How Ziff Davis Scaled Global Travel and Saved 21% with Navan

Region

APAC: Asia-Pacific, EMEA: Europe, Middle East, and Africa, NORAM: North America, LATAM: Latin America

Headquarters

New York, NY

Industry

Media and Entertainment

Products Used

• Navan Business Travel
• Navan Corporate Cards
• Navan Expense
• Navan Group Travel
• Navan Guest Travel

Get the PDF Copy

Ziff Davis is a global media company that owns more than 80 brands across various industries, including health, video gaming, tech, and shopping. Headquartered in New York City, the company has employees and offices all over the world, including Canada, Ireland, the UK, and India. Christine Capestany, VP Controller, oversees the corporate division and accounts payable on projects to centralize processes. Her team manages travel and expenses, a task that became seamless after implementing Navan.

Before Navan

Ziff Davis used to operate without a centralized booking application for employees — a significant challenge for a global travel program that spans more than 60 countries. Most employees booked travel on their own through consumer websites and submitted expenses for reimbursement. 

“Booking expenses were reviewed after the fact.” That meant the company had limited visibility into what employees were booking, where they were staying, or how much they were spending on airfare and hotels. 

The primary goal for the finance team was to find a solution that would allow them to centralize all costs and have better reporting and visibility.

“

Once we committed to Navan, our implementation went very smoothly — it was about a two-week process.

Christine Capestany

VP Controller

Why Navan

Ziff Davis wanted the entire company to use a single, uniform solution. “When we were comparing the different options on the market, Navan seemed to have more options that would be well-utilized at our company,” said Capestany. Features such as group travel and guest invites were particularly appealing. 

The implementation process was also a key factor. “Once we committed to Navan, our implementation went very smoothly — it was about a two-week process,” said Capestany. “We had great working sessions with our account manager, Arian, who was committed to us the whole journey, and still is.”

Results with Navan

Since implementing Navan, Ziff Davis has seen significant improvements in its travel program. The company has already completed more than 7,000 bookings on Navan and has realized 21% in overall travel savings in the 9 months since implementing the solution. Capestany attributes this saving to the controls and policies built into the system, which enable her team to place restrictions on the hotels and airline classes that employees can book.

The company has also embraced Navan’s centralized payments system, which allows them to have all travel expenses charged to one virtual card program and reconcile their payments with ease.

Navan’s integrations have also been particularly useful, especially the HRIS sync, which automates transaction coding by mapping correct attributes to employees' bookings, streamlining the travel and expense accounts payable process.

Capestany also noted the benefit of integrating with Okta for single sign-on (SSO), which automates employee account onboarding and offboarding. The Okta integration keeps the company’s T&E program secure by ensuring all employee profiles are provisioned in real time and that access is tightly regulated.

“

Navan is always re-imagining its solution, and we’re excited to see where its new developments are going to take us.

Christine Capestany

VP Controller

Looking Forward to the Future 

“Controlling travel spend starts at the time of booking — not when the cost comes through for reimbursement,” said Capestany.  “And that is what we get from Navan.” 

In fact, Navan has completely transformed the company’s travel program, from one with reactive, manual processes into a proactive system of efficiency and control. As Ziff Davis continues to grow, Capestany is confident that Navan’s solution will keep up. “Navan is always re-imagining its solution,” she said, “and we’re excited to see where its new developments are going to take us."