Business Travel Executive, October 2017

30Business Travel Executive OCTOBER 2017 PHAT DATA The dream world of Phat Data is closer than you think Phat Data is a concept that really resides in two worlds The real world where we are today and the dream world This month we begin to take a look at the future state of data and start asking ourselves the what if we could questions The answers may surprise you Todays world of travel data is easy to describe disparate and siloed We rely on multiple strategic sources to feed us relevant information and then its up to us to sort it all out silo by silo But we are seeing great progress on this front The world of Phat Data has been exploring new entrants in the marketplace that are ready to solve the problems posed by this disparate data We have more data aggregators and platforms serving managed travel than ever before and that is promising What excites us so much at Business Travel Executive and Phat Data is what we see in the future So we present to you the Dream World of Data Close your eyes and imagine a beautiful cloud that is just for your travel program Data from all travel related sources drifts ever upward populating your cloud in real time Data is normalized and categorized and as a buyer I can just pluck out of my cloud anything I want related to my program Sounds heavenly doesnt it But there is more so much more Talking with travel buyers they all agree that having one solid source for data is the key to the future and that will be critical to take the data strategy that you design and execute on it from one reliable source The real meat and potatoes is how this Phat Data allows you to better power your travel program There are some major areas where our dream cloud can deliver including The Traveler Experience Risk Management and Supplier Relations The Traveler Experience Take the traveler for example In our future dream state we know everything about our travelers their buying behaviors their satisfaction levels their policy compliance all their travel preferences and how they align with our supplier mix We can then access a world of data that enhances how and when we interact with our travelers What we can do with this information is certainly Phat Phat Data Taking Information into Action Part of a continuing series Next month Case Studies in Phat Data The Future is Phat By Jennifer Steinke