The second part of SAP Concur's podcast series discusses how organizations can enhance sustainability through reporting, awareness, behavior guidance, and direct contributions. Experts discuss practical applications in T&E, including adding sustainability as the 18th metric in the TCO approach, and reducing emissions by choosing rail over short-haul flights and optimizing payment processes.
SAP Concur, in collaboration with Telegraph Spark, published a guide on remote-worker wellbeing, drawing on experts from SAP Concur, Unmind, Global Leadership Associates and others. The article notes that remote work during the pandemic brings loneliness, stress and family challenges, and recommends that employers clarify expectations, offer flexible hours, build team connections and address home-office ergonomics. A Gallup meta-analysis found companies with highly engaged workforces are 21% more profitable. A global survey by SAP Concur and Forrester found more than 60% of respondents named T&E management software, accounts payable and automation tools as the most important tools enhancing…
SAP Concur blog cites research showing finance automation saves significant time. Vanson Bourne survey found 46% of UK finance leaders cite errors as top challenge, 68% lack confidence in T&E compliance. AMI-Partners research found invoice management solutions reduce task time by 16% on average, and expense/travel solutions by 15%.
The article encourages businesses to seek growth in 2021, emphasizing cost control through investment in travel, expense, and invoice management tools. A whitepaper with Deloitte shows financial leaders using these tools to make decisions and investing in AI and machine learning for spend analytics. They also pursue 100% audit and VAT reclaim.
A SAP Concur blog post shares insights from K.G. Subramanyam (KGS), Global VP of Enterprise Platforms at NielsenIQ, on four key T&E trends for 2021. Trend 1: 'Safe travels' takes on new meaning, with employee well-being central, vaccine passports, health checks, and screenings becoming more common, and employers strengthening duty of care. Trend 2: Sustainability goes beyond recycling, with younger employees focusing on ESG goals and technology enabling carbon footprint transparency. Trend 3: Shift to cloud solutions, with real-time data driving decisions and AI, ML, and RPA providing data-driven analytics. Trend 4: Compliance with changing tax laws, with VAT compliance a CFO priority and e…
A survey by SAP Concur and Kelton Global shows public sector organizations lose over 3,000 hours monthly processing expense reports and invoices manually, with higher education losing over 2,000 hours. The survey of 300 financial decision makers found about two-thirds still use at least partially manual systems. Manual systems add five hours per expense report and two hours per invoice. About one-third reported increased inaccurate submissions, and one-fourth had reported incorrect budget data due to errors. Automation improves efficiency and accuracy.
The first part of an SAP Concur podcast series explores the meaning of corporate sustainability. Expert Sally Crotty explains the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) dimensions and cites data showing that business travel can account for more than half of a non-manufacturing company's carbon footprint. The article also introduces the GHG Protocol's Scope 1, 2, and 3, and methods for measuring and managing sustainability, such as science-based targets.
A SAP Concur blog post discusses three areas of focus for companies in the post-pandemic era: employee experience, creative collaboration, and customer connection. Citing research, it notes a 13% productivity increase in remote work, 37% of workers considering leaving their jobs, and 75% of workers citing collaboration as having suffered. Companies need to reassess T&E budgets and policies to support employee experience and in-person interactions.
A SAP Concur blog post introduces sentiment analysis (also known as emotion AI), which uses natural language processing and machine learning to analyze positive, negative, or neutral opinions in text, applicable to survey research, social media analysis, and tracking psychological trends. Using the hotel industry as an example, it explains that hoteliers can aggregate and assess ratings and reviews to improve guest satisfaction. SAP Concur Labs and UX Analytics developed a sentiment analysis tool for user product reviews that automatically extracts themes to understand customer feelings and identify popular and frustrating features. The article also discusses the complexity of sentiment ana…
SAP Concur cites a Gartner survey showing that in 2020, CFOs' focus shifted from growth to business continuity, with top priorities including increasing cash positions, reducing costs, and enabling remote work. The article emphasizes digital transformation for spend management.
A SAP Concur blog post shares predictions from its global team of experts for 2022 across business travel, digital transformation, sustainability, and employee experience. Predictions include: settlement replacing expense reports, hybrid spend management, bleisure travel, standardized sustainability reporting, and travel as an antidote to the Great Resignation.
SAP commissioned Aberdeen Research to survey roughly 600 finance, IT, and procurement specialists from companies worldwide to assess the impact of digital spend management on financial decisions. The survey found that 3% of respondents' companies will most likely close in 2021, 29% are still in survival mode, 37% are planning for continued recovery, 23% hope for revenue growth, and just 7% are planning for growth. Nearly 75% of best-in-class companies have already adopted digital spend management technology, and their spend data is available when needed 80% of the time. Compared with peers, best-in-class companies reported 26.1% improvement in profitability, 24.3% improvement in productivit…
SAP Concur experts released predictions for business travel, expense and invoice trends in 2018 and beyond. Predictions include: paper receipts becoming obsolete as e-receipts standardize and countries such as France, Spain, China and Japan deregulate paper receipt requirements; non-traditional payment technologies like blockchain and vCards changing transactions and reimbursements; cloud technology enabling small businesses to adopt enterprise tools faster; predictive analytics and personalization transforming business travel; duty of care remaining a C-level priority; and employee-initiated spend becoming the largest unmanaged spend category.
SAP Concur published an article outlining four steps for financial services firms to manage compliance and fraud in travel and expense programs. It cites data: nearly 20% of T&E expenses fall outside policy; companies with anti-fraud controls experience 52% lower fraud instances and detect fraud 58% faster; 41% of respondents spend 50+ hours per month auditing expense reports. The article also references a FINRA action against a former Merrill Lynch broker and notes FCPA violations can carry up to $100,000 in criminal fines and 5 years imprisonment.
SAP Concur's global experts share 2021 predictions covering responsible business travel resumption, accelerated AI adoption, DE&I progress, changing consumer travel, and SMB responses. Predictions include travel providers potentially requiring COVID-19 health status disclosure, digital health passports and travel corridors becoming mainstream, and sustainability becoming table stakes.
The article emphasizes maintaining employee experience while working from home. Research shows exceptional employee experience leads to 17% higher productivity, 21% higher profitability, and 24% lower turnover. Companies should fulfill duty of care for home workers, review remote expense policies, and rethink processes for the new normal.
SAP sponsored two global Aberdeen research surveys of more than 600 businesses with fewer than 1,000 employees, classifying the top 20% by performance metrics as 'best in class.' The research found 74% of best-in-class companies use an expense management solution to automatically capture receipts and manage reporting workflows; they are 87% more likely to use analytics, and 50% more likely to use spend data for auditing. Best-in-class companies save US$11.71 per expense report on average, spend nearly five fewer days on approvals, and report 26% productivity improvement, 24% profitability improvement, and 17% faster cash-to-cash cycle.
The SAP Concur blog highlights a study by Oxford Economics and SAP Concur that surveyed 500 finance and IT executives worldwide, 350 of whom came from companies with 1,000 or more employees. The study found that large global enterprises often struggle harder than smaller companies with expansion challenges, as scale and complexity make more data, invoices, and administration difficult to handle. It identifies visibility into spending and attention to cash flow as pillars of successful growth, and argues that investing early in digital finance transformation to automate spend management makes sense.
A GBTA and SAP Concur poll of 226 travel managers and buyers examined how digital transformation is reshaping corporate travel management. The findings show travel managers' responsibilities shifting from managing people and policies toward overseeing the technology that enables modern business travel management. 72% expect bookings through their online booking tool (OBT) to increase over the next three years, while only 4% expect a decrease; four in ten expect bookings made directly through airline (40%) or hotel (38) websites to decline. 58% of travel managers either already include or expect to include NDC bookings within the next year. Facing airline fees on TMC and GDS channel bookings…
IDC Senior Research Analyst Kevin Permenter writes in a SAP Concur blog post that financial services firms are always looking to reduce costs and gain efficiencies, and that T&E software end users increasingly look to the software itself as a place to save time. Users want a more intuitive and conversational experience. The post lists elements of a stronger user experience: a simpler/cleaner interface, mobility, multidevice support, conversational UI, strong customer support, and automation/intelligence. It argues that streamlining the user experience reduces wasted time for travel departments and increases employee engagement with the application.
A SAP Concur blog post cites a 2017 Phocuswright survey of 2,300 travelers finding that 88% of business travelers use a smartphone, more than those who use laptops. The shift to mobile booking has three main impacts: increased invisible spend, difficulty providing duty of care, and decreased policy compliance. 50% of surveyed business travelers had made a new hotel booking on their smartphone, meaning duty of care programs dependent on TMC reports may be missing significant critical data.
A SAP Concur blog post offers tips for managing productivity while working from home, including setting designated work times, creating a routine, setting rules with family or roommates, communicating reasonable expectations, scheduling regular check-ins, taking regular breaks, and knowing when to switch off. It cites Time data that half an hour of light activity per hour is associated with an estimated 17% lower risk of early death.
A SAP Concur blog post cites a Wakefield Research survey of 350 higher education finance and administration staff, highlighting remote-work software gaps, budget tightening, and compliance pressure at colleges and universities during the pandemic. Only 16% of staff can continue working remotely without hurting department productivity; 60% are prepared to reduce pay or cut staff to offset budget shortfalls; and 71% are concerned about complying with regulations due to sustained remote work. 99% of decision-makers agreed certain investments must be made, and 84% want funding for technology that integrates systems, devices, and spend data.
The article reviews ERP history: the Y2K crisis accelerated ERP adoption, with U.S. companies spending $100 billion on Y2K fixes according to a Senate report. IDC data put the ERP market at $25.4 billion in total revenue in 2016, projected to reach $33.6 billion by 2021. It contrasts on-premise and public cloud ERP, noting cloud ERP is typically more affordable, updates faster and forces data standardization that underpins AI and machine learning.
A survey commissioned by SAP Concur and conducted by Wakefield Research in April–May 2021 polled 3,850 business travelers across 25 global markets and 700 travel managers in seven markets. It found 96% of business travelers are willing to travel for business over the next 12 months, including 65% very willing. 68% are pushing for a return to business travel, while just 32% feel their company is requiring it. Flexibility is now the most pressing need, ahead of vaccination-related demands (72% vs. 62%). 89% plan to add personal vacation time to business trips. If companies fail to meet health and safety expectations, 31% would ask to limit travel and 20% would look for a different position.