What is Ticket Travel Pro?
Yan Mortreux - Ticket Travel Pro is an integrated 'all-in-one' solution for travel expenses, comprising a payment card, a booking platform and an online expense management area. All identified under a very evocative name thanks to Ticket Restaurant, of which Edenred is also the issuer. The card can be reloaded and fully configured according to the employee's profile and the company's travel policy. It is accepted by the worldwide MasterCard network and includes Europ Assistance insurance. The booking tool offers the same advantages in terms of flexibility and configuration, with a preferred partner in each field: Hôtel Corporate, Capitaine Train, Taxis G7, Europcar, lafourchette and Go Voyages. Everything can be separated, and the company pays according to the level of service required.
How does the card work in practice, both for the user and the manager?
Y. M. - The Ticket Travel Pro card is very different from a traditional business card, which will usually be debited from the employee's account with a deferred debit. Our card is debited from the company's account, with systematic authorisation capped according to the user's rights: 500 euros per month for petrol, restaurants and hotels, authorised from Monday to Friday, for example. It is not permitted in ATMs, as it would be contradictory to provide a business expense management solution with such access, but it works throughout the MasterCard network thanks to our Prepaid Solutions joint venture, which enables us to issue bankcards worldwide. EuropAssistance insurance is provided with the standard card, and international assistance with the premium card. There are around 80% domestic travellers in SMEs, so we didn't want to add to the price of the standard solution because of the international insurance.
What about the expense claim management platform?
Y. M. - MasterCard feeds automatically into the employee's expense claim platform, so all the employee has to do is justify the expense claim, take a photo of it with their smartphone and send it to their manager for online validation. As the platform is configured according to the company's travel policy, alerts appear if there are any discrepancies. Ticket Travel Pro also publishes VAT recovery logs. Our reporting tools give us the full cost of each employee: not many companies are able to do that these days! The company can also re-invoice mission costs to customers, which is particularly useful for temporary employment agencies, SSIs, or players in the events sector who re-invoice the cost to the end customer.
Is your booking platform compatible with other existing solutions, particularly travel agencies?
Y. M. - Yes: a company that already works with a travel agency can set up access to the Ticket Travel Pro platform accordingly. Customers can connect to their agency, but can also leave the Edenred reservation open if they want to be able to compare offers. A company that works with a travel agency does not necessarily have a business card or an expense account platform. So we can work perfectly well with the agencies. We're not positioning ourselves as their competitor. We are complementary.
What is your remuneration model?
Y. M. - The set-up costs for our customers are limited to the cost of the card, which is between the price of a petrol card and a business card. This positioning is deliberately accessible, so that it does not discriminate against SMEs. Management costs are linked to the volume of cards issued, i.e. the amount of money that passes through the accounts. Depending on the service provided, we charge a percentage management fee. But there is no barrier to entry: the customer opens an Edenred Travel account free of charge online, with no commitment as to duration or amount.
So is the business travel market still attractive to newcomers like Edenred?
Y. M. - 10 million employees use expense accounts in France, but only 2 million have business cards. The traditional players - banks with their business cards, business travel agencies, expense report management platforms and ERP tool extensions - are already equipping major accounts and their senior executives, as well as high-contribution international travellers with a strong need for value-added services. But in a French market worth €30 billion, a third of spending goes to small businesses, which often have no tools at all. The entry costs are generally prohibitive for an SME. But Edenred's strength lies precisely in these small structures, like Ticket Restaurant, which can be accessed by as few as one employee. So we provide them with a solution that is just as good as the major tools on the market, with no barriers to entry and totally flexible to their needs.
What is your customer promise to these small businesses?
Y. M. - Spend less and spend better thanks to cost reductions, productivity gains and traceability of expenditure. By defining the budget to be charged to the Travel Edenred account in advance, the CFO can be sure of achieving his savings targets. Many companies still have to make do with a posteriori visibility of these expenses. Ticket Travel Pro guarantees them a priori control and real-time monitoring by integrating a statistical reporting module, while leveraging the negotiating power of a major group to give them access to preferential rates and high-performance booking and management tools. Last but not least, employee satisfaction, as they no longer have to pay in advance and can benefit from an expense claim pre-filled into the platform.
Is this SME target a prerequisite for future ambitions with regard to major accounts?
Y. M. - This is not the primary objective, because large companies are subject to cumbersome processes, with validation committees, and the weight of habit. So it's more complicated.... Rather than competing with players already present in this segment, who are bigger and more legitimate, we are aiming for a virgin, unequipped market, with a more flexible solution. The business travel expenses of SME employees amount to no more than a few hundred euros a month, so they don't have the same needs as the travel manager of a multinational.
Interview by Florian Guillemin
