1st August 2024: As the business travel landscape evolves, propelled by technological strides and dynamic industry shifts, the year 2024 promises to be a game-changer. Here, we explore key trends that will redefine how organizations navigate travel, expenses, and invoices in the coming year.
1. Virtual Payments: A Paradigm Shift in Reimbursement Dynamics
The year 2024 marks the advent of a transformative era in handling business expenses. The integration of AI, automation, and virtual payment methods is set to deepen, reshaping how employees manage transactions. Technology has helped employees to travel freely, instead of using a company credit card, employees will be able to expand their use of virtual payments for all business expenses, including travel.
With AI swiftly validating trusted transactions, the reimbursement process becomes quicker. Meanwhile, exceptions will trigger AI-driven, automated audits to ensure compliance. In both cases, payments will be issued faster with more ease, and employees will have more time to focus on what matters most to them and the organization.
2. Confidence Amplification through Technology and Flexible Budgeting
The theme of 2023 is doing more with less, and that will continue to be the case as economic uncertainty carries over into 2024. Realistic planning, coupled with flexibility, is advocated in response to global developments like inflation, supply chain disruptions, and geopolitical unrest. Embracing emerging technologies such as AI, automation, and data analysis emerges as a strategic approach.
The upcoming year may witness the integration of generative AI into forecasting and budgeting, enabling finance teams to delegate routine tasks to machines. This shift promises to liberate valuable time, allowing teams to focus on quality control and decision-making, thus fostering a heightened sense of confidence amid uncertain terrain.
3. Predictive Analytics: Illuminating Pathways in Spend Management
Organizations today have access to a multitude of financial data, but they lack the resources to make sense of it easily and rapidly. The existing spend management tools offer dashboards that compile information in one place for an employee to analyze, which takes time and considerable skill.
Building on the technological progress that was witnessed last year, the role of AI especially generative AI will begin to change in 2024, creating an organizational ‘back office’ where computers work together to run the show.
More predictive analytics tools will emerge in the year ahead with the capability to analyze data and derive trends, insights, and solutions to inform, improve, and optimize business operations, in spend management and beyond.
For example, instead of manually analyzing the data to make informed guesses, someone in finance, travel, or operations could simply delegate that work to a computer. Using generative AI, the computer could then provide data-backed recommendations factoring in patterns that a human may never even notice like the ideal time to book a business trip or the optimal date for a team meeting to minimize travel costs, ensuring the company is using resources in the best way possible.
4. CSR, and AI forging the future of travel
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), the New Distribution Capability (NDC), and AI take center stage in shaping the trajectory of the travel industry in 2024. Larger corporate initiatives focused on sustainability and diversity permeate into travel programs, ushering in new responsibilities for departments such as travel management, procurement, HR, and accounting.
As AI continues to evolve, its integration into various facets of the employee and traveller experience promises significant advancements. Beyond travel, this integration may extend to functions such as finance, procurement, HR, and other ERP functions.
Conclusion
The year 2024 unveils a dynamic landscape for business travel, where technology intersects with strategic initiatives to redefine resource management, budgeting, and employee-centric policies. As organizations embark on this transformative journey, the future of business travel beckons with promise and possibilities.