American Express South Africa, the local franchise of the global travel, financial and network services company, has automated its travel agency operation with Ace, a CRM (customer relationship management)-focused travel management system. The fully integrated front-, mid- and back-office solution was supplied by Icsat, a Progress-based independent software vendor (ISV) headquartered in Belgium.
Amex SA has 65 branches countrywide. It comprises three entities focusing on credit cards, foreign exchange (forex) and travel. Its primary focus, however, is on travel management services targeted mainly at the corporate sector. Key clients include BMW, Eskom, Billiton, Old Mutual, Nedcor and Rand Merchant Bank.
"The travel industry was depressed for some time before the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington," says Dennis Rogers, IT director at Amex SA.
"Declining profit margins and reduced commissions are just some of the issues we`re facing. As a result, Amex SA chose to focus on increasing its service to high-value corporate customers by offering to take over management of their internal travel agencies. To do this we needed a system that offered superior CRM capabilities and could deal with the complexities of travel management."
Amex SA assessed several systems and chose Ace because of its robust flexibility and comprehensive CRM features.
"Ace is one of the top systems available in the international travel management arena," says Rogers. "It interfaces with all global delivery systems such as Galileo and Amadeus, and online banking systems such as e-Bucks."
Ace has streamlined Amex SA`s workflow and improved productivity with automatic invoicing of over 95% of tickets sold. When users invoice the booking file, the general ledger accounts and analytical bookings are generated automatically. It provides a totally paperless environment, with CRM features that empower consultants to meet the diverse needs of Amex SA customers, including details such as medical and dietary requirements. It also provides management tools that enable supervisors to check team workloads.
"All our information is now centralised and can be accessed in real-time," says Rogers. "With time delays the number one problem in the travel industry, the automatic connection of supplier and customer, with fully integrated front and back office results in considerable gains in time and cost savings."
Other features include:
. Online management information reporting that allows customers to download reports and data to their own spreadsheets for internal needs.
. A banking module that verifies bank statements before transfer to the back-office accounting entries module.
. A bank statement module that includes an upload feature for statements.
. A set of conversion programs that enables automatic creation of posting detail lines.
. A maintenance program to attribute statement details to accounts if the conversion of data is not possible.
"Ace improves our expense-to-revenue ratios in many ways," adds Rogers. "Total cost of ownership is reduced because Ace runs on a Progress database. This removes the need for a database administrator and, because Progress is based on open standards, it interfaces easily with any other database and management system."
"Ace demonstrates how an enterprise-class travel management system can provide value-added benefits to the travel industry," says Rick Parry, MD of Progress SA.
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