INSIGHTS

Moving beyond one-size-fits-all solutions for travel and expense

The corporate travel industry has developed an unfortunate pattern. Organisations invest significantly in new travel and expense technology, experience disappointing adoption rates, and find themselves managing workarounds, rather than optimised programmes.

At ITM’s Springboard conference in April 2026, our session explored why this pattern persists, and what organisations can do differently.

FROM Matthew Heymans, Europe Sales Leader, FCM

Key Takeaways

Companies can turn questions about adoption and compliance around to fixing friction points.

Travel managers need to understand programme trade-offs, and whether they are happy to accept them.

It’s important for travel programme design to align with the realities of both the travel industry, and your company culture and processes.

Building the foundations of your programme is key, before moving onto further capabilities.

With FCM, we don’t accept trade-offs, and enable the flexibility and global scale you need.

Why successful travel and expense programmes require strategic alignment over technological sophistication

The discussion centred on a fundamental question: how do organisations design travel and expense ecosystems that unlock savings, flexibility, and control, without sacrificing visibility or adding unnecessary complexity?

The answer has less to do with selecting the "best" technology, and more to do with understanding trade-offs, aligning with reality, and recognising that traveller behaviour ultimately determines programme success.

The adoption challenge

Technology-driven travel management solutions may seem the most appealing in the sales process, but six months post-implementation, the reality kicks in. Adoption falls short, leakage persists, and those promised efficiency gains fail to materialise.

The root cause typically isn't technological inadequacy. Instead, it stems from fundamental misalignment: tools are configured for hypothetical or ideal usage, rather than actual traveller behaviour, how the travel industry operates, and how your organisation works.

Consider a common scenario:

Traveller books a flight through the approved tool
Must manually re-enter information into the expense system
Later, they discover the required hotel doesn't accept the corporate payment method, meaning it goes on their personal card to be expensed when back home.

A headache, right? If tools aren't set up to meet actual traveller needs, reflect genuine policy requirements, and integrate seamlessly with existing workflows, travellers will find alternatives. The industry has termed this principle "compliance through convenience." When the easiest path aligns with policy, compliance becomes a smooth process, rather than an enforcement challenge.

So, rather than asking "How do we control traveller behaviour?" the more productive question could be "How do we make policy-compliant choices the easiest options?". Examine your programme honestly, uncover the friction points, and work from those. Each represents a compliance risk and adoption barrier.

When everything from booking tools, payment methods, and expense systems connect seamlessly, you’ve baked compliance in.

Understanding trade-offs

Perhaps the most important insight from our ITM discussion: no perfect travel and expense stack exists. The question isn't which approach is objectively superior, but which trade-offs align with an organisation's specific circumstances.

Approach	Consolidated	Best in class
What it is	A single supplier	Specialised partners for different needs
Advantages	Reduces complexity, stability, simplifies vendor management, one single accountability.	Superior content in each region, more seamless integration, more aligned solutions.
Trade-offs	Some TMCs lack flexibility and global scale (not FCM!).	Complexity with multiple vendors, intricate integrations, greater internal coordination.

The right answer depends on programme maturity, internal resources, organisational culture, geographic footprint, and strategic priorities. Organisations must understand which trade-offs they're making, and why.

Aligning with reality

A surprisingly common pattern: organisations design T&E stacks based on aspirations or assumptions, rather than actual data about how their people travel.

During our session, I shared a telling example. A client designed their entire payment and expense infrastructure, then discovered their most-used airline didn't accept their chosen payment form. They had created guaranteed leakage before the programme had even launched.

What would have been more effective was to examine data to learn where travellers are going, which suppliers they usually use, and regular pain points. Then design accordingly.

It’s important to get the basics right before building advanced capabilities. The foundational elements aren't glamorous: tools configured to reflect actual policy, systems genuinely integrated end-to-end, content that's current and relevant, user experience intuitive for self-service, and training executed effectively. Then once the foundations are solid, advanced capabilities and strategic conversations build on top. When foundations remain shaky, even sophisticated technology underperforms.

Essential questions

Companies assessing their T&E stacks should ask themselves overarching questions before sourcing solutions.

About current state:

Do our tools drive adoption or create friction points?
Where do we compromise, and are those compromises still justified?
Do our integrations match actual spending patterns?
Can our architecture evolve as programme needs shift?

About potential changes:

What specific problem are we solving?
What will we gain, and what might we sacrifice?
Are we pursuing innovation before establishing solid foundations?
Does this reflect actual travel patterns or aspirational ones?

Moving forward to frictionless travel

Yes, innovation matters, but sometimes the most valuable path forward is creating processes and systems that just work. Tools travellers actually use. Integrations that genuinely work. Policies reflecting reality.
Travellers want to do the right thing, and it’s the role of the travel manager, in collaboration with suppliers, to create the smoothest path forward. Get the fundamental principle right, and the details become manageable.

Design from data, not assumptions
Understand trade-offs
Prioritise adoption over fancy features
Recognise that traveller convenience and programme compliance align
Don’t ask which technology is best, but which approach aligns with your circumstances.

Discover the alternative:

FCM’s partnership philosophy

Now, this wouldn’t be an article from a salesperson without a little pitch!

FCM’s approach is one that consolidates but doesn’t accept trade-offs. Bring in the partners you need, rather than the ones you’re forced into.

Our role is to connect your travel programme effectively, enable smooth integrations from multiple providers, and maintain programme consistency, while enabling flexibility.

Matthew Heymans is Europe Sales Leader at FCM, where he works with organisations to design and optimise corporate travel programmes. For continued discussion: Matthew.Heymans@uk.fcm.travel

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