A White Paper entitled Creating the Vision – A Perspective on the Future of the Small-to-Medium TMC, summarises findings from sessions held at the Advantage annual conference in April, with additional material from a follow-up Business Travel Symposium event held later in the year.

During 2016, the Advantage team set about drafting a template for the future shape of the SME TMC, with a guide to the value buyers and suppliers place on six key service areas. The template was created through scoring developed from research by the Institute of Travel Management (ITM) from buyer members and from conference delegate input.

The six key areas were: content and distribution; policy and compliance; risk and security; data and analytics; payment and reconciliation plus consulting and added value.

Released as a PDF, the Advantage White Paper includes video content to support each of these six key topics and Advantage members can also download the full results of the ITM buyer research.

Advantage’s head of business travel Sonia Michaels said: “So often we attend inspirational events and conferences but come back to the office and continue with business as usual. 

"We felt it was really important to provide a clear continuation to the conference discussions and therefore created the Advantage Business Travel Symposium as a one-day event to concentrate on the areas of greatest TMC value, as established during our main conference business travel sessions. 

“Producing the Paper was part of this process, pulling together the outcomes from both events for the leadership teams of our members to consider in their own business environments.“

Advantage plans to repeat the business travel symposium in October as a follow-on to the Advantage Conference in May.

Advantage managing director Julia Lo Bue-Said said: "The paper is a snapshot built by consensus over a research exercise, two-day event and follow-up symposium, of where the value of the TMC should be. 

"This exercise shows we are thinking long-term for our members and we think that the recommendations contained within the paper ensure they are ahead of the pack.”