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Megas Vie W/specialists, consulting cos. agencies redefining global travel management consulting businesses.

Article Excerpt
With all four mega agencies--American Express, BCD Travel, Carlson Wagonlit Travel and HRG Worldwide--jockeying for a position in the global travel management consulting arena, industry observers are watching closely to see how each travel management company differentiates itself and how the competition will play out in a market populated with veteran independent consultants who specialize in business travel and boast 20 years or more of experience.

"As agencies start leveraging relationships and capabilities to support companies with a broader range of services, they're going to start to bump up against some major league competitors, like Accenture or IBM, who have been doing exactly this for a long time and for the first time the big agencies are going to start to deal with competitors who are even bigger than they are," said Tom Wilkinson, president of TRW Travel Consulting in Pennington, N.J. "That will truly be interesting to see if the agencies can create new value or whether they might ultimately start to get squeezed on that end of the service spectrum as well."

According to Hubert Joly, CEO of Carlson Wagonlit and a former executive at high-technology company McKinsey & Co., mega agencies may not feel much pressure from the likes of Accenture, IBM and McKinsey, because travel is so complex and...

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