Outsourcing can take many forms, from operational support to strategic guidance. In this case, Scania had a specific need: deep subject matter expertise to build out a comprehensive travel tech strategy. FESTIVE ROAD provided the precise expertise needed to help deliver that strategy effectively.
Scania is a world-leading provider of transport solutions, including trucks and buses for heavy transport applications combined with an extensive product- related service offering. They have 58,000 employees in about 100 countries and together with their partners and customers they are driving the shift towards a sustainable transport system, creating a world of mobility that is better for business, society and the environment.
The Mission
When Mia Andersson was appointed as Scania’s Head of Global Travel Management in 2022, Scania operated in 15 markets using the same global Travel Management Company (TMC), but there was no central support and limited travel knowledge, resulting in a lack of global management cohesion.
To address these gaps, Mia conducted a comprehensive assessment of the travel programme, starting with a listening exercise — a series of interviews with stakeholders at various levels across different markets. The goal was to understand the needs, challenges, and opportunities for improvement.
With a deeper understanding of these insights, the next step was to create a travel programme strategy that could not only meet current demands but also align with Scania’s shifting needs and objectives.
At a glance
Challenges
- Outdated and ineffective travel programme with no global policy or consistent guidelines.
- Limited visibility of global travel spend.
- No centralised management across 15 markets, leading to inefficiency and dissatisfaction.
- Lack of local expertise in travel management, with procurement handling travel without subject matter expertise.
- Insufficient internal IT resources, which stalled progress on programme improvements.
- Lack of a Global HR tool presented challenges around global process alignment and efficiency.
The mission was clear: “To create a purposeful travel programme with the ability to manage, influence, and control according to Scania’s evolving needs.”
The mission was clear: “To create a purposeful travel programme with the ability to manage, influence, and control according to Scania’s evolving needs.”
The Issue
Scania’s travel programme was not optimised. It was outdated, ineffective, and lacking the necessary infrastructure to meet the growing demands of the business. With limited visibility into travel spend and no global travel policy in place, there was a significant gap in centralised management. Each of the 15 markets was operating independently without the necessary leadership or local expertise to optimise travel management.
Procurement had oversight, but with no business ownership and no dedicated subject matter experts in place, this led to dissatisfaction and inefficiencies. This fragmented approach prevented the company from creating a purposeful travel programme that could effectively manage, influence, and control according to Scania’s future direction.
The Solution
Following in-depth research, Mia formulated a travel programme strategy, elevating Travel to a high- priority project that gained top senior management attention. To ensure alignment and governance, she established a Travel Steering Committee.
With execution as the next step, Mia recognised the need for a formidable team to drive her ambitious strategy forward. Technology was a critical enabler, requiring specialised expertise. To address this, investments were approved to bring in a Tech Experience Manager, alongside more traditional travel management roles.
Why outsource the Tech Experience Manager role? Given the need for deep subject matter expertise, Mia opted for an external expert to build out the travel tech strategy, partner with key stakeholders, and ultimately transition ownership to the internal team—leaving them in a much stronger position for long-term success.
With a background in product management and deep experience in strategy development, FESTIVE ROAD’s Ami Taylor was the perfect match.
Ami’s holistic view brought strategic travel tech innovation to the project, guided by FESTIVE ROAD’s hive mind approach. Operating as an internal Scania team member, Ami successfully created the programme’s tech strategy into a robust, efficient, and scalable system that aligns with Scania’s strategic goals and meets its evolving needs.
Overall, with Ami’s support, Mia successfully rolled out a comprehensive global travel programme that has evolved into a mature, cutting-edge solution. Initially covering 15 markets and 60% of travel spend, it has expanded to 22 markets, covering 90% of spend— supporting 17,000 travellers and 57,000 trips annually. This enhanced programme now delivers greater efficiency, visibility, and value.
The successful rollout of the travel programme was driven by close collaboration between Mia and Ami. Ami played a key role in streamlining complex technical requirements, working cross-functionally to ensure clarity and alignment while proactively identifying and mitigating risks. As the project evolved, Ami worked closely with Mia to adapt the approach, prioritising emerging needs and driving several key innovations to enhance the programme’s impact.
At a glance
Outcomes
The implementation of the new travel programme delivered significant outcomes, improving both efficiency and cost management across the company:
- 20% savings in total travel spend over 18 months, demonstrating the effectiveness of the global strategy and new processes, with a 25% increase in online adoption, guiding the right behaviours of travellers.
- Despite increased travel volume compared to 2022, average ticket prices have decreased by 10% per trip, reflecting the programme’s cost-efficiency.
- 10% savings achieved in process efficiency, driving further cost avoidance and operational streamlining.
- The programme mitigated inflation costs by around 20%, nearly as much as the savings, with a 2023 cost of living impact being offset by strategic programme changes.
- The successful implementation of the Scania Group Travel Policy has helped steer the right behaviours, ensuring compliance and supporting travel guidelines.
- A centralised team to support local markets, ensuring consistency and driving efficiency.
- A clear Global Travel Strategy that aligns with the company’s evolving needs.
- The ‘Travel Transformation’ project expanded to now include rail, hotel, and car rental, which are all centrally paid, extending the programme’s reach beyond air travel.
- A simplified and streamlined processes to drive efficiency and collaboration.
- Successful implementation of a global tech strategy and visibility of aviation emissions across 70% of spend.
Transforming Scania’s Travel Tech Approach – Key Innovations
As Tech Experience Manager, Ami played a pivotal role in shaping the programme’s evolution, adapting to emerging needs and driving hands-on innovations throughout the project. By leveraging data-driven insights and automation, Ami worked to enhance efficiency, ensure compliance, and integrate sustainability across the programme and supported by Scania’s Travel Team.
Strategic Adaptation
While the initial remit focused on specific objectives, the project evolved in response to emerging priorities. Ami collaborated closely with the client to identify key focus areas, flexing the approach to align with their needs:
Traveller & Booker Survey:
Insights gathered from this survey informed decision- making, ensuring the programme directly addressed the needs of travellers and bookers.
Forecasting Scenarios:
Implemented to identify the most impactful behavioural changes, ensuring that actions were focused on achieving savings targets in line with the programme’s key performance indicators (KPIs).
Policy Gap Analysis & Benchmarking:
By evaluating existing travel policies against industry best practices, gaps and opportunities for optimisation were identified. This analysis was instrumental in facilitating internal discussions on the future management of the programme.
Tech-Led Enhancements
With a strong focus on technology, Ami introduced several key innovations as part of the outsourced project:
Travel Profile Management System:
Designed to give travellers greater control over their data, this system enhances flexibility within the programme by providing a single source of truth across all suppliers. It simplifies supplier transitions, resolves issues with guest bookings, and reduces business risk while integrating emissions insights critical for the ‘purposeful’ travel programme.
Emissions Tracking Tool:
Clarasight was implemented, enabling Scania to track and report travel-related emissions on a monthly basis. The insights generated supported strategic decision-making and key initiatives, including policy benchmarking, and forecasting scenarios. While the tool currently focuses on emissions reporting, plans for 2025 onwards aim to enhance it with real-time tracking and integration of financial and emissions data into a single view.
HRS Pay – Virtual Card Payments:
Virtual card payments for hotel bookings streamlined the payment process, providing better visibility into travel spend. By the time the project concluded, the virtual card programme had gone live in two markets, with groundwork laid for expansion into additional markets in 2025 and beyond. The primary benefits focused on improving the employee experience by harmonising payment strategies and enabling future efficiencies across the programme.
Invisible Spend Project:
Sourcing a provider was key and demonstrating how third-party platform bookings could be integrated into the company’s processes – enhancing visibility of spend, supporting duty of care compliance, and contributing to the quality of CSRD reporting.
Automated Pre-Trip Approval System:
The automation streamlined a previously fragmented manual approval process across different departments, making it auditable and efficient. By transitioning from an ‘approve then book’ to a ‘book then approve’ flow, the system not only sped up the pre-trip process but also improved the advance purchase time window, contributing to a reduction in the average ticket price.
Cytric Easy Implementation:
A new user-friendly online booking tool was introduced, providing travellers and bookers with a much-needed mobile booking solution. While the booking process remained similar to the previous experience, the tool’s collaboration features – such as ‘Share My Trip’ and a centralised dashboard – were particularly well-received by Scania users, who appreciated having all trips in one place.
End-to-End Payment Automation:
The groundwork for the payment automation process was laid and set to launch shortly after the project concluded. The first stage focused on process change —invoice data was cross- checked by the finance team against pre-approval information (from the project above) and automatically sent for payment, eliminating the need for two additional rounds of approval from the business. This initial change significantly increased efficiency across the payment cycle.
Ensuring Compliance & Sustainable Implementation
Ami worked closely with the appointed Data Protection Officer (DPO) and IT security teams to ensure that all technological solutions adhered to internal IT and data privacy standards, reinforcing the security and compliance of the project. Additionally, previously rolled-out technologies were revisited to ensure they also met all necessary compliance requirements.
Empowering Scania’s Travel Team
Through strategic guidance and hands-on support, Ami provided the team with a clear roadmap, boosting their confidence in executing the strategy and enabling them to actively implement the programme. This ensured its ongoing success and alignment with Scania’s company goals. The Outsourced project’s success was underpinned by a strong partnership with Mia, Scania’s Head of Global Travel Management, whose leadership in bringing Ami on board as an outsourced technical expert was pivotal in future-proofing the global travel programme for long-term success.
These tangible outcomes reflect the successful transformation of Scania’s travel programme, delivering both financial savings and operational improvements while aligning with the company’s broader goals of sustainability and traveller safety, achieved together in partnership with FESTIVE ROAD.
“Partnering with FESTIVE ROAD has been a game-changer for us. Ami Taylor has been instrumental in bringing a phenomenal outside-in perspective to the programme, sharing insightful industry practices that have helped shape our travel management and travel technology strategy. Regular check-ins with Louise Kilgannon, Head of Outsourcing every two months have been invaluable, sparking strategic conversations and fostering innovative thinking to continuously improve.
The results speak for themselves: our travellers are more satisfied, our programme is more effective, and employee feedback indicates increased productivity and efficiency. The communication efforts to ensure everyone is informed and onboard have been a team effort, facilitated by our collaboration with FESTIVE ROAD. Together, these efforts have not only transformed the travel programme but have also strengthened Scania’s culture of collaboration and innovation. We have created a global programme that excels in efficiency and impact, delivering exceptional results.”
Mia Andersson
Head of Global Travel Management
“Partnering with FESTIVE ROAD has been a game-changer for us. Ami Taylor has been instrumental in bringing a phenomenal outside-in perspective to the programme, sharing insightful industry practices that have helped shape our travel management and travel technology strategy. Regular check-ins with Louise Kilgannon, Head of Outsourcing every two months have been invaluable, sparking strategic conversations and fostering innovative thinking to continuously improve.
The results speak for themselves: our travellers are more satisfied, our programme is more effective, and employee feedback indicates increased productivity and efficiency. The communication efforts to ensure everyone is informed and onboard have been a team effort, facilitated by our collaboration with FESTIVE ROAD. Together, these efforts have not only transformed the travel programme but have also strengthened Scania’s culture of collaboration and innovation. We have created a global programme that excels in efficiency and impact, delivering exceptional results.”
Mia Andersson
Head of Global Travel Management
FESTIVE ROAD is the only purpose-led independent company providing consulting and outsourcing services for buyers across global travel, meetings and payment.