28 companies, including international brands like Durr AG, BearingPoint and Sika AG from Switzerland, have partially or completely outsourced their hotel procurement to HRS, who gives this service free of charge to businesses.
HRS, the hotel portal, has noticed a significant hike in the number of corporates, especially international brands, approaching them for assistance with procurement. Initial sales figures show an increase in requests just a year on from the launch of HRS’s ‘Intelligent Sourcing’ programme, which now negotiates, on behalf of its clients, with hotels in more than 80 countries. The number of companies working with HRS in this way is expected to double by year end.
28 companies, including international brands like Durr AG, BearingPoint and Sika AG from Switzerland, have partially or completely outsourced their hotel procurement to HRS, who gives this service free of charge to businesses. Procurement and Travel Management departments benefit from outsourcing this process as it frees up time and ultimately drives savings in hotel spend. Current customers have already reported a reduction in travel costs of up to 10% and a hotel programme featuring much richer and more varied content.
HRS has done an excellent job for us’ explains Richard Sebald, Manager Meeting & Travel Services with BearingPoint.“We are very satisfied with the results and will continue to have hotel procurement, which HRS offers us as a free-of-charge service, handled by the experts from HRS.”
Benchmarking as a competitive advantage
‘Intelligent Sourcing’ is based on a strong analytical approach as well as a true outsourcing and optimisation of the hotel portfolio. By analysing and evaluating all accessible travel data, customers obtain a clear and concise overview of their bookings. They can also benefit from HRS’s unique benchmarking which is made possible through connections with more than 250,000 hotels in 180 countries around the world, the existing HRS customer base of over 35,000 companies and numerous Intelligent Sourcing projects already under way. This volume of content allows HRS to negotiate the best rates on behalf of customers.
“Most companies lack the necessary analysis tools and benchmark information needed in order to obtain and negotiate an efficient hotel programme. ‘Intelligent Sourcing’ enables us to use our extensive experience to best effect, offering a full outsourced procurement and intelligence service for corporate customers who have a high room night volume,” explains Michael Simon, Member of the HRS Board and Head of Corporate Solutions.
Outsourcing service as a reaction to market requirements
As Europe’s leading hotel portal with nine international offices and hotels in over 180 countries, there is no one better placed that HRS to work along corporate customers, alleviating them from the pain of complex and time-consuming room rate negotiations. The concept for a strategic procurement service was developed in close cooperation with BearingPoint, HRS’s pilot customer.
In order to cover the complete procurement process, HRS developed a proprietary technology in the form of the innovative eRFP platform that makes it possible to initiate requests for proposal on a global scale, organise them efficiently and ensure a high price transparency for all participating hotels.
Covering the whole supply chain
On average a global HRS ‘Intelligent Sourcing’ project takes 10 weeks to implement and a bit less for projects on a local or regional level. The hotel acquisition is divided into five stages as an end-to-end solution: starting with the analysis through to joint concept development, to rate negotiation, implementation and regular reporting.
As Monica Trestian, Global Material Group Manager Corporate Services of Sika AG states on their cooperation with HRS: “The whole sourcing project is very efficient from our perspective. In the end, we not only saved direct costs but a lot of time as well. HRS has always been responsive to our needs and also supported us in our internal communication to inform our employees around the world about any changes in our hotel programmes. With the introduction of ‘Intelligent Sourcing’ however, HRS has taken a further important step in the direction of being a full service provider.”
Tatiana is the news coordinator for TravelDailyNews Media Network (traveldailynews.gr, traveldailynews.com and traveldailynews.asia). Her role includes monitoring the hundreds of news sources of TravelDailyNews Media Network and skimming the most important according to our strategy.
She holds a Bachelor's degree in Communication & Mass Media from Panteion University of Political & Social Studies of Athens and she has been editor and editor-in-chief in various economic magazines and newspapers.
