PHENOGY

PHENOGY Case Study: Powering Real Work with Perk

PHENOGY wasn’t struggling with travel. They were struggling with everything around it. 

As a fast-scaling energy innovator building decentralized, resilient power systems, their people were constantly on the move—consultants shuttling between Switzerland, Germany, and the USA to leadership meeting investors worldwide, teams were constantly traveling for important business engagements. But behind the scenes, something was quietly draining hours, attention, and momentum: travel management had become pure shadow work. The CEO, employees, and later Christine, the CEO office manager, all spent hours organizing their travel.

As the business scaled, travel became more and more of a burden. And with flexible travel guidelines and bookings spread across multiple platforms, the hidden work piled up. 

When travel becomes shadow work

Before Perk, PHENOGY managed travel across Booking.com, Hotels.com, airline websites, and other portals. Employees searched for the best rates individually, empowered to make their own, sensible choices without a formal travel policy, and handled bookings on their own. Even the CEO booked his own travel until Christine, the CEO office manager, took over. 

“It was quite admittedly time-consuming to do, very time-consuming.” — Christine, CEO Office

This fragmented approach created significant shadow work. Travel bookings were scattered, leaving employees wasting hours comparing sites. For finance, the reconciliation was a nightmare without a single overview of employee travel. The time spent manually comparing rates and rebooking trips added up.  

At the same time, PHENOGY was using Perk as its first spend management solution. Employees could scan receipts directly into the app, reducing the time finance spent chasing documentation. But travel and spend still lived in separate systems, causing gaps, missing invoices, and unnecessary administrative work.

Reconnecting travel and spend to eliminate hidden work

PHENOGY learned about Perk Travel through their accounting team, which recommended it as an all-in-one travel and spend solution. One benefit stood out immediately:

“One of the key motivations… was that invoices would flow automatically from Perk Travel into Perk Spend. No more having to chase missing invoices.” — Christine

Automating the booking-to-expense flow saved hundreds of hours, resulting in significant operational cost savings for the finance team, especially with a rapidly growing team. Now? No more tracking missing invoices. No more matching receipts to bookings.

The Travel and Spend integration gave finance instant visibility into travel expenses and eliminated recurring issues with lost, late, or incomplete invoices. With bookings and expenses linked through one system, finance finally gained the control and efficiency they needed. They could process transactions directly instead of relying on individual employees. 

Moving from manual booking to effortless autonomy

Before Perk, employees used their own judgment to manage spending. So, while they made thoughtful, cost-conscious choices, there were no benchmarks or policies in place to keep a cap on spend. 

Perk introduced dynamic travel policies, a feature that allows you to create additional policies for specific travelers or groups. Employees and executives no longer follow a one-size-fits-all rulebook. Senior leadership now has its own benchmarks for long-haul flights built into the system.

Not only did this give Christine hours back that had previously been spent checking prices across multiple portals, it also enabled employees to book confidently within policy. No more manual approvals. No more endless booking comparisons. 

By moving to Perk’s unified travel and spend platform, PHENOGY reclaimed more than €3,000 worth of time once wasted hunting through countless booking sites— and Perk’s handling of trip changes saved a further €3,000 in admin work. 

With dynamic policies in place, PHENOGY saved more than €13,000 thanks to employees booking within the hotel, train and car rental guidelines—and another €10,000 through compliant short- and long-haul flights.  

What’s more, FlexiTravel has now become an essential part of PHENOGY’s travel setup. When travel disruptions happen, Perk’s support team steps in fast—lifting the pressure off the CEO’s office and finance. With the burden gone, they can finally focus on what matters: real work with real impact. As well as save more than €10,000 from refunded trips in the process. 

Today, PHENOGY’s CEO, exec team, employees and contractors all use Perk. The company also books travel for visitors, customers and investors, which can be managed through Perk even without granting platform access.

From fragmented spend to actionable insights

With Perk, PHENOGY gained reporting capabilities that simply did not exist before. They now track total spend, bookings, travel destinations and other key insights across their travel activity.

“The reporting features are absolutely brilliant… we can see total spend, bookings, top destinations—everything.” — Christine

These insights help PHENOGY negotiate corporate hotel rates and understand travel patterns that were previously invisible. Reporting now directly informs budgeting, policy adjustments and supplier discussions.

A better experience for everyone

With Perk, PHENOGY didn’t just fix travel. They reclaimed time, clarity and focus—so their people can spend less energy on shadow work, and more time building the future of energy. And as hidden tasks disappeared, so did the costs. In just 9 months, PHENOGY has already saved €40,000. When travel works, the whole company works. And PHENOGY is proof.