[UPDATE, August 20, 2018: The Department of Defense picked SAP Concur to build a new travel system. Working with Accenture Federal Services, Booz Allen and CWTSato Travel, Concur is tasked with delivering a “prototype” within 24 months.]
No one spends more on travel for work than the U.S. military. Its mission to modernize how it goes about that has taken a new turn now that the U.S. Department of Defense is looking for its next partners. Defense expects by the end of September to select vendors for travel booking, expense management and travel management company support. The initial work will cover temporary duty business travel, which accounts for more than 40 percent of military travel. DOD spends $1.4 billion annually on commercial air trips.
A big part of the effort is about simplification. The government cut 1,000 pages from the policy that governs temporary duty business travel. First published in March and revised as of last week, the reduced policy retains mandates on travel authorizations (pre-trip approval) and bookings through the Defense Travel System or a supporting TMC. It indicates that “airfare must be arranged as early as possible,” and it outlines the application of per-diems for meals and lodging.
The road to this point has not been without fits and starts. As with corporate travel, though, the authority of senior leadership has a way of getting things done. In this case, that’s Secretary of Defense James Mattis. DOD business technology officer and chief information officer John Bergin said Mattis personally mandated that the oft-criticized DTS be modernized.
When Defense deployed DTS in the late 1990s, Bergin was in high school. He told attendees to the March GovTravels conference that Byzantine policies made government technologies “suck.” After eliminating “nonsense” and “silly” things that make no sense to travelers, he said, Defense would challenge the rest of the federal government. “We’re going to do it right, and you guys can jump on,” said Bergin. “We’re going to set the standard.”
Defense is looking to build much of the mega-policy into the systems themselves. For example, Bergin said, business logic can determine which hotels are approved or when nonrefundable tickets are required.
Industry providers welcomed the new approach to policy. There are similar efforts underway in corporate travel.
Outrageously complex policies literally don’t fit into what should be a mobile-first technology approach, Concur EVP of supplier management and TMC services Mike Koetting told GovTravels attendees. “Policy simplification opens the door to much more frictionless transaction execution,” he said.
“We have to start making the shopping process smarter,” said Carlson Wagonlit Travel president for military and government markets Nick Vournakis. He called “a myth” the idea that “we can’t be policy-compliant and have a digital-forward strategy. These two things are not mutually exclusive. Is it harder with a 1,200-page policy? Definitely.”
Concur and CWT are two of the top providers of government travel management services. Defense’s new solicitation, announced in March, follows on the pilot of Concur Travel, which ran from June 2016 to November 2017. According to a Defense Department spokesperson, lessons learned from the pilot “informed the acquisition strategy for Defense Travel modernization.”
In another change, Defense now aims to source its travel and expense system and travel management company partners all in one, rather than separately. BCD Travel, CI Azumano Business Travel and Omega World Travel are among the suppliers showing interest.
“The Department will use an iterative implementation, based on agile processes, to ensure rapid deployment of capability,” according to related documentation. “The first iteration will focus on temporary duty business travel in the Joint Travel Regulations, setting the stage for further capability expansion to a broader set of travel requirements.”
A major goal is reducing transaction and per-trip costs by minimizing customization, “while enhancing flexible configuration of systems by aligning travel policies with standard industry practice, but without negatively affecting usability, auditability, compliance or security.”
“There may be some opportunities for customization, but as a rule we’re looking at configuration,” said Defense Travel Management Office director William Mansell, also at GovTravels. He said this was part of a general trend for the government toward buying rather than building technology.
The government is conducting the selection through the Consortium for Command, Control and Communications in Cyberspace (C5), utilizing the Other Transaction Authority (OTA) contracting vehicle. According to the Defense Department, OTAs “broaden the technology base by reaching innovators not readily available to DOD” and can be concluded within three months. Project awards “cannot be protested,” the government noted in a March presentation.
As part of the process, interested providers submit white papers so the government can, as Mansell put it, “get the best ideas from industry.”
Meanwhile, DOD selected Dinova for a “no-cost,” performance-based contract to run its dining rebate program, according to the presentation. Initially estimated to be under $1 million annually, rebates on dining could grow to as much as about $5 million, DOD indicated.
The military also is counting up benefits from its new lodging program, with projected savings of nearly $28 million for the fiscal year ending in September 2019.
For its participation in the U.S. General Services Administration’s SmartPay3 payments program, DOD in March selected Citigroup as its vendor. According to DOD, the contract, running through 2031, will cover as much as $65 billion in “charge card and related payment transactions.” DOD said it expected 1.7 million travelers to get new travel charge cards by Nov. 30, 2018. According to the March presentation, the military also anticipates $45 million in annual spending rebates.