In Fight Over Government Travel Contracts, DOT Picks Carlson Wagonlit Over Concur

Employees of the The Department of Transportation, which sets so many rules about airline and other transportation issues, have to travel, too.

The DOT, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Government Accountability Office, and five other federal agencies recently selected CWTSato Travel to handle their employee travel.

The eight federal agencies participated in one procurement process as CWTSato Travel, a division of Carlson Wagonlit Travel, competed with rival Concur over agency allegiances in dividing up the General Services Administration's E-Gov Travel Services-2 master contract for travel booking and expenses management services.

Matt Beatty, president of military and government markets for CWTSato Travel, said each of the agencies has different requirements and timelines regarding implementation.

The DOT is one of the top three civilian government agencies, and currently uses Northrup Grumman, which along with EDS (now part of Hewlett Packard) and CWT, provided government travel services under the first generation electronic government travel services (ETS), which is being phased out.

CWTSato picked up the contracts for the DOT and the other seven agencies in late March, but it hasn't been widely announced.

"The DOT is a significant win for us, and one we are very excited about," Beatty said.

CWTSato Travel, EDS and Northrup Grumman had provided their E-Gov Travel Service to the federal government, namely some 90 civilian federal agencies, since 2003, but the system was considered out of date. Many agencies still use the system pending a transition to the next-generation ETS2 solutions.

Although Concur initially was awarded the entire ETS2 contract for all federal government civilian agencies, in September 2013, after a legal battle, the GSA reneged and awarded a portion of the ETS2 contract to CWTSato Travel, meaning Concur would have to share the spoils, and compete for the agency contracts.

Concur has had problems with implementations, and although it has ten federal agencies signed up, it is believed to have won only one agency contract, for the Army and Air Force Exchange Service, in recent months.