American Express Business Travel Announces cXo Planning Dashboard

As most C-level executives look to gain greater control of travel program spend moving into the 2010 budgeting season, American Express Business Travel, a global industry leader in business travel management, today announced cXo planning dashboard (cXo). A new, customizable budgeting and planning tool, cXo planning dashboard is specifically designed to help C-level executives make informed, targeted decisions that support revenue generating activities within cost reduction parameters rather than implementing sweeping, across-the-board cuts. With a patent currently pending, cXo is a global offering that enhances consulting activities and expands upon the current reporting and dashboard solutions which exist today.

"Looking ahead to 2010, companies will need to remain competitive in their respective marketplaces, and challenge the status quo to identify more opportunities for savings,” said Frank Schnur, vice president, Advisory Services, American Express Business Travel. "Through the cXo planning dashboard, companies can gain increased transparency into corporate travel spend as well as foresight into T&E program changes that enable them to make targeted, strategic T&E cost reductions. This can help remove excess expenditures and minimize the risk of cutting into revenue-generating travel that could hamper return-on-travel-investment over time.”

As the first dashboard of its kind, cXo integrates travel, card, expense and HR data and selected key performance indicators (KPIs) into one source while utilizing American Express Business Travel’s benchmarking to perform in-depth opportunity analysis. Executives can weigh potential compliance and policy changes and gather insight in an interactive format by benchmarking their program against best-in-class travel programs to project maximum savings.

Delivered monthly or quarterly, cXo planning dashboard can be customized within the following categories:

• Budgeting- Provides executives with both a graphical and numerical representation of the company’s current travel spend. Here CXOs are able to gain greater visibility into business reasons for travel by business unit and view opportunities for reducing travel spend.
• Optimization- Executives move sliders to see how change in behavior for their own customized KPIs, such as preferred usage as well as other behaviors like online adoption or advance purchases, are impacted when compared to those within best-in-class. Dashboard dials report the change in savings based on these behavior changes for total company as well as within a division, such as merchant services, for example.
• Procurement- Consultants work with clients to evaluate supplier negotiated contracts, benchmark against best–in-class programs and identify adjustments that could be made in order to optimize effectiveness of the contracts. Executives can use the dashboard to test how different changes would make an impact, in turn, revealing how to best strengthen contract performance and obtain increased savings potentials.

"Being able to accurately assess data and use it to project the impact of change to corporate travel programs will enable executives to achieve a level of precision and control that was not possible before,” continued Mr. Schnur. "As we move toward economic recovery, companies will continue to look to be more resourceful when it comes to their T&E spending. Innovative technology tools such as cXo that can efficiently capture current and future spend and savings opportunities will play an essential role in driving ROI.”

Before designing a company’s customized cXo planning dashboard, American Express Business Travel’s consultants sit down with senior executives to first understand the current status of the program as well as goals and objectives. Consultants then evaluate the culture, business purpose, procurement strategy and current policy in order to select critical KPIs, business units, and other data to ensure the dashboard’s projections align with a company’s unique business needs and project the most accurate view into T&E program changes.

About American Express Business Travel

American Express Business Travel (www.americanexpress.com/businesstravel), a division of American Express Company, is committed to helping its clients maximize the greatest return on their travel investment through increased cost savings, world-class customer service and greater spending control. With clients ranging from small businesses to multinational corporations, American Express Business Travel provides a combination of industry-leading technology, travel management consulting, strategic sourcing and supplier negotiation support, alongside global customer service available online and offline. The Company also provides a dynamic online community (www.businesstravelconneXion.com) harnessing the collective intelligence of those in the business travel industry offering a variety of perspectives, best practices, current research and industry news.

American Express operates one of the world’s largest travel agency networks with locations in over 140 countries worldwide. Total travel sales volume in 2008 was $29.1 billion, including proprietary volume, volume processed through joint ventures, and American Express branded volume processed through its partner network.

American Express Company (www.americanexpress.com) is a leading global payments, network and travel company founded in 1850.