How would you sum up the past year?
Stéphane Donders - Once again, we had a good year, marked by an increase in our sales. double-digit growthThis was in line with the objectives we had set ourselves, i.e. +20%. I'm not obsessed with growth for growth's sake, but it's something that reflects the company's momentum in its market. It's also worth noting that we didn't lose a single customer in 2017. We have a retention rate of 100%, and I have enough experience to measure how exceptional that is. The volume of transactions increased by 24%. Our expense business grew by 51%. In December, which is a good month for processing expense claims, we carried out 60% of transactions for travel, and 40% for expense. Two years ago, the ratio was 90% / 10%.
How do you see 2018?
S. D. - With the same momentum as in 2017, there is no reason for growth to slow down. With the contribution from expense, we are expecting 20% to 25% growth in transaction volumes this year. And this year we will be able to count on the contribution of the major customers who joined us in 2017. In addition, during the second half of the year, we will also be setting up a support solution in Asia and the United States, as we have contractual commitments. In this respect, we have the advantage of being able to rely on the Expedia group.
How does your new expense report tool change Traveldoo's offering?
S. D. - This new application is a great success. Let's face it: we were missing a number of features until now. We now include voice recognition, geolocation, and the entire process of collecting and submitting expense claims.
Why wait until the end of the month to process your expense claims?
So is expense management finally going mobile?
S. D. - At the moment, the volume of mobile transactions is not really significant. But the phenomenon is set to grow, and it's something we're monitoring very closely, as are our customers. Expenses will increasingly be processed on mobile phones, because they are travellers' companions. Why wait until the end of the month to process expense claims when you can do it as you go along?
Why don't you integrate character recognition like other publishers?
S. D. - In fact, we haven't really invested in these character recognition systems, unlike some of our competitors who have made this choice. Our medium-term vision is based on the virtualisation of payments. I think that paper receipts will disappear completely. This is already happening with Uber, for example: there are no paper receipts, and therefore no need for character recognition. So it's better to look ahead and imagine what the future of the sector will look like, rather than chasing after this feature.
You mentioned Uber: how far has Traveldoo got in integrating the new players in business travel?
S. D. - We have already integrated Uber since last year. A dedicated team has been set up to integrate these new players. We are looking above all at the level of maturity of the APIs of certain suppliers. In the case of Airbnb, it remains to be seen whether they are truly positioned in the BtoB market, which implies offering APIs that can connect with market systems, in this case online booking tools (OBT). For the moment, their level of maturity in terms of interfaces has not been sufficient. This will surely change. It's also a question of supply and demand. At the moment, our customers are not putting us under undue pressure to access this type of content...
How would you define the current relationship between publishers and business travel agencies?
S. D. - These relationships are very different from one publisher or agency to another, because the interests are not the same. We had a very good relationship with American Express two years ago. It will come as no surprise to anyone if I say that this is no longer really the case...
What do customers think?
S. D. - In terms of technology choice, they want to ensure that they are independent of the travel agency. American Express GBT now has a technology called KDS. But they can't afford to say that they no longer work with Traveldoo, because we have large customers in common who want to keep our tool. It's different at Carlson Wagonlit, which is more of an integrator, working with everyone. The company's decision is often tactical, even political: do they want to put all their eggs in the SAP basket, in which case the decision is fairly easy to make with Concur? Or do they want to be totally tied to a TMC like American Express, in terms of both agency and technology? There is a strong tactical connotation in the choice of tools today. Traveldoo's great strength is that we have proved that we remain independent despite being part of the Expedia group. When I arrived, I was regularly asked about this and our relationship with Egencia. That's no longer the case. This debate is no longer relevant because the market, customers and travel agencies recognise that we have managed to remain independent.
There are an increasing number of players in the expense management market: how can you tell the difference between the different offerings?
S. D. - All these players are helping to make Travel & Expense a must-have offering. The early days were complicated for 'pioneers' like KDS, because we had to educate the market. For a while, everyone thought the idea was interesting, but nobody was using the tool. Today, we have the advantage of integrating a native T&E platform, and of having solid legitimacy in the market.
What is your relationship with a player like Dimo Software?
S. D. - We have a very good relationship with them, and we provide them with the Travel brick to complete their T&E offering. Of course, we wondered whether we were arming a competitor. My position is clear: there's room for everyone in this market. Dimo customers who are satisfied with their tool have no reason to switch to Traveldoo. So I prefer to use our technology rather than someone else's: it gives us volume and business that we wouldn't have had access to otherwise. It also helps to make the T&E market attractive and to reach a wider audience. We may be in competition, but that's also the case with other players.
Do you see Google as a potential competitor in the business travel market?
S. D. - If Google decides to put the necessary resources into developing features, it will frankly be very difficult to compete. We'll have to study what they're going to do, for what purpose, and identify the technologies that we could reuse.
Now is the time for ultra-personalisation of the business travel offer. At the same time, very strict data protection rules are being introduced. How do you strike the right balance?
S. D. - This is a major issue, with major legal and financial implications. There is a technical dimension, involving everything to do with data security. There is also a legal dimension, with the content of the contracts signed. On the one hand, the RGPD (Editor's note: the general data protection regulation) stipulates that data must be kept confidential, encrypted and protected. On the other hand, for years everyone has been banking on the cloud. It's a contradiction in terms in most cases. Fortunately for Traveldoo, we're not in the cloud: we're a SaaS platform, we know where our servers are, in this case in France. We haven't outsourced the management of our data to suppliers; we manage the whole process in-house. So we've already removed all the potential constraints surrounding the RGPD. The task will undoubtedly be more complex for other publishers: if the CNIL decides to apply immediately, strictly speaking, everything that the RGPD provides for, it could be very complicated for some.
