Rearden Commerce announces product enhancements
New rebooking, dining and rail capabilities added
Susan Avery -- Purchasing, 6/22/2009 3:27:23 PM
Rearden Commerce has added new rebooking, dining and rail capabilities to its Rearden Personal Assistant tool, its on-demand platform that helps companies manage and buy travel services online.
The new capabilities help increase productivity and improve compliance and steer travelers to preferred suppliers, says Tony D'Astolfo, vice president of worldwide sales at Rearden Commerce in Foster City, Calif. Here's a look at the new capabilities:
• New "book again" technology enables frequent travelers to reserve and purchase itineraries similar to those they previously booked, with a single click. Administrative assistants who book trips for more than one traveler now can "clone" a trip. What's more, each trip that's cloned intelligently applies each traveler's personal preferences. For example, if the CEO prefers the aisle, and a vice president prefers the window, the Rearden Personal Assistant understands this and will ticket the "cloned" itineraries appropriately.
• Rearden Commerce also announced a "matching" technology. In the case that a traveler's exact template is no longer available, the Rearden Personal Assistant's unique technical algorithms present a traveler with similar itineraries that still apply corporate discounts and policies. If the Rearden Personal Assistant cannot find an exact match, it will make a recommendation or provide a traveler with a direct link to the flight search page. The "book again" capability also enables travelers to view, side by side, similar itineraries to compare cost differences when booking a similar trip.
• With this release, the company adds personalization and intelligent search to the Rearden Personal Assistant dining service. Employees can indicate cuisines of choice, select price points, designate specific locations or identify favorite restaurants. The Rearden Personal Assistant then makes recommendations based on preferences indicated, consider company spending policies, and shows restaurant locations on a map embedded within the service page. The personalization capabilities augment in-depth restaurant reviews, table availability, instant book capabilities, and location-aware mobile application.
• Also, business travelers can now reserve and purchase Amtrak tickets through the Rearden Personal Assistant. By directly connecting to Amtrak, travelers see the most updated rail inventory, are guided to travel options within their respective company's corporate policy, and can purchase tickets immediately. Travelers also have the ability to see different classes of tickets (i.e., those which fall within their corporate policy and those that do not). As with other services within the Rearden Personal Assistant, a traveler can load preferred rail stations and search for hotels near their destination.
In other news, David Cassady joins Rearden Commerce as president and general manager of B2B operations.
With more than 25 years of operations experience, Cassady most recently was executive vice president of operations at SpikeSource, where he was responsible for worldwide sales, channel programs, marketing and business development. Previously, Cassady was senior vice president of worldwide operations for Virsa Systems.
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