BCD Travel has been managing business travel and global mobility travel for a leading global pharmaceutical company in 60+ countries for over 10 years. Travel bookings related to global mobility were managed by BCD in Switzerland and the U.S.

Global mobility travel is complex; it refers to the movement of employees across international borders for various reasons such as work assignment and repatriation, education, tourism, or migration. BCD has expertise in supporting the associated cost optimizations, logistics, arrangements and risk considerations for the following global mobility travel types:

Challenge

Employees traveling for international assignments were confused because there was no clear global directive for managing movements. The global mobility process was convoluted because relocation travel was managed by BCD in the U.S. or Switzerland, while other relocation aspects (such as housing, moving services, or passport and visa requirements) were handled in the host regions by the client’s local human resource departments or third-party suppliers. The time difference between the regions didn’t make it any easier.

BCD often received relocation travel requests with incomplete information, such as missing names or relationship of family members, eligible travel class type, or pet details like name, breed and size. This necessitated numerous follow-up emails to capture the necessary details for completing the booking.

Approach

The client established a project to streamline internal processes, partner with one global relocation company and use BCD’s expertise to broadcast and implement the changes globally.

To simplify the complexity and improve the traveler experience, BCD and the client jointly agreed to alter the process and devise a hub system to book relocation travel for employees, their family and pets in the region of relocation destination.

Using the vast experience of the Basel and U.S. teams, BCD set up four regional dedicated agent hubs: a Basel site for relocation travel to Europe; one in Singapore for relocation travel to APAC (except China); one in Shanghai for relocation travel to China and Hong Kong; and a virtual hub in the U.S. for relocation travel to North and Latin America. Relocation travel is now booked in the host region where also the supporting relocation agency is located, so there’s no time difference and email response times are faster.

BCD also reorganized the entire booking process. Whereas transient travel is booked based on the employee’s location
where the traveler profile is hosted, relocation travel is managed as a guest booking in the region of the employee’s
destination. The traveler profile will not be moved to the relocation country until travel is completed
and the employee starts working at the new destination.

BCD introduced an international assignment booking form for all relocation travel requests.
This ensures the required information is accurate and eliminates the unnecessary follow-ups for
missing details. The relocation agency sends BCD the international assignment booking form
with employee information (including accompanying family and pets) and eligibility, based on
the client’s travel policy for global mobility. If the booking form is complete, BCD provides an
offer with travel options to the agency and employee. Once relocation details are approved,
BCD makes the final booking.