MEET THE TRAVEL MANAGER
meet
IMELDA ASPINALL Imelda Aspinall is UK Travel Manager at European defence organisation MBDA. She tells TBTM about her role
We’ve recently implemented a significant number of changes to reduce out of policy spend, but travel requirements never stand still and we will continue to shape our policy and reduce travel spend further in the future”
I’m the UK Travel Manager and Group Coordinator for MBDA, the leading European defence organisation. I joined the firm in October 2014 after working as the UK Travel Operations Manager at KPMG, which I joined in 2010. When I first joined MBDA my role largely focused on the operational aspects of travel management. However, I now spend the majority of my time on the implementation of group travel strategy projects and work very closely with our European travel managers and buyers. As a true European conglomerate, comprised of a range of previously diverse companies, we have a significant amount of travel activity within our business, largely between our sites in the UK, Germany, France, Spain and Italy. In the UK alone, we have more than 100 business support officers who are our key travel bookers. My team and I liaise with them on a regular basis and make sure they are kept up to date with any changes that may affect them. They’re also a great source of feedback and are a good sounding board to run any ideas past.
developing an app, which we hope to introduce by the end of this year.
locations for internal networking opportunities or team building events, for example, means undertaking a robust security process. We work closely with our large internal security department – as well as our external providers – to ensure all risks are mitigated as much as possible.
We employ approximately 10,000 people across our European sites with around 3,500 in the UK split We have a travel I live a busy life with a across three separate management company full-time job, husband and two locations. Of that group, in place along with a young children, Felix (seven) and around 1,500 travel on separate online Hazel (two) so I don’t have time for much more! However, I am a a regular basis. booking tool. Both are knitting addict so attempt to get effective and we have a few rows done every evening Working in the defence an 85% adoption rate on along with attending a industry – and specifically the OBT. However, the monthly knitting for a European days of impartial OBTs are a group conglomerate – involves a thing of the past and moving significant amount of travel and forward we may look to utilise our we unsurprisingly put a heavy focus on TMC’s technical booking solutions in the security. Even visiting ‘run of the mill’ future. We’re also in the process of
OUT OF THE OFFICE
We have a comprehensive travel policy and it’s something we constantly adapt to fit the needs of our employees. We’ve recently implemented a significant number of changes to reduce out of policy spend, for example. But there’s always work to do – travel requirements never stand still and we will continue to shape our policy and reduce travel spend further in the future. MBDA is an organisation borne out of European collaboration and integrating different national units into a cohesive team does create challenges. For me, one of the main ones is keeping up with the pace of technological change. We see frustrations from travellers who don’t understand why they don’t have access to the technology that’s available when they’re booking personal holidays. Technology is improving at a rapid rate but it’s impossible to keep up with the external commercial market. Another issue is delivering changes that fit within the capabilities of our OBT. We’re looking to shift our expenses procedure to fit more closely with our operating model, but it can be challenging to deliver these major changes in short timeframes.
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11/24/17 10:56 AM