Diana Brandon, Marcom Writer & Strategist

Explain what your company does.

Deem creates software for business travelers to shop, book, and manage their corporate trips. 

Our mobile-first travel technology is breaking new ground as the only traveler-centric booking platform, including safety information in the booking flow, where travelers need the information most, and accessibility features to make business travel safer and more inclusive for more people. Our platform keeps travelers in compliance and helps companies manage their costs and budgets, provide duty of care, and integrates with nearly all expense technologies, which gives companies flexibility and choice in how they manage their operations. 

Describe the innovations you achieved in 2021 to advance your company’s mission (1000 words) (994)

Deem is on a mission to transform the travel experience for business travelers. We put travelers at the heart of everything we do because we know that travel is better for business when it’s better for travelers, and all travel is personal. This philosophy drives us every day and leads us to innovations for our corporate booking and management software called Etta, released in February 2021.

Creating a new technology product starts with empathy and research, and what our research uncovered surprised us. Because business travel has traditionally been about people helping people travel, it was assumed that companies were delivering everything needed to travelers. Duty of care — the moral, ethical, and legal obligation of a company to help keep its people safe — had primarily been the purview of employers and travel management companies. We all assumed travelers were ok with that.

As we talked to industry experts, travel managers, and travelers, we found that the most hesitance about booking travel was coming directly from travelers. At the booking level, people didn’t feel that they had the right information to feel safe or make good decisions about travel. 

We also learned that travelers’ health and safety standards have increased, and their heightened expectations could place more of a demand on travel managers and travel management companies than could be easily accommodated. As many industry people got laid off through 2020 and beyond, travelers suddenly had far fewer human resources to assist them. 

These factors led us to partnering with safety technology company GeoSure to quickly create our Travel SafetyCheck feature. SafetyCheck puts all the cleaning and safety protocols from suppliers, Covid-19 maps, and other wellness information directly into the booking flow, where travelers need the information most. 

However, while Covid-19 was our initial catalyst we also knew we had to think more broadly about business traveler needs, which were already starting to change. The pandemic was radically altering how people think about work and business travel, and speeding up reliance on technology solutions. And the increase in social and political disruptions over the last few years showed there was a great need to help more people travel safely beyond pandemic concerns. 

So, what we’ve really done is prepare for the future of work.

First, SafetyCheck went beyond pandemic-related information to include hyper-local location scores; they’re based on traveler personal profiles that help boost safety for more types of travelers, including the first dedicated women and LGBTQ+ travelers experience. It also displays destination scores for theft, basic freedoms, physical safety, and health and medical availability, and nighttime safety. This detail is presented in a clean, easily navigated way so travelers can find what they need without being overwhelmed or losing their place in their booking process. 

Next, if you’re at all like us, you do nearly everything on your mobile devices. Mobile commerce is still growing, and consumer apps have been offering easier ways to work and book travel for some time. But until now, corporate travel technology has not kept pace.

In building Etta, we placed a heavy focus on our mobile booking experience. Not all corporate travel booking platforms offer mobile booking, and of those that do, many still do not offer booking for flights, hotels, and car and/or ground transportation. Of the software that does offer a mobile app, many don’t allow travelers to make changes or manage their trip on their own.

We couldn’t imagine being a business traveler, maybe already anxious about the business meeting and the added concerns of travel during a pandemic, being unable to make necessary changes on the go. So, Etta empowers travelers. While staying within the company’s travel policies, travelers can make changes to any segment of their trip right from their device. And even more, Etta “remembers” the traveler’s profile and preferences, so details like loyalty program membership numbers, flight seat preferences and more don’t get missed in the process. (Even our biggest competitor doesn’t offer that.)

Third, because we are people and traveler focused, we wanted to think as broadly as we could about creating technology that would embrace diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I). We believe everyone deserves the opportunity to travel safely. And we also wanted to address a group that’s often left out of the DE&I conversation, and that is people with disabilities. So, we made sure that Etta offers accessibility features to make travel easier for those with greater needs. 

To accommodate travelers of all abilities, Etta adheres to WCAG 2.0 standards from the World Wide Web Consortium for people with vision impairments including blindness and color blindness, hearing impairments or deafness, and motor impairments. We’ve addressed cognitive impairments as well, designing clean and uncluttered interfaces that minimize the number of decisions a user needs to make in any given moment, and that respect system-level settings to reduce animation. 

To facilitate making accessibility arrangements for each travel segment, such as wheelchair requests, etc., Etta allows travelers to add their personal considerations to flight tickets, hotel, and car rental bookings.

And accessibility features don’t only benefit travelers with disabilities — they help everyone. For example, if you’re rushing through an airport with your luggage in tow, can you reach the buttons you need to tap in your app with only your free hand? Can you see the screen over the glare in the airport? And raise your hand if you’ve ever made the text size on your smartphone just a little larger. These are all accessibility features, and they’re possible in Etta.

As of today, our Etta for iOS app is AA WCAG 2.0 compliant, and we are currently working to meet Apple’s much higher standards for accessibility. Our Etta for Android app will also meet AA WCAG 2.0 compliance when it is released in September 2021.

Only one of our competitors offers limited accessibility features in its app and the others don’t offer this at all, making Etta a truly unique technology for business travel booking and duty of care solutions.

Explain how your company’s innovations are leading your industry forward (1000 words) (965)

Etta is setting a new standard for corporate travel booking and management software. Deem’s modern approach to creating software that travelers love to use is what will help businesses gain the highest ROI from their managed travel programs. 

For many companies, especially larger enterprises, their choice of travel management software is almost a foregone conclusion. The current leader in our industry is incorporated into other popular business software suites, which has helped it gain its market share. Its dominance is not due to its capabilities or user experience.

Unfortunately, that company was created as an expense platform to which travel booking was added almost as a side note. Both travel and expense software are highly complex platforms to create. Doing one well is a huge achievement. Doing both well is not necessarily realistic. According to this competitor’s verified online reviews, travelers say it’s “antiquated,” “not intuitive,” “not customizable,” “clunky” and often doesn’t import or relay information to the user correctly. 

Users also report that they spend time researching flights online first because their platform doesn’t show them all the options they need and know are available. When travelers can’t navigate the company’s choice of software easily, have routine trouble with communication and reliability, and can find better options for their trip from a general search engine, they’re incented to book their travel off platform and expense the whole thing later. 

The industry term for that is leakage, and it’s a huge problem for businesses. If companies don’t know where and how their people are traveling, they can’t provide adequate duty of care. They aren’t able to control costs or create accurate forecasting for budgets. They also can’t use the data and reporting to help negotiate better rates with travel suppliers (airlines, hotels, etc.) for volume discounts. Leakage prevents companies from realizing the benefits of having a managed travel program to begin with.

This other platform is also a closed system for both travel and expense functions. This means customers have no ability to choose a different travel booking or expense platform option for their business if there is something better for their company’s operations. For companies with an existing expense platform, for instance, choosing the current industry leader means they would need to jettison existing software and operations and replace it with an entirely new system just to include a travel booking option. The cost in staff effort across the organization to make that transition, the loss of the existing software value, and the cost of time to handle new technology integration and manage the change to a complicated new platform can often be overlooked when it appears that they’re being offered a great deal on this huge integrated system.

The technology industry is known for its agility and adaptability. Technology is updated regularly and changes rapidly. Legacy platforms are just not prepared for the future of work. Our industry is ready for a change.

Businesses need flexibility and freedom to grow in new ways. Deem’s singular focus on travel booking and management offers that. The Etta platform was designed to integrate with nearly every expense management platform, so businesses don’t need to make radical shifts in operations to accommodate their managed travel program. And Deem’s team of specialists customize Etta technology to provide the greatest value possible to the customer. 

Etta’s flexibility extends in other ways. For example, searches for flights and hotels in Etta aren’t limited to one global distribution system (GDS) but include Google ITA and, if needed, can be integrated with other sites such as Booking.com, to provide fast results that travelers require. So, if a company regularly books an independent hotel because of its convenient location, travelers can book that hotel in Etta when other platforms won’t see it because it isn’t available through their limited search options.

Etta also makes it easy to manage even highly complex, global travel programs. It’s Single Site Builder feature allows non-technical travel managers to quickly set up different groups of travelers in one place, even if they all have different travel rules, locations, and currencies. Deem has simplified and streamlined programs for more than a few customers who were burdened with many different sites to manage based on global locations, traveler types and other necessary program considerations. Legacy players in our industry don’t offer the flexibility and freedom of choice that businesses need to stay competitive.

On the people side of the equation, Deem and GeoSure are also helping to democratize safety. Said differently, we see innovation moving toward “people risk management” as distinct from the traditional “company risk management” approach. We aren’t just checking the duty of care “box” for the employer, but providing meaning, breadth, and depth of safety for individuals. This hasn’t been done before. As brands, we can show that we care about safety for everyone on a granular level — down to the individual traveler — making safety available and personalized for everyone.

We know not everyone will want to share their personal information, and both GeoSure and Deem never share or sell it. We’re bringing safety closer to the individual. It’s neighborhood level for anywhere in the world, at different times of day, for different travelers with different concerns. Our SafetyCheck feature takes all the data from a profile and calculates scores based on location, times of day, etc. So, a solo female traveler, maybe a French-speaking Canadian, who is in North India will have a different risk profile from a 40-year-old male, local resident. 

Personalization is allowing and necessitating a new duty of care model. We’re showing the industry it’s possible to create better features, more personalized capabilities, and a better way to give people more information to empower them to have a better travel experience, making safety more easily accessible to a more travelers than ever before.

Explain how your company’s innovations are addressing larger societal issues (1000 words) (450)

When we talk about the future of work, we’re referring to a group of issues that are ultimately about creating better situations for people and elevating the work experience through technology. We’ve been inspired by conditions we’ve witnessed, of course. But we also think about how we want to respond to larger societal issues to be prepared for the future. We believe that, with Etta, we can address some of the limitations business travelers have had to grapple with and possibly have a positive impact on business in other ways. 

For instance, SafetyCheck initially came about because of the global pandemic. But it caused us to think more deeply about what “safety” means and how we can embrace it in our work life. With GeoSure, we came to understand that it’s about creating a safety ethos, that is, always being mindful of safety. Not obsessing about being unsafe, but helping people understand how to think about safety. When everyone is empowered with information, everyone can be responsible for safety. And everyone deserves to be safe.  

Whether we’re addressing the new duty of care or the future of work, personalization is key. We’re creating better features and more personalized capabilities that give people more information to empower them to have a more confident travel experience. Safety scores for destinations based on the traveler’s profile is one way. Keeping personal travel preferences saved to make booking trips more efficient and productive is another. 

Now, through a complete and robust mobile platform, even more is possible. We’ve broadened our definition of diversity by including people with disabilities. In the past, business travel may have presented too many challenges for them to feel psychologically or physically safe enough or participate independently, but technology can help unlock opportunities for more people to thrive in their careers and businesses. 

By combining accessibility features in Etta with the technology people already carry with them and use everywhere, travelers get an individualized experience that empowers them in the specific ways they need. And that makes travelers happier and more able to focus on the work and productivity rather than the distractions of travel. It also helps companies to truly be more diverse, which can lead to even better outcomes. 

At Deem, we think of the future of work as mobile, accessible to include more diversity in business opportunities, and reliant on a work-from-anywhere philosophy where people are empowered by technology. We’re traveling again, but now with more forethought and preparation. 

And who knows? We hope that by driving so much positive change, we’ll inspire our customers to reimagine other systems they use to create a more beneficial, inclusive, and human environment in which even more people can thrive.

Cite the 2021 metrics that reflect the impact your innovations have had on your company. (User numbers, revenue growth, customer satisfaction rates, etc. – 500 words) (329)

We need to be careful about sharing actual numbers in our data for a variety of reasons. But we can talk about impact in a relational way, so we’ll start there. 

First, our Etta platform has a 91% adoption rate. That’s a huge number, especially when you consider that multiple surveys indicate that leakage is the biggest challenge travel managers face in their programs. (Remember, that’s when travelers won’t use the company’s chosen software for booking their business trips.) Such a high adoption rate among our clients’ travelers tells us that they love using Etta, they find it easy to navigate, and helpful in booking and managing their trips.

We can also share that since launching Etta, we’ve seen mobile use increase by three times. Thus far, we’ve only had Etta for iOS available. Not only has mobile use dramatically increased, but the app also gets a 5-star rating in the Apple app store. With our Android version of Etta becoming available at the end of September 2021, we expect to see much greater numbers very quickly. (We know some customers are waiting to have both iOS and Android before they launch mobile platforms for their travelers.) And with business travel expected to start picking up more in Q4 2021, we anticipate mobile booking will become more the norm for even less-frequent travelers.

For some analytics specific to our Travel SafetyCheck feature, in its first 120 days from launch, we saw a more than 58% user return rate, with an average session duration of about five minutes. These statistics indicated to us that our travelers can find what they need during travel booking, in about five minutes, and they’re finding the information valuable for them.

From the first full quarter SafetyCheck was live through the current quarter (projected for September,) there’s been a 300% increase in use. There were modest increases at first, and a nearly 200% increase since Q2 2021. Specifically, a 197% increase from Q2-Q3 2021. 

Please delineate any metrics that reveal the positive impact your innovations have had on your industry and the culture at large (500 words) (283)

These numbers for Travel SafetyCheck indicate to us that creating a culture of safety isn’t just important to Deem and GeoSure, but also to companies and travelers as they’re navigating the challenge of continuing business through the pandemic. GeoSure’s growth of 18,000% from 2020 Q2 to 2021 Q3 helps confirm that this is much-needed information that more people are looking for to help get business travel moving forward again. 

And our decision to include accessibility as part of the DE&I conversation has been followed by our industry media. This past summer, one of our industry publications, Business Travel News (BTN Group,) conducted a series of webinars around DE&I in business travel and decided to include accessibility as its own webinar topic to help amplify the conversation. Full disclosure: We did not ask them to do this or present it as an idea to them, but once we learned of it were able to successfully pitch our VP of product as a panelist. During the webinar, he presented to the industry the ethical and legal implications of including accessibility — or not — within their programs and technology being used. 

As for the culture at large, well, we work within a niche market, and our technology can only be used by people who work at a company that’s a Deem client. But we hope that as people use technology in other areas of their lives or move on to other companies, they’ll remember the positive features they were introduced to through Deem and GeoSure and start expecting them in all their technology solutions. 

It’s possible that the future of work may help dictate the features we already have as the new standards for all technology products.