SAP Concur publishes a guide to corporate travel management, covering policy development, supplier management, traveler safety and duty of care, spend visibility, and technology automation. It emphasizes the expanding strategic role of travel managers.
SAP Concur published an article emphasizing the importance of corporate duty of care, citing its 7th Annual Global Business Travel Survey: 65% of business leaders perceive more risk in today's environment and 75% say employees' expectations about duty of care are higher than ever; 53% of CFOs think travel managers should do more to support traveler safety, while only 38% of travelers feel their travel manager is doing enough to ensure their wellbeing; 92% of travelers are willing to decline a business trip for reasons like safety, social or environmental concerns, or work-life balance impact, and 40% would refuse a trip out of safety or social concerns about the destination. The article not…
SAP Concur published a blog on November 18, 2024, discussing five challenges HR faces in corporate travel and solutions. Challenges include policy compliance and clarity, cost management, health and safety, employee satisfaction and experience, and technology integration. The article cites the 2024 SAP Concur Global Business Travel Survey, which found 35% of global travel managers say their company is most focused on meeting employees' needs for flexible travel options, while 32% say their company is focused on cutting back on business travel costs. Safety concerns are the biggest reason business travelers would decline a trip, with 44% concerned about destination safety, 35% about politica…
SAP Concur published an article outlining the importance and implementation framework of travel risk management (TRM). The article notes that adverse incidents during travel not only put employees at risk but can also undermine a company's bottom line and reputation. TRM is a proactive and consistent approach that keeps people safe when they are on the move. An effective TRM strategy is based on three key areas: prevention and planning, awareness, and rapid response. The article recommends testing organizational readiness through Crisis Response Exercises (CRE), emphasizes the importance of real-time data for informed decision-making, and notes that communication is the first and most impor…
SAP Concur's 2023 Global Business Travel Survey found that 94% of LGBTQ+ business travelers have personally experienced discrimination while traveling for work, and 90% have hidden their sexual orientation on a business trip, citing safety (55%) and privacy (55%) as top reasons. 82% of LGBTQ+ travelers changed accommodations in the past 12 months because they felt unsafe, compared with 53% of all business travelers. 92% of LGBTQ+ travelers feel they have not had equal opportunity to travel for business. The survey was conducted by Wakefield Research between April 7-28, 2023, among 3,850 business travelers in 25 markets.
SAP Concur's fifth annual Global Business Travel Survey polled 3,850 business travelers across 25 markets. Nearly two-thirds (62%) feel they haven't had equal opportunity to travel compared with coworkers, attributing this mainly to age, accent, or gender; in the U.S. the figure rises to 72%. 94% are willing to travel in the next 12 months and 92% say their career depends on successful business travel. Health and safety (44%) remains the biggest threat, and 53% globally changed accommodations in the past 12 months because they felt unsafe, rising to 70% in the U.S. Remote workers report sharper gaps in equal opportunity, travel willingness, and cost pressure.
SAP Concur's podcast features Oren Geshuri of Deloitte discussing how companies are incorporating duty of care into their culture. Duty of care describes an organization's legal obligation to protect employees from harm, and its scope has expanded to include mental wellness and identity issues such as religion, gender, sexual orientation, and color. The article mentions tools like GeoSure for neighborhood safety ratings and Mobility International for accessibility information, and recommends balancing cost control with employee safety and comfort in travel policies.
A SAP Concur blog post notes that employee wellness has taken center stage, and duty of care—an organization's legal obligation to protect employees from harm—has become a strategic tool. The article poses six questions to help incorporate duty of care into travel programs: how employees book, where they purchase, when they book, what ground transport they use, how safe the destination is, and how to improve. It emphasizes that increasing booking tool adoption, encouraging corporate card use, booking earlier, increasing rideshare use, reviewing destination risk, and establishing a cross-functional task force can enhance employee safety, satisfaction, and business continuity.
A SAP Concur blog post suggests companies can save on ground transportation costs and improve employee safety by increasing rideshare use. It advises reviewing rideshare expense and insurance policies, checking rideshare configuration in Concur Expense, and analyzing year-over-year rideshare spend percentages. Best practice percentages range from 38% to 87% depending on industry. A formula is provided to estimate potential savings: (taxi median rate – rideshare median rate) × (25% of total taxi transactions). Encouraging rideshare gives employees autonomy, location-sharing ability, and reduces carbon emissions.
SAP Concur blog emphasizes the importance of duty of care and travel risk management, noting it is a legal requirement. It mentions strike action, natural disasters, and global health warnings can put employees at risk. It recommends businesses assess risks employees face, identify duty of care gaps, track employee locations, and adapt to the new normal of remote and mobile work. Technology can improve travel visibility for tracking and communication.
SAP Concur published an article discussing how duty of care has evolved from crisis management to everyday, comprehensive employee care. Citing experts including Isaac Bowman, senior manager at Deloitte, and Dr. William Hauptman, medical director at International SOS, it notes the pandemic made safety an everyday concern, leading organizations to tighten travel approval controls, use traveler-tracking technology, and extend duty of care to remote employees' mental and physical health.
The SAP Concur blog outlines planning considerations for procurement and corporate travel executives as business travel resumes after the pandemic. It argues companies must balance employee health and safety, cost control, and supplier financial health, and recommends phased travel resumption, stronger cross-departmental coordination, and updated travel and expense policies. It also references the TAMS industry standards, pre-trip approval trends, and tax and compliance issues triggered by travel.
SAP Concur Fusion panel discussions highlight trust as key to travel and AI adoption. An SAP Concur study fielded May-June 2020 found 55% of business travelers' top concern is family health and safety. Travelers need information on global restrictions. AI adoption accelerated but requires trust. Experts recommend starting small, collecting feedback continuously, and strictly monitoring AI models.
SAP Concur blog post emphasizes that with global business travel spending expected to reach $1.6 trillion by 2020, organizations must strengthen duty of care and travel risk management. It notes that even organizations with good track records have gaps that could be seen as negligent. Risks include geopolitical, health, and environmental incidents, as well as common commuting accidents. Companies should embrace ethical responsibility beyond legal obligations and adopt consistent policies, training, communication, and data management.
This SAP Concur article emphasizes the duty of care for employees amid global uncertainty. It notes business travel is expected to reach $1.6 trillion by 2020, discusses travel risks, remote worker safety, and how technology can help fulfill duty of care obligations.
A GBTA Foundation study of 148 travel managers found gaps in many organizations' ability to manage traveler safety. Only one in five used technology to capture out-of-program bookings; 40% of North America-based travelers preferred booking directly with suppliers; and only 31% of employees would book through their company's program even when traveling to places they considered unsafe. Integrated systems can help locate travelers, with 68% able to merge data in under two hours.
A SAP Concur blog post argues that duty of care is expanding beyond travel safety to encompass the health and well-being of remote workers. Citing a SAP Concur whitepaper titled 'More Than a Matter of Safety,' it states that mitigating health and safety exposures for employees is rapidly becoming one of the most important resilience and risk management strategies for companies. The post also cites IHG research: 40% of business travelers miss seeing clients face-to-face, 50% miss meaningful relationships built through corporate travel, and 45% say business travel improves their mood and motivation. Companies are turning to technology including tracking and visibility tools, round-the-clock c…
SAP Concur notes that October and November are historically the busiest months for business travel, with November 15 and 16 being the busiest days last year, showing 58% more business travelers than an average weekday. Infrequent travelers taking only one to three trips per year significantly contribute to this surge. Given the increasingly unpredictable environment, companies need to ensure employee safety and are advised to have a data-powered risk management program. SAP Concur released Concur Locate, an integrated traveler risk management solution with 24/7 monitoring, to help companies quickly locate and assist employees during health crises or natural disasters.
A SAP Concur blog post argues that business travel inherently carries risk and that companies have legal and moral duties to develop travel risk management (TRM) policies to fulfill duty-of-care obligations. It outlines four reasons: liability issues, increasing business travel, lower-impact risks and business risks.
SAP Concur announced the expansion of its duty of care partner network in the App Center, adding Healix International, International SOS, Terra Dotta, and WorldAware. Concurrently, Concur Locate and Active Monitoring will be retired effective September 1, 2021. SAP Concur will provide consolidated travel data via its Itinerary API to help organizations fulfill duty of care commitments.
SAP Concur published an article noting that small and midsize businesses, despite limited budgets, can achieve travel management through appropriate technology. It describes a seven-step process: employees book freely, the system captures itinerary details, data flows into the system, expense reports auto-populate with categorized charges, employees avoid receipts and reports, and businesses gain spend visibility and employee location information. The article emphasizes savings in work hours, reduced paperwork, and lower hard costs.
An SAP Concur blog post discusses the role of data in implementing a travel risk management (TRM) program. According to a 2017 Business Travel News report, companies are trending toward a 'team approach' integrating internal and external stakeholders for TRM. The survey shows 66% of companies use itinerary data and employee contact information to support TRM, and 46% use market-specific threat information. The article emphasizes that integrated data is the heart of a successful TRM program, and organizations need to leverage technology to collect travel and spend data from various channels to keep employees safe and compliant.
A SAP Concur blog post introduces The Intelligent Business, a five-episode podcast series created in partnership with The Wall Street Journal, exploring how businesses can use emerging technologies to automate more processes and control company spending. It summarizes each episode's themes: AI plays a huge part in simplifying spend management and automating processes; more sources of data allow better service to travelers on the road and keep them safer, lowering risk and increasing employee satisfaction; manual expense reports are time-consuming and could result in unintentional T&E fraud, while AI-driven technology makes receipt capture, reporting, and approvals nearly effortless; AI allo…
A SAP Concur blog post states that the COVID-19 pandemic has prompted companies to re-examine their Total Risk Management (TRM) and Duty of Care programs. Increased travel risks have elevated Duty of Care from a governance afterthought to a potentially life-saving necessity, driving adoption of agile, cloud-based solutions. The article emphasizes that modern Duty of Care requires 24/7 awareness of employee locations and relies on a cloud ecosystem of integrated partners for real-time security, travel safety, and medical information plus rapid-response assistance.
SAP Concur published a blog post discussing how travel managers can embrace change with agility. The article notes that organizations face frequent changes in business standards, the economy, and political environments, requiring a flexible mindset. Travel and expense management needs to adapt to digital disruption, adopt traveler-centric programs, and leverage technology to improve employee safety and satisfaction. The article also interviews John Coovert, VP of Global Physical Security at SAP, on how SAP uses tools like Concur Travel & Expense, TripLink, and TripIt to monitor global employee travel.
SAP Concur published an article recommending businesses increase rideshare use over taxis by adjusting rideshare expense and insurance policies. It notes rideshares are typically safer and less expensive than taxis, and that rideshare apps track and share itineraries and locations, helping organizations fulfill duty of care. The article provides a potential savings formula and notes best-practice rideshare spend percentages range from 41% to 77% depending on industry.
The SAP Concur blog analyzes the outlook for business travel resumption in Asia-Pacific, noting wide variation in restrictions. China's domestic seat bookings were up 7% year-on-year, while international seats were down 98%. It recommends companies understand employee concerns, track fast-changing information, and build traveler safety into processes. It also mentions travel insurance exclusions for COVID-related costs, the burst Singapore-Hong Kong travel bubble, and the impact of supplier safety commitments on traveler confidence.
A SAP Concur blog post provides an in-depth look at the concept of 'Duty of Care' in travel management. It defines it as an organization's legal obligation to protect employees from harm and details its application in travel scenarios, including risk assessment, risk avoidance, communication, and emergency preparedness. The article also discusses current challenges in travel risk management (like pandemics and extreme weather) and the role of technology (such as real-time data and cloud connectivity) in helping companies fulfill their duty of care.
A SAP Concur blog post notes that many organizations understand the need to support and protect business travelers but few realize their duty of care obligations extend to all employees. It cites GBTA-identified traveler risks including standing out, driving in unfamiliar locations, stress and fatigue, language barriers, unfamiliarity with local health risks and medical facilities, and not knowing who to alert in an emergency. Common gaps include failing to inform travelers of risks, not documenting safety advice, focusing security only on high-risk international travel, not including safety in procurement criteria, not regularly testing crisis management plans, and lacking a fully mapped t…
A SAP Concur blog post cites a GBTA survey to identify three top challenges for travel managers: policy compliance and invisible spend, traveler experience, and employee well-being and safety. The survey shows an average of 37% of hotel bookings and 15% of air bookings occur outside corporate booking channels; 34% of travel managers spend more time communicating with travelers; and one-third still don't know how long it would take to confirm every employee's safety in an incident. The article describes how tools like TripLink, TripIt, and Concur Locate can help address these challenges.
SAP Concur published an article, the final installment of its travel risk management series, providing guidance on how to respond to duty of care incidents. The article emphasizes that to fulfill duty of care obligations, a comprehensive emergency response plan must be in place and continually tested and reviewed. The plan should include: around-the-clock monitoring, establishing response roles, reliable communications, integration of tools, and practice, review, and repeat. It also cites a report by Reed & Mackay and recommendations from the BTN Group and GBTA.
A SAP Concur blog post notes that the return of business travel is inevitable. According to the 2020 Global Business Traveler Report, 39% of business travelers feel worried and 32% feel excited. The post recommends that finance, travel, HR and IT, and procurement departments prepare respectively, including updating policies, establishing return-to-travel processes, ensuring employees can submit expenses via mobile tools, and focusing on supplier availability and safety provisions. SAP Concur solutions can help create more flexible, compliant, and safe travel programs.
NEC deployed SAP Concur solutions to reduce travel and expense administration time by approximately 40%, achieving annual savings of ¥200 million (US$1.8 million). Employees can photograph receipts and submit via mobile app, with integration to TMCs, corporate credit cards, and GDS for booking. The e-Bunsho timestamp feature aids Japanese administrators in compliance. During a major earthquake in Taiwan, NEC used risk management features to confirm employee safety within hours, compared to two to three days previously.