“The FESTIVE ROAD team offered a refreshingly personable and authentic approach, coupled with knowledge, credibility, methodology, structure, and great consultative rigour. Their strategic review of our programme, using the Managed Travel Model™ provided a detailed roadmap for change which led to the appointment of a (interim) global travel manager. Managing travel has gone from being a real challenge to an activity that I’m proud to be associated with and is rewarding to be a part of.”
The Issue: With increasingly frustrated traveller voices and strained supplier relationships the programme had become highly tactical. With time dedicated to firefighting instead of longer-term thinking, a fresh perspective was needed.
The Solution: The joint team started by working through a clear understanding of the Arcadis internal challenges. Then, using FESTIVE ROAD’s proprietary Managed Travel Model™ and external market knowledge, the team created an in-depth gap analysis and detailed plan for improvement for the Arcadis travel management strategy.
The Result: Arcadis now have clarity on the long-term vision for the travel programme which has been endorsed by the Executive leadership team. The ongoing management of the programme is more focused, supplier relationships are improved, and negative internal voices reduced.
“With Arcadis being a consultancy ourselves, we naturally have high standards and expectations. We were so impressed with FESTIVE ROAD’s methodology that we applied their approach to other categories within the business.”
The Issue: Arcadis had found managing the travel programme a real challenge. Beset by the impact of low resource investment, a pure procurement focus and limited strategic direction the management of the programme was taking up time and energy without effective results. It needed dedicated resource and expertise.
The Solution: Having completed the strategy phase, the direction and what needed to be delivered was clear but the who and how still an open question. FESTIVE ROAD provided an outsourced Travel Management solution, focused on delivering against a robust set of objectives.
The Result: Outsourcing provides a resource that is immediately operational and effective from day 1. A few months on and managing travel has gone from being a personal challenge to something enjoyable to manage and a positive force within the business. Martin tells us he’s much happier – and making Martin happy is what we are all about.
“People buy people. It’s a real differentiator. There was real honesty from FESTIVE ROAD throughout the negotiation and during the relationship since.”
The Issue: With the plan ready, getting the right people to implement it was key. Arcadis was looking for a personable and authentic approach to resonate with their culture.
The Solution: Matching great people with great clients isn’t only our approach, it’s our bedrock to success. From the initial engagement with Arcadis through to the first phase of delivery and on to implementation FESTIVE ROAD assigned different people with different skills, but each with the same core ethos of integrity, honesty and openness.
The Result: From the very first engagement, Arcadis said they were struck by the authenticity, knowledge, technical competency and credibility of the FESTIVE ROAD team and how this helped drive the project’s success. Well done team!
“I can summarise our engagement with FESTIVE ROAD as – It has been a pleasure working with a really great bunch of people who clearly know what they’re doing.”
Arcadis was looking for an independent view to help them re-define travel management strategy.
Within two months, Arcadis moved through a complete strategic review, resulting in a right-sized, bespoke roadmap for the travel programme.In the short term, the positive exposure of the travel programme and its strategy to the C-Suite increased considerably and the negative exposure (from traveller voices etc) decreased.
To speak to Martin about how clear Arcadis are on their travel strategy and how proud he is to be leading the programme these days, or to talk to one of the Festive Road team contact hello@festive-road.com.
