Category: People

Customers & People in General

Tips for Reducing Travel Costs

So any holidays planned?

At this time of year, plenty of business conversations end with a chat about travel plans for the summer holidays, with France, Spain and Portugal emerging as popular destinations. Now with the children ‘off school’, we are knee deep in the ‘silly season’ where many decision makers are unavailable for lengthy durations.

However, we have had enquiries recently from clients looking to reduce their Travel Costs. Why not? For many companies, corporate travel is a necessary, and expensive, part of business life. According to some experts, business travel spend is the third largest controllable cost item affecting profitability.

Usually, travelling for business can be costly because you only have a few days notice to book, and that means travelling at peak times/costs. Like all Overhead Costs, keeping business travel costs under control should be a priority, so consider these tips for reducing your company’s travel expenses;

1. Leverage Volume Discounts

Even when traveling solo, you can join buying groups and avail of per-negiotated discounts. Similar to our group deals on Energy Costs, we also leverage the buying power of Roomex when booking Hotel Rooms. Take advantage of their deep corporate discounts here.

2. Invest time in creating a Corporate Travel Policy

Developing a firm travel policy will provide a significant Return on Investment to control all future travel costs. A detailed policy should provide specific details about per diems in various destinations (i.e. have Dublin and London rates versus Cork and York rates), preferred hotel chains with pre-negotiated rates, reimbursements for expenses, and limits that require a signature if exceeded. Strictly implementing this policy while promoting same-day travel whenever possible, will guarantee long-term travel savings for your business.

3. Use a Competitive Travel Agent

Similar to most non-core activities within a business, travel planning should be outsourced to the experts. Even though the likes of SkyScanner and Trivago have created DIY Travel Agents, it is worth noting that Travel Agencies have access to corporate discounts with Airlines and Hotels, while having the in-depth knowledge and systems in place to negotiate better travel deals and greater savings. Such Travel expertise will not just provide you with lower fares (via affiliates and travel partners) but better availability, more options and greater flexibility.

4. Technology facilitates non-travel

Like most cost categories, technological advances enable more efficient delivery of information and services, which means employees can communicate remotely without leaving the office. Be warned that this does take commitment and persistence, while rarely appropriate for first-time meetings. However, it is worth experimenting with virtual meetings with excellent services such as Skype for Business and 24×7 Meeting available. While initially uncomfortable, not in person meetings are an acquired skill and employees will become more comfortable as they use the services over time.

Like all non-wage related Overhead Costs, we would be delighted to assist you benchmark and reduce your business travel costs. We would love to perform a comprehensive audit of your company’s travel program so contact us today to discuss further.

Be Smart to Reduce Energy Prices and Energy Usage

As you have probably heard, global prices energy have increased drastically in the past 12 months, with a severe hike since summertime also. With the possibility of energy prices increasing by over 30% over a 2 year period, what can your organisation do to mitigate such a negative hike?

Arvo Smart Procurement and our Partners’ Smart Technologies are providing a range of solutions to help businesses reduce their Energy Costs such as;

1: Smart Procurement: Correct your MICs/Tariffs, Avail of Time of Use Tariffs, Group Buy to leverage scale or hedge your energy demands with flexible energy contracting to ensure you effectively lower your energy unit rates. Smarter Energy Procurement leads to instant cost savings, while proactive businesses will then invest the savings in Energy Efficient Equipment (as follows).

2: Smart Lighting: Installing light-emitting diode (LED) fixtures is the first step but technology has advanced so choose LED’s with built-in intelligence – occupancy sensors, daylight harvesting and scheduling to achieve savings of up to 90% on lighting. These solutions can be funded from your future savings, ensuring minimal-to-no CAPEX requirement

3: Smart Boilers: Most Hot Water boilers are not smart i.e. they are inefficient, unmaintained and expensive. However, intelligent retrofit boiler controls exist that optimise the efficiency of each individual boiler with guaranteed 10% savings available.

4: Smart Legislation: From SEAI’s Energy Auditing Scheme to the Energy Efficiency Obligation Scheme (EEOS) to the Accelerated Capital Allowances scheme for Energy Efficient Equipment, many incentives exist to reduce your Energy Consumption. In addition to these incentives, opportunities exist to sell your reduced carbon credits to energy suppliers and obligated parties, which unearths additional funds for your Energy Conservation projects.

5: Smart Alternatives: With Bio, Solar, wind and water alternative Energy sources becoming readily available with appealing businesses models, there has never been a better time to start considering cost effective solutions such as Rented Energy, where savings in the region of 30-50% are the norm.

So what SMART Energy Solution interest you? We welcome any queries you may have with regards the above Energy efficient solutions and we look forward to reducing your Energy prices and usage in future.

While don’t just take our word for it – check out what our satisfied clients have to say: www.arvo.ie/testimonials

3 Reasons your Insurance Costs are increasing

As you would have noticed this year, Insurance Costs are increasing for all businesses as Insurers are applying general rate increases in an attempt to offset overall underwriting losses caused mainly by:

  1. Significant increases in the volume and cost of Liability Claims (see below)
  2. Similar increases in motor accident claims frequency and costs
  3. Severe weather events and lack of attention to property risk management

 

Increase in number and cost of Liability Claims

Several factors have led to rate increases and a reduction in insurer capacity:

  • Between 2012 and 2014, the average cost of claims in Motor Insurance rose by 8%, for Employers Liability it rose by 27% and for public liability it rose by 8%.
  • As for the frequency of claims, the Injuries Board has reported a 36% increase in the claims submitted since 2008
  • The cost of claims in Ireland is too high e.g. the average cost of whiplash in Ireland is €15,000 (while the average cost in the UK is €5,000, or €3,000 in Spain/Italy)
  • Circuit Court Jurisdiction increased from €38,000 to €60,000 and 21 new Circuit Court judges appointed, leading to the average award in the Circuit Court increasing by 21.2% in 2015, following a 13.5% increase in 2014.
  • When the Setanta Insurer collapsed, the remaining insurers are now being asked to price a product to factor in the cost of a competitor failing. Would this happen in any other sector? (for example, Dunnes Stores would not be expected to bail out Tesco if such a default occurred). Quinn and Enterprise Insurances failures are also adding to your insurance premiums.
  • In summation, the average personal injury awards in the High Court & Circuit Court continue to increase – see table below (from Insurance Ireland);

For businesses, it is paramount to note that the excessive levels of award in Ireland are increasing the incentives to commit insurance fraud. So what can you do? At a recent PWC/Willis Tower Watson event in Cork, effective Claims Management was advised as a vital component i.e.

  1. Robust claims reporting and investigation

  2. Invest in CCTV and data recording (including photos and witness statements)

  3. Early detailed investigation enables informed decision making to (a) settle/defend, (b) engage with Injuries Board, (c) pay expenses/earnings etc.

  4. Review procedures regularly and learn from experience

 

Finally, take note of our advice to reduce Insurance Costs or contact us with your queries.

Great time to review Telecoms Costs

Having just completed a Telecoms Audit with 53% savings for a local business, we want to share some insights as we are always amazed by the double-digit savings diagnosed during Telecom Audits, with 20/30/40% savings the norm during each review. Telecoms bills can be unjustly inflated as businesses are impacted by unused fixed lines, restrictive ISDN’s, inappropriate mobile bundles, new Internet Telephony technologies or simply draconian Tariffs.

While, there never has been a better time to initiate a review of your Telecoms Costs, with;

 

  1. 3’s recent acquisition of O2 expected to drive increased competition in the Irish phone market, especially for business customers
  2. Mobile phone rates in Ireland dropped significantly in the last 2 years, with this trend expected to continue for the remainder of 2015. In essence this was triggered by eMobile’s introduction to the market, where the previous Meteor had little impact.
  3. Last year, we extensively covered the merits of VoIP/Internet Telephony for businesses and with improving networks and technologies, this trend is continuing with additional benefits for Hosted Telephony and ultimately significant cost savings
  4. All network operators are committing to improve data coverage while the infamous ‘superfast 4G’ network is more than a myth, with 5-10 times improvement experienced (during this simple test I undertook in the past 6 months: Vodafone 4G v O2 3G)
  5. A warning for all Telecom Operators – Google aims to create a global network that will cost the same to use for calls, texts and data no matter where a customer is located.

 

Google’s ambitions above are not as far-fetched as one might think, as operators in Ireland such as VTSL, are now offering Irish Businesses, competitive hosted IP Telephony, with;

  • No install or set-up charges
  • All Local National & Mobile calls in Ireland are free
  • All Local National & Mobile calls in the UK are free

 

So as we stated from the outset, there is no better time to initiate a review of your Telecoms Costs.

Contact us today to discuss how we can reduce your Telecoms Spend in 2017.

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