INSIGHTS
Spotlight: Shaun Clear takes you behind the scenes of FCM
Corporate travel might look simple on the surface. But behind those smooth experiences sits a lot of moving parts. System upgrades, process refinement, and new tools rolling out. With operations in more than 97 countries and thousands of employees At FCM Travel, that work never really stops.
To take a closer look at what’s happening behind the scenes, we sat down with Shaun Clear, Global Head of Operations at FCM. His team focuses on service delivery and operational performance across our global network, ensuring customers receive consistent support wherever their people go.
Here’s a peek at what’s happening.
Building a global model that still feels local
A global travel management company (TMC) needs universal standards, but our 20+ year experience has taught us that travel expectations vary. What works in one market doesn’t always work in another. "We have very clean principles at FCM, says Shaun. “Our ethos is to be a globally enabled TMC that delivers local flavour.”
In some markets, a customer prefers picking up the phone and speaking to an FCM consultant. In others, self-service booking tools are the go-to. At FCM, we can accommodate both. “FCM’s operating model is designed for flexibility and adaptability. Many FCM customers have a multi-market footprint, so consistency is key. Yet, we empower our people to focus on customer-centric initiatives rather than a one-size-fits-all approach.”
Our people subscribe to the FCM culture of accountability, always finding a way, and getting things done for the customer,” said Shaun.
The initiatives on today’s stack
FCM is in a constant state of evolution. Whether that be across technology, workflows, or people. “Look at your phone's apps; there are always changes and updates. That’s how we approach our operations. We are always tuning the engine because that is what customers expect,” said Shaun.
Here’s a look at some key initiatives doing that:
Workspace
One of the biggest investments has been Workspace. Think of it as a central command centre for consultants. Unifying every customer touchpoint, bringing email, phone, chat, and quoting into a single dashboard for consultants. “Workspace has created a consistent building block for our consultants, and it’s always being upgraded,” said Shaun.
A key feature of Workspace is AI integration, which automatically handles emails that don’t require a human response. Workspace identifies incoming emails that don’t require action and closes them automatically. These emails alone used to account for around 27% of consultant email traffic. The next phase will tackle supplier emails, like hotel confirmations or airline reminders, which could automate another 23% of inbound enquires.
Together, these improvements mean consultants spend far less time sorting through emails and admin. “Workspace brings every customer touchpoint together in one place, and that’s had a real impact on the experience we deliver. Our people are now free to do what they do best. Apply their empathy, problem-solving skills, and real-life travel experience to help customers.” said Shaun. “We’re hearing from customers that there’s been a noticeable lift in service quality, and our SLA and CSAT results are backing that up.”
Single mid-back office (MBO)
Another major investment underway is the global rollout of a single mid-back office (MBO). This system acts as the operational engine connecting bookings, payments, reporting and financial processing into one platform. “Deploying a single mid-back office connects our supply chain in a much smarter way,” said Shaun. “It brings together traditional airline content, NDC, and hotel aggregators into one environment.”
This connectivity has also driven higher levels of automation behind the scenes. “For customers, that means bookings are processed faster and with greater accuracy. It also improves visibility across travel, expense and tax reporting, bringing everything together in just a few clicks,” said Shaun.
FCM Help Centre
FCM recently launched a new Help Centre within FCM Platform to give users instant support. This intuitive portal answers self-serve queries, like resetting passwords or syncing profiles. Help Centre provides direct technical support, multi-language capabilities, and a library of self-help articles. “Help Centre is modern and gives customers quick self-service resolutions. FCM support case resolution is about 20% faster, and the number of cases tied to individual transactions has dropped by 12%.” said Shaun.
All these operations improvements have led to:
*FCM Travel global data.
Piloting new ideas with customers
There is plenty on, but not every idea rolls out globally straight away. Many start off as pilots, often inspired by customer conversations.
Unprofiled travellers
One pilot currently underway focuses on guest or unprofiled travellers. These are people travelling for a company but not listed in the organisation’s HR systems, like job candidates flying in for interviews. Traditionally, these bookings require a lot of manual intervention.
The new approach sends the traveller a secure booking link where they can enter their own details and complete the booking. The information flows straight back into the company’s travel data.
Disruption dashboard
Another pilot is a real-time disruption dashboard built alongside a global customer. It gives travel managers visibility into delays, cancellations, and disruptions affecting their travellers around the world.
These pilots help test new ideas before expanding them more broadly. As Shaun puts it, if a customer brings a challenge to the team, the mindset is usually. “Let’s have a crack and see if we can solve it together.”
How we decide what gets changed
There’s never a shortage of ideas at FCM. Customers, teams, partners, suppliers - they all have them. The challenge is deciding which ideas move the needle. For Shaun, the starting point is always the same question: will this create a better experience for customers?
If the answer is yes, the next step is understanding the impact. Will it make travel easier to manage? Save time for consultants, bookers or travellers? Improve visibility for finance or procurement teams?
From there, the focus turns to speed and testing. “We like to move quickly with pilots,” says Shaun. “If something has potential, we’ll test it with a small group of customers, learn from it, and then look at how we scale it across the world.”
Just as important is how those changes are rolled out.
“Customers won’t suddenly log in one day and find everything has changed overnight. Instead, they’re brought along for the journey with structured change management and the chance to be part of pilots along the way.”
So, what's next?
VIP Travel
Looking ahead, one area receiving attention is our VIP travel service. As companies expand globally, their senior leaders are travelling across more regions than ever before and supporting those travellers requires a very different level of service. “Historically, we have seen VIPs concentrated in a few major markets. Now organisations may have senior executives travelling from multiple countries around the world,” said Shaun.
But finding the right balance between tech and people is the key to a great VIP traveller experience. “There is heaps of AI buzz (and rightly so), but what about the service? What about how someone feels after dealing with us? What about empathy? What about that human touch?” said Shaun.
Shaun’s team is actively looking into FCM Travel’s VIP solution to optimise the service across all region. The team will focus on paring new technology with white-glove service, and changing expectations, ensuring automation never makes a travel experience feel impersonal. “The journey never really stops. We’re always looking at what’s next and how we can keep improving for customers.”