CWT says Predictive Analytics can save 10% on client spend

Global travel management company Carlson Wagonlit Travel has introduced Predictive Analytics capabilities, designed to improve the accuracy of forecasts and provide better visibility over key travel metrics and give clients new opportunities to control travel spend. CWT Solutions Group, CWT’s consulting division, says it has built an advanced data model that sifts through large historic travel data sets, as well as public data on commodity prices, macro-economic indicators, weather, and holidays. Those data are analysed to identify patterns and correlations, generating predictions for a company’s future spend, specifically a number of trips and cost per trip. “With these new cutting-edge algorithms, we can predict a company’s spend with remarkable accuracy,” said Christophe Renard, Vice-President of CWT Solutions Group. “Predictive Analytics is very helpful in giving our clients actionable insights – even small changes to travel policies or supplier programmes can lead to big savings. As one of the world’s largest business travel companies, we are sitting on a treasure trove of data. Using Predictive Data, we can really make that data work for our clients.” A successful trial of Predictive Analytics with one of CWT Solutions Group’s largest global clients delivered a sharp improvement in accuracy compared to previous approaches. The company says its client was able to identify areas with potential savings of up to 10%. The trial also demonstrated that results get better over time as the system learns from ever-larger data sets. CWT Solutions Group said it would roll out the technology to clients globally over the course of 2019. Download a copy of the CWT Solutions Group: Whitepaper on Predictive Data.