The 21st Business Travel Show, held on 25 and 26 February in London, prompted the business travel world to focus on the UK market. Following on from Egencia, which reported growth of 21% in 2014 in the UK, KDS turned its attention to one of its specialities: expense management. And it has to be said that our British neighbours are not necessarily at the forefront when it comes to applying new technological tools to the tedious exercise of reimbursement. A study published on 25 February by KDS revealed that 42% of the 1,235 employees questioned submitted their claims via an automated expense claim management tool. For almost one in two employees (48%), offline tools such as Excel are still used. And 4% of those surveyed still use the good old handwritten note... A waste of time and productivity for the company, given that the vast majority of these "white collar workers" (88%) fill in their expense claims during their working hours. Last but not least Business travel fraud: KDS has also looked into the issue of business travel 'fraud'. When asked about the honesty of their claims, British employees would inflate the bill in one out of five cases, according to the KDS study, which nevertheless mentions "modest" amounts.
