The Procurement of Corporate Housing – Made Easy!

Global moves increase demand for consistency

More and more employers are hiring the very best talent from around the world. Employees are under increased pressure to travel, live and conduct business within “foreign” locations. At BridgeStreet Worldwide, we recognize the importance of reducing the stress associated with this type of assignment. Additionally companies are seeking a single source solution for their temporary housing requests. BridgeStreet has developed an international alliance of serviced apartment providers to meet this single source demand. This network, known as the BridgeStreet Global Alliance is a conglomerate of like-minded providers dedicated to high quality accommodations and services. BridgeStreet ensures that the alliance provides a high level of customer service through site audits, mystery apartment shoppers and guest satisfaction score minimums.

BridgeStreet customers now have the ability to receive the same quality and service for their global needs that they have come to realize at a local level including: seamless reservations, billing and account management.

Some help for your team

BridgeStreet has a clear understanding of where and how our services fit into the larger assignment process; that temporary housing is just a small piece of an otherwise intensive service cycle. BridgeStreet lifts the responsibility for this service off the company’s internal team while keeping in mind that each assignment has its own set of details, which need to be tracked and attended to. Accountability for both a smooth transition for the assignee and quality services, at a best price, is shared by both BridgeStreet and the company’s team.

In fact, the trend to track costs and quality across the globe became so paramount for our clients it drove us to develop a new corporate housing technology, EasySource. Used by our internal procurement team, EasySource totally automates the fulfillment process for every corporate housing request. As our clients can attest, BridgeStreet shortens the cycle time to find corporate housing while ensuring quality and value remain high.

Quality assurance under budget constraints

Feedback from clients indicated increased pressure on the time their teams spent to provide housing options, contain costs and provide quality to assignees. Their teams were mired in hours of work, chasing down multiple temporary housing providers or other accommodation types for each assignee, and then riffling through responses in all different formats to grasp the best choice for each individual case. This work became daunting with the burden of staying within time and budget constraints.

BridgeStreet has experience managing franchisee partners – holding them accountable to quality and service standards, which are enforced through the BridgeStreet Global Alliance. We simply took these principles to the next level by developing EasySource, which allows BridgeStreet to enter a reservation request in any city and receive multiple bids back within a few hours.

The EasySource system solves the need to find best fit temporary housing for a particular assignee by communicating the precise needs of an assignee, from a pet friendly apartment to a specific area of town, directly to Global Alliance members. Alliance members then customize and submit their bids via EasySource. As BridgeStreet receives results from the various members, they are processed through several comparative metrics and assigned a value based on how well they have met the specific needs/pricing and ratings from previous guests.

With over thirty years of experience – BridgeStreet Worldwide has recognized the changing global workforce environment and has created comprehensive systems to provide high quality housing and account management for assignees anywhere in the world. Our technology, coupled with the BridgeStreet Global Alliance, simplifies the corporate housing procurement process while maintaining consistency across the globe.

CREDIT TEXT: www.bridgestreet.com

BIO: Jon Wohlfert – BridgeStreet Worldwide

Jon Wohlfert oversees all aspects of the expanding North American operations while seeking growth opportunities in Central and South America. He is the driving force behind the international marketing efforts and the globalization of our IT systems and services. Since joining BridgeStreet in 2003 as Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing, he has been instrumental in repositioning the BridgeStreet brand as a global leader and creating a sales-oriented culture.

His background includes 20 years of sales and marketing experience, including positions with Wyndham International, Summerfield Suites, Sierra Suites, Twelve Oaks Corporate Housing and Marriott. Additionally, he served as Chairman of TrendFX from 2000 to 2003.

He earned an MBA from Michigan State University and received his Bachelor's degree from Rochester Institute of Technology.

Email him at jon.wohlfert@bridgestreet.com