MasterCard Worldwide and TRX (NASDAQ:TRXI), a global technology company that develops and hosts software applications to process data records and automate manual processes, today announced an agreement to develop the MasterCard Travel Dashboard, a web-based business intelligence tool that will enable companies to evaluate, analyze and optimize travel programs.
The proprietary tool will leverage detailed information from MasterCard's corporate card program and TRX's advanced travel data reporting tools to provide greater visibility into the performance and compliance of travel programs.
According to a joint survey conducted by the Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE) and TRX, more than 50% of corporate travel managers feel they do not have appropriate technology to complete certain functions of their travel management responsibilities. Of this 50%, more than half indicated a fully-integrated T&E program would be the most beneficial technology improvement, along with reliable, cost-effective data consolidation and analysis that can be easily accessed to facilitate decision making.
"Through MasterCard's leadership in securing hotel folio data from over 11,000 properties, the Travel Dashboard will leverage robust and detailed information, resulting in greater spend visibility for corporations. By employing the Travel Dashboard to provide in-depth reports of category- specific spending patterns, corporate travel managers and companies will gain better insights and control of their travel expenses - leading to cost reductions, improved efficiency, better compliance and more impactful vendor agreements," said Marcie Verdin, Group Head, Large Market Segment, MasterCard Worldwide. "Our alliance with TRX builds on our leadership to provide optimization tools to better manage T&E spending - an increasingly important area of corporate expense management."
The Travel Dashboard will empower - at all levels throughout the organization - employees to make more informed decisions by enabling them to thoroughly evaluate and analyze their travel program. Travel managers will be able to review performance and trends; drill-down on reports to analyze major travel spend categories, including spend-to-vendor agreement reporting; compare spend data with corporate policy to highlight out-of-compliance departments and travelers; benchmark the performance of their programs.
"Now more than ever, companies need a holistic view of their T&E spending and are looking for an integrated solution that provides access to detailed corporate travel data with relevant, actionable information. We are excited to expand on the data extraction and delivery services we have delivered to MasterCard to feed their hotel folio services. Leveraging our innovative data visualization and user interactivity services, the MasterCard Travel Dashboard will provide the business intelligence needed for companies to make faster, easier and better T&E program decisions," said Kevin Austin, Executive Vice President in charge of TRAVELTRAX at TRX. "Our alliance with MasterCard combines the best of both worlds - the automation and application expertise from TRX and the proven payments knowledge and corporate card leadership of MasterCard - to allow companies to really drill-down on T&E expenditures and optimize their corporate travel programs."