What does your new role as Head of Travel, Advisory and Community entail?
Sandra Lévy – I spent nearly 18 years in purchasing at METRO, including 8 years in indirect purchasing, where as indirect purchasing manager for the last 3 years, I was able to manage purchasing across the entire business travel chain; I also had the opportunity to be a member of the AFTM board of directors, which allowed me to understand how difficult it is for companies to balance employee experience, cost control and compliance. In my role, I support companies in their travel challenges: optimizing costs, improving the traveler experience, innovation, CSR…; I have also created a Travel Experts Community to share best practices, advance the industry and listen to customers, putting the customer voice internally and connecting with the Product teams.
Does this transition from the world of purchasing to that of TMC give you a different approach?
Sandra Lévy – Absolutely. For years, I have been in the purchasing department, where I understand perfectly the challenges: the need for visibility on spending, the requirement for control and compliance, the need for fluidity in the traveler experience, not to mention the CSR and Duty of Care issues. Today, at Navan, this experience of being a purchasing professional is my greatest strength. Instead of seeing travel management as a cost center to consolidate, this dual culture allows me to approach it as a lever for commitment and productivity. I was also impressed by their ability to differentiate themselves from the market by immediately creating a unified technology that brings together travel agency, booking management, payment, expense notes, and, more recently, with the acquisition of BoomPop, Meetings&Events management. I have been following their trajectory for a while, and I am very happy to join the team in a framework that I will be able to create and develop myself.
You obviously subscribe to Navan’s vision on AI...
Sandra Lévy – Absolutely. We are now moving beyond the framework of reactive interfaces or chatbot concepts, to a truly proactive and predictive AI. At Navan, AI doesn’t wait for prompts: it anticipates. If the weather conditions deteriorate or heavy traffic threatens to impact a flight, the AI automatically suggests advancing the taxi/VTC time. It adjusts connections in case of train delays and memorizes each employee’s habits, such as booking lounge access at the airport. This is the vision we are now concretizing with TravelClaw, our AI agent designed as a true personal assistant for each employee.
Does this obsession with simplifying the traveler’s life extend to the back-office as well?
Sandra Lévy – Absolutely. This simplicity benefits all stakeholders: the Travel Manager, the buyer, the HR department for the duty of care, and the CFO. From a purchasing perspective, what immediately struck me is the real-time automated dashboards. Today, you can immediately access the details of travel spend. This allows for informed decision-making based on reliable and up-to-date data, rather than spending time manually aggregating and re-processing heterogeneous files from multiple suppliers, which up until now represented a significant portion of the buyer’s daily workload…
Technology wasn’t the weak point that was pointed out about Navan. Does AI solve everything? What role remains for the human being, and what about the takeover of Reed & Mackay?
Sandra Lévy – This is a question we are often asked. Our virtual assistant, Ava, now resolves more than % 50 requests autonomously. When the situation requires a more complex intervention, the call is immediately taken, via chat or by phone, by our support teams: employees from Navan with an average of seven years of experience in business travel, whose remuneration is indexed to customer satisfaction, not to profit or additional sales. This service, available 24/7, is included in our offer: a collaborator can contact us ten times without any additional cost. This same logic of excellent service has guided the acquisition of Reed & Mackay. We work in symbiosis, especially for VIP clients through the Navan Pro offer.
Isn’t the ultimate goal to automate 90 to 100 jobs % through AI?
Sandra Lévy – I think there will always be a need for humans to make certain decisions, especially problematic ones. There is a governance issue behind it. The role of the travel manager is changing: we are moving from a role focused on crisis management and improving administrative processes to a role that focuses on strategic decisions that serve the transformation of the company. The ROI of projects, the duty of care, CSR… It is becoming a complete and strategic role. Some thought their job would disappear in two years; on the contrary, it is transforming and becoming more strategic.
What about data privacy as AI takes on more of a role, especially in these VIP transfers?
Sandra Lévy – Indeed, there are many potential misuses of AI. Fortunately, we have numerous IT security protocols and certifications: SOC 1 Type 2, SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001. We have maximum security, and internally, some AI are allowed, others are not. We comply with these rules and we are highly scrutinized in this regard. Clients also have very detailed IT checklists to complete; it’s almost the first thing we see in tender documents now.
The latest Navan barometer indicated the rise in popularity of trains over airplanes. A surprise?
Sandra Lévy – No, it’s an important topic for us, and customers are demanding it in the area of sustainability. We are addressing it through Navan Nudge: on a route like Paris-Marseille by plane, a pop-up suggests switching to train, indicating the possible carbon emission savings, while retaining the option of flying as a choice for the traveler. We also offer the automatic reconciliation of carbon balances using three calculation methods to find out the emissions based on the type of aircraft. CO₂ emissions are displayed from the moment of booking, not after the fact. We also have a partnership with Squake, which enriches our calculation engine with extremely granular carbon data (taking into account the type of device, filling rates, and exact routes) to inform the traveler’s choice at the time of booking, and we offer customers the opportunity to participate in SAF in aviation through a contract with Neste, which allows them to save up to % 80 emissions.
Could you talk about the acquisition of BoomPop?
Sandra Lévy – This is good news: on the same platform, users will benefit from full event management. To put it in my buyer’s hat: managing an event, with sourcing suppliers, venue, travel, logistics, and visibility on the actual cost was a real headache. With BoomPop, they will have full visibility and be able to measure the cost and ROI of the event. BoomPop brings together a set of partnerships with hotels and different venues, as well as AI to pre-source locations up to the full management of the event. There is also integration with Engine via an API that allows for changes or cancellations even after the event or travel has started; a flexibility that few tools currently allow.
We have been talking about the rapprochement between travel management and MICE for at least a dozen years now, without much progress. So, is it finally becoming a reality?
Sandra Lévy – Exactly, and it makes sense. MICE accounts for nearly % 30% of travel spending, but remains little visible because it is fragmented: transportation on the one hand, hotel accommodations on the other, etc. Now we will be able to consolidate the data and have relevant analyses for the decisions to be taken regarding future events.
What is your roadmap for the coming months?
Sandra Lévy – At Navan, there is still a lot of innovation to come; some of it will be announced at Navigate, our EMEA event organized on October 15 in Paris, after the New York event in May. The idea is to bring together decision-makers around talks on the future of AI and travel, with workshops and peer-to-peer exchanges. Personally, I want to continue creating events and networking opportunities for buyers and travel managers, in a smaller format. We are setting up Customer Advisory Boards internationally, two to three per year; I would like to create one locally in Paris, in French. The VIP service or TravelClaw was also born directly from the feedback from the field: active listening to our customers is an integral part of Navan’s DNA.
Navan also places a great deal of emphasis on its remuneration system…
All the agencies emphasize the integration of NDC…
Sandra Lévy – But how many actually do it and with how many airlines? At Navan France, 80 % of our tickets are made with the main French airline in NDC.
What about the hotel industry?
Sandra Lévy – References are made to Booking, Expedia, Priceline, Agoda content, in addition to negotiated rates, in addition to the latest NDC announced, the First on the travel market with the group Hilton. We are truly making our customers benefit from the best content available. We still manage nearly 12 billion dollars in travel spending worldwide every year. We are making our customers benefit from our preferential rates. 70 % of the bookings are made on the top five results. For the user, the adoption rate reaches % 90 on average. The savings that can be realized are 15 on % average in the travel budget. The NDC integrations are also key. It is crucial that the employees trust the platform. Since they can find all the content available live, leakage drops. And so, in the end, it is a triple win. The user easily books a trip – on average in just seven minutes. The company generates savings and has visibility into spending. And at Navan, we enjoy an excellent adoption rate. We know that travelers use our platform. Everyone wins in the end, so we have every interest in developing this system. As for hotels, we incentivize employees with Navan Rewards to encourage them to choose a hotel that is cheaper than their travel policy. They earn points that they can spend on a personal trip. I find that very virtuous.
