Sometimes in large organisations, only one team travels so frequently they need travel tracking. Their organisation is not likely to
contract with an enterprise travel risk management solution like our sister company
Voyage Manager, because it’s not really designed for small groups. This
blog describes one such small team, and it’s a perfect use case for Mia Bazo.
We asked our customer’s team leader what made him realise they needed travel tracking.
“The last few years have shown how volatile situations can be. As with the demonstrations that closed the airport in Thailand or the
recent situation in Hong Kong, things can flare up extremely quickly.
“Super-typhoons or other extreme environmental events are happening more frequently. With the best planning in the world, an awful
lot of things can and do go wrong.”
How do they use travel tracking?
“We enter all our trip segments into the platform. This became easier when we started using the email parsing feature; now we just
forward the travel confirmation from the booking agency to the Mia Bazo email address, and the software automatically populates the
traveller’s itinerary.
“So I receive confirmations from each traveller at every step of the way, for example, ‘Yes, I have completed the segment from
Manchester to Heathrow’ or ‘Yes, I have completed the segment from Heathrow to New York.’
“Most of our travellers haven’t downloaded the smartphone app, so they respond to Mia Bazo’s confirmation queries by email or text.
“For the few who have downloaded the app, we’ve been trying out the feature that tracks travellers’ phones. It’s been useful in
the States, where the distances are so vast and travellers can be stranded in the middle of nowhere.”
Why travel security?
Since his team also use the Travel Security service, we asked him which components have been most useful.
“The destination guides have been really, really helpful. That kind of independent analysis of the situation on the ground
is very useful for less experienced travellers who, for example, might not know that in Rio you should never flag a taxi,
but only take one booked by the hotel.”
We then broadened the conversation to encompass all of duty of care (travel tracking combined with travel security).
“Because we’re in the public sector, there are a lot of rules and regulations to be followed. We have a duty of care to
put as much in place as possible to secure the trips we’re planning.
“As soon as you open that door, you can never do enough. We could be doing more, but we have to decide the best option
with the budget we have at our disposal.
“It’s fair to say that we use only a small part of Mia Bazo’s services, and that’s on us. We could spend more time
entering visa information or yellow fever vaccination records. We’re not yet using the gamut.”
Did they ever consider using a GSOC?
Global Security Operations Centres, or GSOCs, are generally 24/7 call centres that are expert at assisting people in
trouble. Some providers are large enough, for example, to have their own aircraft to evacuate employees. Others act as
coordinators, using sub-contractors to carry out rescues.
Either way, rescue services mean additional costs. So in addition to paying for access to a 24/7 GSOC, companies
must also have adequate funding or insurance to cover rescue costs.
Because we partner with a number of GSOCs, we asked our customer if he had ever been interested in using that service.
“Using a global ops centre would require a higher level of approval. Right now, the detailed travel tracking of
each segment of each journey – the breadcrumb trail – is probably the right level of oversight.”
If you work in a small team that travels more than the rest of the company, your Head of People or HR department
might be interested in including Mia Bazo as part of your company’s duty of care.
J Laurence Sarno is co-founder and CMO of Mia Bazo, with more than 30 years in technology marketing. He led his first socially responsible company in the late 1970s and is passionate about ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance).