Company Overview

The American Express Global Business Travel company, popularly known as Amex GBT, is an American multinational travel and meetings programs management corporation headquartered in Jersey City, New Jersey. The company operates in nearly 120 countries and has over 14,000 employees.

Challenges

Scalability – Creating a single portal for nearly 945 separate data files from internal and customer systems using the current BI tool would require nearly 6 months to complete. The earlier tool was used for internal purposes and scaling the solution to such a large population while keeping the costs optimum was a major challenge
Performance – Their existing system had limitations shifting to Cloud. The amount of time and manual effort required was immense
Data Governance – Maintaining user data security and privacy was of utmost importance for Amex GBT

Solution Overview

The company was looking to protect and increase its market share by differentiating its core services and was seeking a resource to manage and drive their online travel program capabilities forward. Amex GBT decided to make a strategic investment in creating smart analytics around their booking software.

GainInsights, as a leading consultant for BIRST implementation, proposed to build a stand-alone platform, Premier Insights, the most advanced business intelligence platform of its kind. The product would act as a one-stop solution for the migration and analytical needs of Amex GBT.

Premier Insights, by leveraging the capabilities of BIRST can perform all the function from ETL, Warehousing, Reporting to Data Visualization all on its own. Hence, the company no longer needs to use multiple tools to generate analytical reports on travel programs.

The product was to be utilized as a portal by Amex GBT’s clients, to keep a check on their travel costs. GainInsights had suggested and developed a Multi-Talent Cloud Architecture. This meant that every single user would not view a customized screen but the screen would be commom for all the users from where they could pick and choose the KPIs of their liking.

With Premier Insights the on-boarding process for new users was streamlined and consolidated to a single click of the button, unlike the earlier method where data had to be updated manually making it a time-consuming process.
The product leverages the infinite amount of data it can visualize by allowing users to act upon it in two major ways. Firstly, Premier Insights helps corporates become more efficient for their

travel expenditures. Managers are empowered to make informed decisions as it enables them to see where the money is being overspent and helps them ensure optimum utilization of travel expenditures. Secondly, individual travelers receive suggestions powered by ML & AI and based on their historical information and preferences making their travel much smoother and comfortable.

The solution equipped users to view their travel ROI by categorizing it into three categories cost, time and value. Each category has individual KPIs that are measured to evaluate the performance of a travel plan.

Value Delivered

Reducing travel expenses by 30%

Time to Value – Initially it took a week for new users to be on-boarded onto the platform. With Premier Insights that time had now been reduced to a single day and the process had become much more simple and effective.

Savings on Spends – The product notifies users of any available booking offers that can help them save on their expenditure. It recommends users of possible saving potential such as flight timings, date of the booking, date of travel, etc

Adoption – Ease of use of the product, quick scale-up, real-time implementation of reports, and interactive dashboards of Premier Insights increased the global online adoption for Amex GBT

Introduction of 115 new metrics that enable users to better manage their spend through advanced benchmarking, understanding user travel behavior and travel cost optimization