Speed. Accuracy. Scalability. These are the things on the minds of nearly every travel company in today’s 
global travel marketplace. Because the travel landscape is populated with so many major players, the prospect of administering back-office tasks and other repetitive, non-complex functions is a critical pain point for travel companies in creating sustainable growth, productivity, and profitability.
This is where a travel ERP solution is an important value proposition for travel companies in streamlining tasks and processes. The capacity of a travel ERP solution to automate workflows and back-office tasks, and fast, accurate invoicing and documentation reduce headaches by streamlining once manual, time-consuming activities and providing travel companies with greater visibility across each touch point of the value chain.
Because a travel ERP solution is an integrated, comprehensive suite of software solutions, a travel ERP has the capacity to cut through the complexity associated with working with a number of suppliers, vendors, third-party clients, and other players throughout the value stream. This reduces the potential for inaccurate bookings, errors, and miscalculations in supply and demand, each of which can have significant impacts on efficiency and productivity for travel management companies.
With all this in mind, the question becomes: How does a travel ERP solution enhance business operations and transactions and provide travel companies with viable opportunities for long-term growth? To help answer this question, let’s examine a few ways how a travel ERP system drives travel company growth in the short, mid, and long-term.
Managing client-supplier relations
Managing the relationship and transactions between client and suppliers is a key driver for travel companies to foster a lean and efficient value chain - not to mention one of transparency and visibility whereby travel companies have optimal maneuverability with their products and services in terms of pricing availability, and other factors. Via web-enabled, intelligent technology, travel ERP systems can integrate with third-party systems to manage requests, quotes, and sales across channels; automatically generate associated travel and fiscal documents; leverage reporting tools to provide reliable management information; and import or export data between reporting or accounting systems.
Such functionality makes it easy for travel companies to obtain, review, analyze, and share product and service data with clients and suppliers, which creates enhanced visibility across all points of the value chain from supplier to customer.
Optimizing workflows
In an age when travelers prize speed, convenience, and availability in their interactions with travel management companies, ERP solutions provide travel companies with the capacity to optimize workflows and streamline mid-back office processes to provide customers with the expediency they seek. As an example, take simple back office or operational processes like payment and invoicing: travel ERP systems automatically manage these actions, eliminating the need for manual reconciliation activities. These workflows are also highly scalable and a common data model means management not only has more accurate operational information, it also has more visibility into, and control over, activities taking place in the business.
This level of optimization allows travel companies to then focus more on the products and services they offer travelers, but also increases the speed and efficiency with which they can conduct business and manage customer relations.
Reporting and troubleshooting
Perhaps in greater quantities than other industries, the travel industry contains a certain amount of uncertainty based simply on the premise that cancellations or disruptions are inevitable. Flights get delayed. Inclement weather cancels activities. Regional unrest can alter lodging or hotel accommodations. To help mitigate and manage the complexities created by this uncertainty, travel ERP solutions provides travel comopanies with powerful data and reporting tools to help managers plan for these disruptions and create failsafe strategies to deal with them when they occur. These reporting and data analysis capabilities also help travel companies estimate and forecast; organize, plan and control; make highly informed decisions to improve operations; and increase revenues and elevate profitability.
Travel ERP as a holistic value proposition
Whether a travel company is searching for more cost-effective ways of managing client and supplier relationships or leveraging large amounts of data into a more robust platform for positioning a product or service to a certain market or customer, travel ERP solutions are core drivers in helping travel companies remain a strong, relevant part of today’s travel industry. Because travel ERP systems help travel companies can valuable insight into their processes and functions, they act as holistic game-changers in helping travel companies realize new potential and opportunity. Understanding how a travel ERP solution can function as a competitive advantage can and should be a top priority for travel companies as they search for and discover new methods of streamlining processes and increasing productivity in a complex, global environment.
