With mature but constantly evolving ground transport industry, it is imperative that travel buyers must have formal contractual arrangements in place for their preferred vendors and booking tools they are planning to work with for long-term.

Effective procurement and management of ground transport provider are not only crucial to ensuring the maximization of the travel budget but more importantly to achieve 100% compliance to the duty of care, i.e., safeguard the safety and comfort of the travellers on the road.

Read on as we discuss in this post the top strategies you can employ to buy and manage a ground transport provider more efficiently.

1. Consider the Requirements of All Areas of Your Company

Talk to your employees and regularly conduct organization-wide surveys to understand what they want and to ensure that you will get the correct level of service that supports your business needs. Make sure to include important elements in your RFI (Request for Informa­tion) were technology, price and simplic­ity/ease of booking and use, among others.

Also, avoid being too pre­scriptive during an RFI because you want vendors to add innovation. List everything your incumbent supplier is providing you – if there is – and every­thing your business would like to receive tomorrow, and put it into a spreadsheet, so suppliers could tick whether and when they could do it. In order to make your business travel programme a success, you should not end up with the same or less than what you had.

2. Ensure That Vetting Procedures is an Essential Part of the Provider’s Duty of Care

If possible, do a site visit to make certain their chauffeur training and procedures are in place as documented in the RFP (Request for Proposal), and meet their employ­ees and ask them about the programme, to ensure that they are fully versed and compliant. You must also look at their vetting process and ask to see the driver file, to ensure the vendors are doing the vetting process they claim.

3. Setup Multiple Contracts for Different Vendors

To avoid the challenge of getting a ride during peak season and the hassles of unexpected fleet downtime, it is advisable to setup contract to at least two ground transport vendors. Give sup­pliers an equal percentage of the work that is scalable, so if one is performing poorly or needs assistance in reducing volume, you reduce their allocation for a set period and share it between the others. It is set up that will allow the vendors and your program to succeed in the long run.

4. Send Out RFPs Strategically

Make sure that you send RFP at a time when your peers are not doing the same. Vendors responding to one RFP will give it a lot more thought than if they are responding to a dozen. Also, talk to your current suppliers and enquire what they would suggest to stop you from going to market – sometimes it costs less to renegotiate a contract and bring in changes than to go out to find a new supplier.

Wherever you plan to go this 2018 – for business, for pleasure, or both – we are looking forward to providing only the finest premium chauffeured service you will ever experience. Contact us today know more about our premium chauffeured services.