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Diners Club Helps Military Contractor Provide Critical Support in the Middle East with Access to Cash and Safe Lodging for Overseas Employees
Situation
In early 2003, a leading provider of information and communications technology for the US armed services faced an emergency situation. While war had not yet been declared in the Middle East, the US began moving thousands of troops into the region. In response, the company needed to move its own staff into Kuwait and find lodging for them. To provide the technical support the military needed, these staff would have to quickly establish overseas operations.
In a region with few automated teller machines (ATMs) and plenty of red tape at banks and hotels, giving staff access to funds was a major challenge. Asking employees to travel with large amounts of cash was not a prudent option. Instead, the company's corporate travel team and financial planners turned to Diners Club. Through the years, the company knew its Diners Club relationship manager to be keenly focused on problem solving and able to bring appropriate Diners Club resources to bear on its needs. After receiving an urgent call from the company, Diners Club set the wheels in motion to ensure that company employees deployed to Kuwait would have fast access to cash when they arrived to set up field offices.
Paramount among those needs were employee security and convenience. The company was counting on Diners Club to supply company staff with quick and secure access to funding – for field offices, rental cars and meals – and to arrange long–term lodging and payment terms at a Kuwaiti hotel. This would require flexibility for dealing with frequent changes as employees switched in and out of the area. Everything needed to be in place within a matter of days. The company would, of course, need to be updated on all these transactions taking place on the other side of the world.
Solution
The Diners Club account manager began orchestrating resources for a swift solution, including the Diners Club business service representative and individuals from within client relations, establishment services, credit and other areas of Diners Club. The team made special arrangements to obtain credit approval through the Kuwaiti National Bank and negotiated with the general manager of a local Kuwaiti hotel for long–term stays with Diners Club as the means of payment. The team used the Diners Club Group Event System – a centrally billed, single–card payment system for all "event" expenses – to support a rotating group of employees. By leveraging this system, the team also facilitated secure and weekly cash advances, which alleviated employee fears of personal liability and cut down on long and potentially dangerous trips to the bank.
Diners Club had the company's staff in Kuwait up and running in just three days. To help stateside managers keep the company's overseas team working on Kuwaiti time, Diners Club expanded the office hours for its business services support. Another important Diners Club tool, Global Vision, gave the company's US–based management team daily updates on the charge activity in Kuwait.
Result
By turning to Diners Club, the company had people securely in place within a few short days. Relieved of worries about basic needs, field employees were able to focus on the critical work they were deployed to perform. Meanwhile, managers in the corporate office back home kept a close eye on the transactions abroad with timely updates through Global Vision.
With the Diners Club Group Event System, the company is now equipped to respond to any deployment, no matter how large or far away. The experience further strengthened the company's confidence that the Diners Club team is prepared to meet head–on any needs that arise in the future. Over the years Diners Club has worked with the company in creative ways as it has grown. This has included decentralized billing, a 60–day payment plan for easier reconciliation and strip–billed air travel.
