Major international milestones around corporate governance include the landmark Cadbury Code of Practice adopted by the London Stock Exchange in 1992,  the Sarbanes-Oxley Act passed in the US in 2002, and the OECD Principles of Corporate Governance—published in 1999 and revised in 2004.  These rules and regulations have increasingly sought to create better governance around how companies operate and the responsibility that company directors need to exercise.

In 2008 the collapse of Lehman Brothers, a global banking institution, catapults the world into a widespread financial crisis.  Following the global financial crisis there has been even more increased global pressure for corporations to provide more accurate financial reporting, have increased and timely visibility across all major expense items, and for all corporate decision makers to be accountable for responsible business practices.

This visibility is required for all aspects of corporate expenditure.

In Australia, ground transport remains the fourth largest controllable Travel & Entertainment expense category, with many large Australian companies spending almost 9% of their total T&E budget on ground transport(Source: Concur Travel Spend Report, 2012). Yet it remains the category to have the least visibility in terms of enhanced descriptive data provided by an independent source. Companies still rely heavily on manual descriptions provided by travellers to understand what expense is incurred in this category. In addition, the data is usually fragmented and available in various silos within the company’s financial infrastructure and therefore very difficult to aggregate and analyse.

Cars on Demand has a number of products that can significantly increase management ability to track, measure and analyse this expense category. Please visit the Management Information Systems page to see various reporting and data services which can provide complete visibility and accountability over this spend category.