Corporate Support Melendez says one of the things that makes it possible for him to travel so much is that Texas Instruments has taken pains to make arranging business travel as easy as possible. Indeed, taking full advantage of a company's support for travel might be considered another success strategy. Texas Instruments has been proactive in streamlining its employee travel reservations system in part because of the potential cost savings on the company's fourth largest expense, says Maria Puig, corporate travel manager. They like the ownership of the reservation process. Texas Instruments also boasts an automated travel expense tracking system.
Employees fill out an online form that is then matched to online company credit card statements.
In addition to these automated systems, Puig also has a team of road warriors that travel to check out hotels and other travel services before engineers or other employees arrive on business. We take care of our travelers all over the world. E-mail works great for a lot of things, but when you're negotiating or closing a deal, it's better to be live and in person. There are definitely two sides to the coin. Most companies treat you really well.