While every mile along the road to a fully automated distribution system is yet fully paved, corporate pathfinders say the value proposition of many individual pieces is not so easy to implement and follow.

Editors of expense reporting, data warehousing and online booking systems are excited about the prospects for payback and even more so about the vision of combining them with electronic messaging, smart cards, direct vendor connections and voice and image technology in coming years.

Many Corporate say their increasingly global work force-no longer of stationary "desktops," but now of mobile "seats"-is demanding products to improve service delivery, security and safety, and a strong demand is rising for Social Networking en route.

Travel management always has been, and always will be, about weighing the ideal of excellent service against the reality of the corporate bottom line.

In the 21^st century, it is up to travel managers/buyers to decide precisely how much they are willing to risk, in terms of both quality and cost, on trying a new solution. there is technology today that addresses every step of the travel cycle, and the decisions to be made focus on what pieces to outsource and what to bring in-house, who can deliver today and who will be around tomorrow, and what larger purchasing partnerships the travel department or corporate management hopes to build.

In a world of intensive communication and multi-channel distribution, it behooves travel managers and buyers, to at least understand the costs and returns of each decision.