When Carly took a summer internship working for her mother’s accounting firm, she knew she would be doing a lot of event planning and figuring out transportation for business meetings. It seemed like her mother and the rest of the firm’s partners were constantly on the move between different meetings all day. On days they were actually in the office, the transportation for business meetings challenge was getting out of town clients safely and efficiently to the firm’s downtown headquarters. Traditionally, the firm handled all of these transportation issues in a disjointed fashion-certain taxi companies for this, limo services for certain clients, and renting cars when necessary. All of this meant a little of different options to keep track of and an inefficiently contracting and billing system.
Carly decided to make it the goal of her summer internship to solve their transportation for business meetings issues once and for all. She was determined to find a company that would meet all of their different needs and allow them to save money by contracting for bulk services. She knew they had an attractive amount of need to a company and felt like she could effectively bargain for good rates.
When she started her research in transportation for corporate events and airport limo service, what she started to realize was that she shouldn’t be looking at a traditional transportation company like a taxi or cab service, but should rather look into the types of companies that offered wedding limos and limo service for prom. First, they would know there was some quality control because of the types of transportation the company normally did. Second, since they would mostly require transportation on the weekdays when weddings and proms are rare, they could probably negotiate for a great deal
She decided to bring the proposal to her mom. She had a few important questions. First, she wanted to know what the traditional limo rental requirements were. Carly explained that most required a 3 hour rental, but she was confident that could become negotiable. Next, she wanted to know where Carly got this idea. Carly explain that she knew there were nearly 1.3 million corporate meetings and events each year and there had to have been a company that figured out transportation concerns at this point. Plus, companies spend more than $225 billion each year to send their employees on business trips, so it could not be unprecedented to contract with a limo company.
Carly’s mom agreed with her points and gave her the go ahead to start interviewing local limo services. Within just a few weeks, Carly found a company that was relatively new, but excited about balancing its business between weddings and corporate events. The staff was professional and the vehicles were new and well-equipped. Carly look at what the firm was currently spending on all of its different methods of transportation and decided to negotiate for a contract that would be 10% and guarantee them transportation whenever they needed it. Much to Carly’s delight, negotiations went smoothly and she was soon the transportation hero of the corporate world!
