LGC chooses Navan for visibility and reporting — and unlocks significant savings
Results
+31
Net Promoter Score
28%
Savings on hotels
4.5/5
Customer satisfaction rate
Region
EMEA: Europe, Middle East, and Africa, NORAM: North America, APAC: Asia-Pacific
Headquarters
Guildford, UK
Company size
Mid-Market (800-2,500 employees)
Industry
Health and Wellness
Products Used
- Navan Business Travel
- Navan Travel Payments
- Navan Expense
LGC is a global leader in life sciences, diagnostics, and analytical solutions, with over 180 years of scientific heritage. Guided by its mission of Science for a Safer World, the company helps address global challenges, from advancing precision medicine to ensuring food safety and protecting the environment.
Operating across 14 countries, LGC faced challenges in managing travel consistently. Multiple providers and limited oversight restricted visibility of employee whereabouts, spend, and environmental impact. To support its net zero by 2050 ambition, LGC sought a partner with strong reporting and sustainability features.
Before Navan
Previously, travellers from the majority of LGC entities were left to book travel for themselves online, meaning the company couldn’t forecast spend or implement its travel policies effectively.
A small number of entities used a legacy travel provider that had limited duty-of-care features. Danielle Sullivan, Global Category Manager at LGC, described how, “We had minimal visibility into traveller locations and spending patterns, which made it difficult to provide comprehensive support and oversight.”
With travel being booked across a range of sources, LGC faced challenges in comprehensively tracking its carbon impact. Given their commitment to achieving net zero by 2050, access to clearer emissions insights became a priority, leading LGC to seek a partner with strong emissions reporting capabilities.
LGC’s many entities all managed expenses differently, resulting in significant wasted time. “We were reimbursing some employees by setting them up as suppliers and paying them that way, and we were reimbursing other employees by payroll. Lots of employees were filling out spreadsheets for their expenses which was very time consuming,” Danielle said. The need for a more modern, global expense solution was clear.
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“We had minimal visibility into traveller locations and spending patterns, which made it difficult to provide comprehensive support and oversight.”
Danielle Sullivan
Global Category Manager
Why LGC chose Navan
During the evaluation stage, Danielle and the procurement team were impressed by the live map that shows where each traveller is and their full itineraries.
All travel spend is displayed within the platform in real time, so LGC can now budget, plan, and forecast with confidence — and identify trends and any areas of overspend.
Danielle also saw Navan’s sustainability features as a perfect fit for LGC. The platform displays emissions data for each journey option during the booking process so travellers are able to choose lower-emitting routes.
The procurement team, meanwhile, can implement emissions-reducing policies in the platform, such as preventing travellers from travelling in business class, except on flights over a certain length.
The opportunity to adopt Navan’s automated expense management solution — and manage travel and expense on just one platform — was a decisive factor for LGC.
The Navan effect
With Navan, Danielle said that her team gets “so much more visibility, and the live dashboards are great.” Line managers can see where their teams are at all times, as well as their exact travel spend.
Using Navan’s granular reporting tools, LGC can identify high-emission routes and departments, and adjust travel policies accordingly. This allows LGC to make evidence-based decisions that help reduce emissions while continuing to meet business needs.
“The sustainability reporting features with Navan are brilliant. We’ve moved from having no emissions data to real-time analytics at a company-wide level, including granular data on each department and high-emitting routes. Now, we’re able to make data-informed decisions.” said Jim Ormond, Group Environmental and Social Governance Manager.
LGC has now rolled out Navan Expense across all its global entities. The programme combines multiple payment options to suit different needs, including Navan Connect (linking existing corporate cards to the platform), Navan cards, and the flexibility for employees to use their own personal cards and submit expenses after the fact. This variety allows LGC to benefit from Navan’s real-time control, visibility, and streamlined processes without limiting choice — ensuring a smooth experience for both travellers and finance teams.
Savings weren’t a primary motivation for LGC when changing travel providers but they have been a very welcome perk: “The monthly savings we’ve seen have far exceeded our expectations.
That's been a huge benefit for us. Last year our savings were really significant,” said Danielle.
Spend has been reduced by 29% on hotels and 14% on flights, amounting to hundreds of thousands of pounds in savings.
As a global company with entities on different continents, Danielle expected that adding new business branches to the platform would be a heavy lift.
But, the opposite has proven to be the case: “From a scalability perspective, adding a legal entity and new users to the platform is super easy, which is great for us as admins and also for travellers, who can easily join the platform and start booking. The feedback has been great.”
LGC employees have quickly been convinced by the benefits of Navan, as the net promoter score of +31 suggests. “Navan is easy-to-use, has all the travel options I could want, and I can book full trips in minutes,” according to Jack Martin, Head of Group Procurement.
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“The monthly savings we see have far exceeded our expectations. That's been a huge benefit for us. Last year our savings were really significant.”
Danielle Sullivan
Global Category Manager
The benefits LGC is seeing with Navan
- Fulfil their duty-of-care responsibilities thanks to live traveller tracking and enhanced, 24/7 support
- Use the platform’s in-depth sustainability reporting tools to track emissions and implement policy changes
- See all company travel spend in real time on one centralised dashboard
- Book travel from an extensive global inventory on one user-friendly platform
- Get support whenever they need in the app or by phone
- Are empowered to choose lower-emitting travel options
Looking ahead
With Navan now fully rolled out across all LGC legal entities, Danielle’s team is focused on fine-tuning their programme to maximise adoption and optimise processes. Having one global solution for travel and expense has already brought greater visibility and efficiency, and the team is now looking to build on these foundations to unlock even more value. “We’re excited to see how we can refine and enhance our use of Navan to deliver continued savings and a better experience for our travellers,” Danielle says.