How Perk unified AutoScout24’s travel management across Europe

AutoScout24 is Europe’s largest online car marketplace. Operating in 11 core European markets — for example in Germany, Italy, France, and Norway — the company has numerous offices across different countries. Around 1,000 employees work in offices to deliver the best possible buying/selling experience to the roughly 30 million monthly users.

In order to stay in contact with colleagues, partners, and suppliers, AutoScout24 employees travel regularly. To simplify the large number of business trips and to save time and money, in 2023 the company decided to revamp its travel management using Perk.

Building & Maintaining Connections

As a pan-European company in a fast-paced automotive sector, AutoScout24 must always stay up to date. Offices are in constant exchange about market developments and innovations. While much is handled digitally — for environmental and time-management reasons — for the company’s Director of Procurement & Facilities, frequent in-person visits remain essential:

“For personal exchange it is essential occasionally to visit the locations, to see how things are going in the other markets, what’s happening there and what problems might exist. You notice that collaboration works better when you actually know each other.”

In his role, he not only undertakes internal travel, but also visits partners and suppliers when needed. Thus, trips serve to build new relationships and get to know potential business partners.

The Drive for Innovation & Autonomy

Before switching to Perk, AutoScout24 used a mix of several platforms (online tools and a travel agency) for business trips. However, they repeatedly found that applying travel policies through these channels was unreliable. Many team members also found it cumbersome to contact different service providers for every request. There was a demand for a modern, digital — and above all — more flexible solution for booking business trips. Employees wanted more autonomy.

“As a tech company in the automotive industry, we ourselves are digital natives and need a reliable platform we can work with directly. We don’t want someone else handling it — that’s just inefficient. And Perk really pushed us forward there.”

Don Stenden, Director of Procurement & Facilities, AutoScout24

Working together with the facility team (responsible for travel management), IT, and the company’s account management, AutoScout24 searched for a suitable business-travel solution. Ultimately, they chose Perk — not only for the self-service booking process, but also for Perk’s large travel inventory for the European market.The implementation of the Perk platform for AutoScout24 was very smooth and fast. According to Stenden:

“What I liked the most was the speed in the digital area — meaning the speed of change. [...] The implementation was very easy, the system is intuitive, it works well and is also well adopted.”

Don Stenden, Director of Procurement & Facilities, AutoScout24

At first, the company used Perk only in Germany. Soon afterwards, however, the platform was rolled out to other locations as well.

Unified Travel Policies for Everyone

One of the first steps after shifting to Perk was to integrate the company’s internal travel policies into the booking system. Because of AutoScout24’s many different offices and countries, it had always been difficult to enforce uniform rules for travel budgets.

Thanks to Perk’s integration capabilities, now all employees book travel under the same conditions and in compliance with travel policies — across Europe.

AutoScout24 also uses Perk’s functionality to create custom approval workflows. Travel that meets policy can be booked directly by employees. But if a booking exceeds the allowed budget for hotel or flight, it must be approved by a supervisor.

“And that’s exactly what we needed. A system that’s flexible, where you can change things. There are general framework conditions everywhere, but you can also say: OK, in this case the conditions don’t fit — but we still give our employees the possibility to book, then with an approval.”