary-based travel alerts, and offered direct access to assistance, from either their FCM travel consultant or their third-party risk management provider.
Travel tracker
We help our clients stay on top of their travelers’ whereabouts and monitor country health and security assessment ratings via FCM’s Travel Tracker. With nine unique dashboard tabs including detailed traveler risk reports, future trip planning analytics and location sharing – you’ll have instant insight into any incidents affecting your most frequented destinations. Traveler reports can be extracted at any time or pre-scheduled.
Safety across multiple online booking tools (OBTs)
For companies that have different OBTs in use across departments or countries, FCM’s partnership with Shep enables you to enforce your travel policy across all booking tools. Acting as a browser extension, the system delivers actionable guidance directly into the booking flow across thousands of sites. This tech ensures your company can centralize its travel policy, information and risk guidance into an easily consumable format.
AI-powered reporting
Powered by artificial intelligence, FCM’s reporting tool makes it easy to gather information on travelers’ whereabouts, schedules, departures or any other metrics needed in a time of crisis.
Mobile app
One of the most important tools for communication is a reliable and integrated mobile app. The FCM Mobile App issues real time travel notifications, provides geo-threat coordinates to let travelers know where they are in relation to an incident, instant access to your FCM travel team and direct access to your third-party risk management provider.