How to get executive buy-in for a new TMC

May 28

Choosing a new TMC is a big decision. To get executive buy-in, you need more than projected savings. You need a defensible, finance-ready case. That includes traceable ROI, complete cost visibility, audit-ready data, and an evaluation structure that holds up under scrutiny from finance and procurement.

For most travel managers, choosing a new, modern TMC is genuinely exciting. It’s an opportunity to finally solve the friction they feel every day and capture the cost savings they know are within reach. But the work doesn’t end with finding a better platform. They also have to translate the opportunity into something their leadership team can trust and confidently approve. That’s where most proposals break down.

5 reasons corporate travel program proposals fail (and how to fix them)

If you’ve ever made a pitch to leadership about changing your corporate travel program, you’ve probably felt the excitement drop. You walk into the meeting with a clear goal: Improve travel cost savings, reduce operational friction, and modernize how the program runs. You’ve done the work, evaluated providers, built a case. You truly believe you’ve found the best option for the business. But 10 minutes in, the conversation is somewhere else entirely.

Someone brings up a personal experience of travel gone wrong. The CFO hesitates to increase travel spend even if savings are projected in the long run. Finance asks how the savings will actually show up in the P&L. Procurement challenges the scoring. Someone else asks how this is different from the incumbent. The conversation has changed from opportunity to doubt.

That moment is familiar to most travel managers. And it’s not usually because the recommendation you’re making is wrong. It’s because the program needs to be evaluated, validated, and presented in a way that holds up to scrutiny.

Here are 5 common failure points and what to do instead.

1. The numbers don’t survive the second question

The fastest way to lose confidence in the room is using numbers you can’t defend.

Savings projections are often directional. They rely on benchmarks, estimates, or modeled assumptions. That’s not inherently wrong. But in a finance conversation, any number that requires explanation starts to lose credibility.

Finance professionals don’t evaluate potential. They evaluate traceability. They want to know:

Where does the value come from?
How is it calculated?
Where will it show up?

If the answers to those questions aren’t immediately clear, the number doesn’t hold. And when the numbers don’t hold, the rest of the argument doesn’t matter.

For travel managers, this is a frustrating disconnect. You know the program can deliver better travel cost savings. You’ve seen the inefficiencies. You’ve lived the manual work. But if those improvements can’t be expressed in a way finance can validate, they don’t count as ROI.

What to do instead: Build the savings case from your own program data, not benchmarks. Map each projected saving to a specific line in the P&L—travel cost, labor cost, or leakage recovery. If a number requires explanation to be credible, it needs more work before it enters the room.

2. The real cost of the program isn’t captured

Most business cases focus on what’s easy to compare: Fees, rates, discounts. Those numbers show up cleanly in a spreadsheet, but they’re not the only sources driving the day-to-day cost of running the program.

Think about where your time actually goes:

Reconciling reports that don’t match
Tracking down unused ticket credits
Following up on service issues that didn’t resolve cleanly
Explaining numbers before anyone trusts them

None of that is visible in a pricing comparison. But it’s constant and it adds up.

That’s why programs that look “cheaper” upfront often look better during TMC evaluation and the savings fade away six months after you’ve implemented them. The hidden costs show up as time spent managing escalations and doing the extra manual work needed to hold the program together.

What to do instead: Account for the full cost of running the program, not just line-item fees. Map the time spent on reconciliation, exception handling, and manual reporting. If a lower-cost option creates more operational overhead, that difference belongs in the comparison. And if staying with the incumbent carries its own hidden costs, make sure those are represented too.

3. The evaluation assumes things go right

Most evaluations are based on demos, and how the system works when everything goes right.

But more often, the success of corporate travel programs is defined by what happens when things go wrong. Like when a traveler changes a flight after approval. The credit doesn’t surface where it should. And now someone on your team is stepping in to track it down, rebook, and explain what happened. Or when a traveler books a change directly with the supplier instead of through the approved channel. Many TMCs don’t support omnichannel trip modifications, so they simply don’t raise it during demos. That gap only becomes visible after the program is live.

It’s also worth asking what happens when disruption occurs mid-trip. Can a traveler resolve it themselves through the platform, or do they have to reach an agent? The answer shapes how much hidden cost gets absorbed by your team. Every call that goes offline is a potential data gap, a delay, and a labor cost that never appears in the savings model.

If you don’t explore these kinds of scenarios during the evaluation of your potential new TMC, you end up with unfortunate surprises after making the switch. And by then, it’s too late.

What to do instead: During TMC evaluation, push beyond the demo. Run through disruption scenarios explicitly: What happens when a traveler changes a flight after approval? What if they book directly with the supplier? Can travelers self-serve mid-trip, or does every exception route through an agent? The answers reveal how the program will actually behave once it’s live and where your team will absorb cost when it doesn’t.

4. Reporting lacks finance-grade data

Even when cost and servicing are addressed, one issue consistently undermines business cases: The data doesn’t translate.

Travel reports are often designed for operational visibility, not financial validation. They provide insight into trips, spend, and behavior, but they don’t always align with how finance evaluates data. A common version of this: The TMC platform shows one spend figure, the card provider shows another, and the ERP shows a third. Each reflects a different slice of the data. When finance asks which number is correct, there’s no clean answer.

If a reported number needs added context before it’s useful, the conversation slows. If reports don’t reconcile cleanly, they raise questions. If data isn’t audit-ready, it can’t be trusted. And if finance can’t trust the data, the business case stalls.

What to do instead: Get finance-grade data. Require that reporting data align with how finance evaluates spend—not just how operations tracks trips. Look for a single consolidated data source that reconciles across booking, payment, and servicing. When spend, compliance, and exception data are current and unified, the numbers hold up at any point in the conversation.

5. The story wasn’t built for the audience in the room

The final most common cause of breakdown is how the case is presented (even if you have all the right inputs).

Travel managers often tell a travel story: what improves, what gets easier, where savings will come from. But you’re presenting to an audience far broader than travel stakeholders. Finance is listening for cost, control, and auditability. Procurement is evaluating process, scoring, and defensibility.

What to do instead: Build the case for each audience separately. Finance needs to see cost control and auditability including where savings come from, how they’re measured, and how the data can be verified. Procurement needs process structure and defensible scoring. Working with a partner who understands how to translate program value into the language each function expects makes the difference between a pitch that sounds good and one that gets approved.

What a strong corporate travel program case looks like

When a corporate travel program is built to hold up to scrutiny, the case for change feels different immediately.

The numbers are traceable without a walkthrough. Savings are mapped to specific cost lines. The cost model reflects how the program really runs, including servicing, reconciliation, and exception handling. Servicing capabilities have been validated against realistic disruption scenarios, not just demonstrated under ideal conditions. And reporting data aligns with how finance evaluates spend (consolidated, current, and audit ready).

Just as importantly, the story translates. Finance sees a cost model with clear controls and clean data. Procurement sees a structured evaluation process with defensible scoring. And each stakeholder understands the pieces that matter most for their function because the presentation was built in a way that supports all of them.

That’s what turns a corporate travel program pitch from “a decent idea” into a decision that gets swiftly approved.

Where to go deeper

If you’re mapping this out internally, it helps to step back and look beyond the components at the structure behind the program.

The Modern Travel Operating Model ebook walks through how connectivity, automation, and trustworthy data reduce manual work and improve outcomes across booking, servicing, payment, and reporting. It’s a practical next step if you’re trying to build a case that doesn’t just sound right but actually holds up when the questions start .

Frequently asked questions about choosing a new TMC

Why do corporate travel program proposals fail with executives?

Most corporate travel program proposals fail in executive review because the numbers aren’t traceable, costs are incomplete, and the data doesn’t align with how finance evaluates ROI.

What does finance need to approve a corporate travel program change?

To approve a corporate travel program change, finance teams need clear, auditable data showing where value comes from, how it’s calculated, and how it impacts the P&L.

Why isn’t the cheapest TMC always the best option?

Going with the cheapest TMC isn’t always the best option because lower-cost options often create hidden operational costs through manual work, servicing issues, and poor reporting.

What is total cost of ownership in travel?

Total cost of ownership in a corporate travel program includes not just fees and rates, but the operational effort required to run the program, including reconciliation, servicing inefficiencies, unused ticket leakage, and reporting overhead.

How do you measure travel program ROI?

Travel program ROI is measured by combining direct travel cost savings with operational efficiency gains, improved compliance, reduced manual work, and the ability to produce trusted, audit-ready data for finance.

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Jonny Blackler