2023 U.S.-Booked Air Volume: $100 million
Primary Global Online Booking Tool: SAP Concur
Consolidated Global TMC: BCD
BTN estimates Gilead spent $100
million on U.S.-booked air volume in 2023, up from the prior year.
The biopharmaceutical company,
which specializes in HIV/AIDS and other antiviral drugs, turned around a new
travel program in 2023 and 2024. It switched travel management companies from
CWT to BCD Travel and consolidated 42 countries under that contract. It also streamlined
policy, reconfigured the Concur technology stack and relaunched the program.
Gilead is using robotic process
automation and machine learning- and AI-powered products and services to
streamline the travel program and connect disparate stakeholders. As a result,
travelers, executive assistants and security teams became included in the
connectivity stream, receiving automated notifications of trip progress to
ensure visibility, support and safety.
The program uses BCD Travel’s
AI-powered telephony and email systems and its chatbot technology to perform
key tasks on spoken or text-based requests. Gilead is piloting BCD’s AI-powered
payment reconciliation processes and has seen promise with the time savings
from the AI Assist tool. It's also working with Advito on AI-powered data
projects.
The company is working on expanding
the capabilities of a Microsoft Teams-based AI chatbot, communicating the
benefits of the Gilead travel program as well as the benefits travelers can tap
into via supplier loyalty. Since the relaunch of the responsive, AI-enhanced
program, Gilead Travel compliance has jumped by 35 percent globally.
Gilead
employed 18,000 people in 2023, up from 17,000 the prior year. Gilead reported
2023 revenue decreased 1 percent year over year to $27.1 billion.