Sometimes when you travel, all you can think about is how slow things are. You’re stuck in security behind someone who forgot to remove their laptop. Customs and immigration lines are long. Luggage can take an eternity to arrive. But speed is the word that has framed my travels since I’ve come back to BCD. So far, I have toured eight BCD locations and attended the annual Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) convention in Dallas (more on that in a minute).
Why speed?
First, I heard loud and clear from our employees that they want to be able to move more quickly and efficiently in their service to clients. You can be sure that my mission is to keep BCD’s focus tightly on the solutions, services and processes that are key for our service teams and the people we serve. We are driving toward faster results.
I’ve seen what we can accomplish in moving quickly. For example, I visited our new Asia Pacific Service Center (ASC) in Colombo, Sri Lanka, which grew from idea to full execution in less than a year. The ASC is great proof of our success in creating structures that help us work more efficiently, like the European Service Center, whose teams I visited in Barcelona and Warsaw earlier this summer, and our Shared Service Centers in Bangalore and Costa Rica (which I will visit in future).
FOLLOW STEPHAN ON LINKEDINGBTA Dallas 2023 was an amazing experience. It was great to meet new people and get reacquainted with industry friends. I was excited about reactions to BCD Invite, our new solution for unprofiled travelers; TripSource®; and Advito’s Total Trip Insights. These are all ways we’re helping our clients be fast and effective AND making our own lives easier.
If you haven’t seen the GBTA Broadcast Studio interview with Yannis Karmis, BCD’s SVP Product Planning & Development, it’s worth watching. Yannis addressed the role and potential of artificial intelligence (AI) in business travel. At BCD, we have been using AI for years to do things like match transactions to credit card data and power price assurance technology. Today, we’re actively testing and planning for new use cases that will bring even more value to you, your travelers and our agents.
I returned to BCD with high expectations and great memories – and so far, both are right on track.
