SMEs on the lookout for new business travel tools

There are the big companies, their validation circuits, their management tools... And then there are the others, the plethora of small structures, this forest of very small businesses hidden behind the CAC 40 tree. There are more than three million of them in France, with annual sales of 1,300 billion euros, or more than a third (36 %) of the total! But small as they may be, these SMEs don't necessarily travel any less. They have realised that, in order to enter the big league, they often have to travel the roads, stations and airports.

As for defining the 'style' of SME business travel, a typology of its journeys, the task is an arduous one. Behind the three capital letters "SME" lie a wide variety of profiles and realities. What they have in common is the INSEE definition: "The category of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is made up of companies employing less than 250 peopleand have a annual sales of less than €50 million".

Edenred, which offers the business travel management solution Ticket Travel Prois the latest player to survey this diverse market. According to a study published a few months ago, the vast majority of business trips (80 %) are limited to the domestic market. Consequently, petrol would generate the greatest number of expense reports (31 %), ahead of hotels (22 %) and the restoration (18 %). However, it is the plane that represents the largest volume of expenditure (29 %), ahead of accommodation (27 %). This is followed by petrol (12 %), restaurants (10 %) taxis and VTCs (10 %), the car rental (7 %) and finally the train (5 %). These figures should be seen in the context of the total cost of business travel for SMEs, which amounts to 30 billion euros each year.

Lack of visibility

Beyond the statistics, this study has the merit of highlighting the main frustrations of these small structures: "too much time spent managing expense claims", "difficult to recover VAT", "no real-time tracking", "a posteriori control". To put it plainly, SMEs lack the tools, and therefore the visibility, to manage their travel spend. They are also cruelly short of time. "Companies are buying productivity gains, particularly in SMEs that are just-in-time, that often travels on a "best buy" basis and expects a return on investment"says Michel Dinh, Managing Director of Havas Voyages.

However, a number of solutions exist, such as Ticket Travel Pro, but also those of other players who have entered the market more or less recently. Created three years ago, Expensya, a platform dedicated to managing business expenses, is still a relative newcomer. Its start-up status is attracting a growing number of companies, most of them SMEs attracted by the innovative nature of its solution. "Among our 3,000 corporate customers, VSEs and SMEs inevitably remain in the majority, since major accounts are always a little apprehensive about choosing a player that has just started up."explains Karim Jouini, founder of Expensya.

While expense management solutions are on the front line, so are business travel agencies. "VSEs and SMEs are our main target"said Michel Dinh at the launch of the Havas Voyages Connect tool. Havas Voyages intends to promote the role of the agency in a market where everything remains to be done: "only 10 % of SMEs that travel are intermediated, i.e. less than 70,000 small businesses"he notes. Against this backdrop, the service and the proximity play a decisive role. "We have chosen to preserve our physical network for SMEsexplains Michel Dinh. It's an important point of contact for our existing customers, but also for recruitment. Every year, on average, we recruit over 30 % of our new customers through our network, rather than through our 'traditional' sales force. Small businesses often have very strong local roots, and even if the brand is very well recognised, the local relationship is one of the arguments of choice.."

Digital and local

Proximity and the human touch are not the only arguments on which travel agencies can rely. Technology plays a predominant role, as Egencia has been able to take advantage of from the outset. The business travel agency is still focusing on small companies: "We are significantly expanding our sales to key account and international customers, while maintaining our growth in the SME segment, where we are the market leader."Ronan Bergez, Sales Director for Egencia France.

With the democratisation of new technologies, the major networks no longer have a monopoly on innovation. "We're trying to stand out in the digital field"says Lucas Vigne, the agency's manager. Turquoise which is regularly improving its M Turquoise mobile application. To better inform travellers. Uvet France is also investing in new technologies, with the launch in January 2018 of an "in-house" online booking tool called BizTravel. A dedicated solution for managing expense claims and mission orders is also in the pipeline.

The efforts of agencies targeting SMEs are not limited to technology. Like the big TMCs, they are also working on content and aggregating new suppliers. At the recent IFTM Top Resa trade show, Havas Voyages, for example, officially launched its first distribution agreement with MagicStaya French specialist in collaborative hosting.

There's nothing trivial about it. Because small businesses are generally in the front line when it comes to experimenting with new alternatives. Long before major accounts, SMEs were the first to succumb to the the temptation of low-cost airlines. Airbnb, Uber or Trainline have also proved popular with smaller organisations, whose employees can more easily transfer their 'leisure' booking habits to the workplace.

Quite often, the rule for SMEs is simple: find the best value for money, whatever the tool. But this freedom to manoeuvre is not without risk. How can you locate a business traveller if their booking data is beyond your control?

The problem of "duty of care" is still often relegated to the background, far behind the economic imperatives facing small businesses. Collecting data without putting a strain on the SME's finances: that's what's at stake when it comes to winning over this buoyant market.