SAP Concur offers six tips for managing event and meeting costs: have a solid strategy, view all events holistically, plan ahead, use technology to centralize the process, set aside one-fourth of the budget for unexpected expenses, and track and analyze event spending throughout the year. The post notes event spending covers venues, travel, food, audio-visual and more, and that multiple purchasers can lead to budget overspend.
A SAP Concur blog post discusses the importance of a healthy corporate travel program. It notes that travel management processes can impact everything from employee satisfaction to budgets, compliance, payroll, taxes, and traveler safety, so it is critical that companies have a healthy travel program. This means ensuring full visibility into travel and expense management processes and data, as well as mechanisms for managing complex and changing internal policies and external regulatory requirements. The article suggests companies assess their travel programs, including data utilization, travel processes, compliance, and employee satisfaction. SAP Concur offers an online travel program asse…
A survey commissioned by SAP Concur reveals that 88% of U.S. travel managers believe business travel in their industry will increase by the end of 2022. However, nearly four in five (79%) travel managers say their department's FY22 budget and resources are insufficient to meet anticipated travel demand. The survey also found that the travel manager role has become more challenging, with added paperwork, HR tasks, and staffing shortages, but they also feel more empowered to make demands of travel providers than before the pandemic.
A SAP Concur blog post notes that sustainability has become a business fundamental, not just one metric among many. It cites Martin Biermann, Chief Product Officer at HRS, and mentions that 4 out of 5 travelers would rather work with an organization with a sustainability policy. The post recommends travel managers educate themselves on emissions metrics and use tools and policies to steer travelers toward greener travel and lodging choices.
SAP Concur published a blog post summarizing a SAP Concur Fusion session on people-first travel programs. Experts from ServiceNow and Ernst & Young shared how business travel has changed post-pandemic, including assessing trip value, the evolving role of travel managers, sustainability, and flexibility. The article notes that 96% of employees are willing to travel, but safety, health, and flexibility are key considerations. 89% want travel policies to prioritize health and safety, and 20% would look for a different position if their company didn't accommodate that desire.
An SAP Concur blog post citing a GBTA report notes that 37% of hotel reservations and 15% of air reservations are invisible—made directly with suppliers or through online travel agencies. These percentages remain the same between companies with flexible and strict travel policies. Currently, 80% of travel programs do not use technology to capture supplier-direct bookings. Drivers include convenience, low-cost carriers and discounts, and the sharing economy. The article recommends bringing direct bookings under management by automatically capturing bookings from connected suppliers or encouraging employees to send booking information, to improve policy compliance, duty of care, savings, and…
SAP Concur case study shows a U.S. state accounting office transformed its paper-based reimbursement process into an automated, integrated travel and spend management system using Concur Travel and Concur Expense. The state's 70,000 employees benefit from mobile receipt upload, automatic mileage reimbursement, and automatic per diem calculation. 86% of users found approving reports easy, with approval taking no more than three days. The state also gained greater visibility into hotel spend through enhanced reporting, supporting more informed negotiation decisions.
A SAP Concur blog post discusses the importance of employee happiness amid the pandemic and Great Resignation, arguing that happiness breeds engagement, which in turn affects loyalty, productivity and profits. It says the issue is not money but frustrating, menial day-to-day tasks, especially travel and expense processes such as keeping paper receipts, filling out expense reports, and booking on a legacy travel program only to find the purchase falls outside a corporate rule they had never heard of. The post lists common employee complaints and suggests improving the experience with apps that automatically build expense reports, replace paper receipts with digital records, provide location-…
SAP Concur commissioned Wakefield Research to survey 100 U.S. finance managers and 1,000 U.S. business travelers in January 2022. 88% of finance managers said their company lost revenue over the past year because employees could not travel at pre-pandemic levels; 44% of travelers said their company needs more business travel to remain viable beyond 2022. 84% of finance managers said their company is less than completely prepared for a 2022 travel rebound, 98% saw more non-compliant expenses, and 89% of travelers admitted submitting questionable expenses averaging $3,397.
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 announced that the Concur TripLink integration with American Airlines is now available. Customers can connect their SAP Concur account via the American Airlines App Center or by enrolling their AAdvantage number. SAP Concur will connect more than 400,000 AAdvantage accounts via TripLink, allowing travel managers to capture data from bookings made on AA.com. Bookings automatically appear in the SAP Concur account without email, providing immediate spend visibility and policy monitoring. The TripLink network now includes 28 partners across airlines, hotels, rail, and car rental.
SAP Concur announces that NDC content from Lufthansa Group airlines and British Airways is now available to all Concur Travel customers and their TMCs. Clients can enable NDC content through their Concur Travel configuration, avoiding GDS distribution cost charges and accessing the most competitive fares and exclusive ancillary services. Additionally, Concur TripLink captures direct bookings.
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.
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 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.
SAP Concur announced that Concur TripLink customers can now connect their SAP Concur account with Hyatt via the Hyatt App Center or by enrolling their World of Hyatt loyalty account. Over 120,000 World of Hyatt member accounts are connected, allowing travel managers to capture booking data from Hyatt.com or mobile apps, providing spend visibility and policy monitoring.
The third SAP Concur Travel Industry Summit will be held on June 9, 2022 as a complimentary half-day virtual event focused on how the travel community has evolved and the future of business travel. It features an interactive swarm intelligence session, roundtables, a resilience expert, and breakout sessions on sustainability goals, modern travel policies, fraud prevention and travel tech investment, with participants including United's CEO and IHG's Chief Sustainability Officer.
Citing an AMI-Partners survey, SAP Concur says SMBs that keep managing travel, expenses, and vendor invoices with spreadsheets or pen and paper lose time and money to inefficient processes, a problem that becomes clearer beyond 50 employees. The survey found SMBs using T&E automation save over US$31,000 per year, with Concur Expense users saving an average of $40,000; firms adopting vendor invoice management saved nearly $34,000 annually, and Concur Invoice users saved over $42,000.
SAP Concur published an article on how its partner ecosystem helps businesses manage travel and expense programs in the remote work era. The ecosystem includes more than 700 partners spanning platform partners, travel suppliers, distribution partners, financial services, resale and service partners, and travel management companies (TMCs). The article cites an IDC report noting that the pandemic-driven increase in remote work is accelerating digital transformation, with companies expected to spend more on cloud-based solutions.
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 uses Buzz Aldrin's 1969 Apollo 11 expense report to trace the evolution of travel and expense management from paper processes to cloud automation, and announces more than 400 additional hotel properties joining the Concur TripLink network and a forthcoming TripIt feature to view neighborhood safety scores by day or night.
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.
SAP Concur published a customer case study on how Electrolux increased VAT recovery using Concur Expense and Taxback International. Electrolux uses Concur Expense in 42 countries with roughly 9,000 business travelers. Through Taxback International analysis, Electrolux found it was only reclaiming about 8% of VAT paid, around €30,000. After activating the app, first-year VAT recovery tripled to nearly €100,000, and current annual recovery is approaching €400,000.
A study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of SAP Concur found that 60% of companies face issues with manual processes and timeliness due to their current tools. Outdated legacy technology is a core cause of inefficient expense, travel, and invoice management. Additionally, there is a lack of alignment between IT and finance: 61% of firms say IT focuses more on usability and employee experience, while 64% say finance focuses more on reducing spending. A unified automation strategy improves satisfaction: 75% of companies with a unified strategy reported high satisfaction with travel and expense tools, compared to just 35% without.
SAP Concur announced its inaugural Travel Industry Summit, a complimentary virtual event bringing the business travel industry together. Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian and Marriott International President and CEO Arne M. Sorenson will join SAP Concur President Jim Lucier to discuss how their organizations are adapting to pandemic challenges. The summit also features a 'Voice of the Travel Manager' panel moderated by Louise Miller of Areka Consulting, with panelists from Salesforce, Zendesk, UBS and Visa. The Wall Street Journal's Scott McCartney will host an industry executive panel. The event aims to help bring business travel back safely and sustainably.
A SAP Concur blog post outlines how channel partners can deliver long-term value to SMB customers in a cloud-first world. Concur launched its Solution Provider co-sell program in July of last year, and more than 300 partners have joined. The post offers three recommendations: build a portfolio of cloud services, invest in continuous training to improve knowledge retention, and help customers maximize their cloud technology investments. The central argument is that partners must shift from transactional models to a continuous-value approach spanning pre-sales, sales, and post-sales to build multi-year revenue streams and customer loyalty.
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.
A SAP Concur blog post reviews the evolution of travel technology: travelers once couldn't book trips themselves and had to use travel agencies; everything was paper-based, requiring airport ticket pickup; getting to the airport was expensive; hotel stays relied on word of mouth and phone reservations; and travelers had to lug around many devices. It notes that DIY booking engines like Travelocity and Expedia changed consumer booking, with business travel partners like Fox World Travel, Atlas Travel, and Uniglobe ONE Travel. Now travelers can book entire trips from anywhere via computer or smartphone and track itineraries on TripIt.
A SAP Concur blog post discusses traveler tracking and duty of care challenges. It cites GBTA data showing 42% of travelers prefer to book directly on a supplier's website. It also notes one-third of travelers in the UK, Germany, and France still book directly with suppliers at least once a year despite having access to company online booking tools, and 40% of travelers who used an OBT in the past year also booked directly with a supplier at least once in the same period. It states that if travelers don't book through company channels, employers can't get itinerary information in time, affecting duty of care.
SAP Concur blog offers seven tips to help business travelers combine work and leisure, including scheduling extra vacation days around business trips, attending conventions at ideal destinations, exploring locally, visiting friends and family, using fitness facilities, doing things that make you happy, and bringing family.
A SAP Concur blog post reviews its customer-success journey: founded in 1993, it focused early on on-premise expense-reporting automation, embraced the cloud and expanded offerings in its second decade, developed mobile solutions as devices proliferated, and in its third decade offered global solutions meeting local requirements while opening data via APIs and forging industry partnerships. It says Concur has 7,000 employees and embeds customer success across culture, innovation, data, and organization.
A SAP Concur blog post briefly introduces its solutions: Concur Travel, Concur Expense, and Concur Invoice work seamlessly with each other and integrate with existing ERP, HR, accounting, and other business systems to create a single connected process for managing company spend, helping save time and money, negotiate better rates with suppliers, and create happier travelers. It also provides links to an end-to-end solution demo and self-guided demos.
Chailvyihao uses a TV drama character to illustrate outdated corporate travel reimbursement in China, causing employee dissatisfaction and fraud risk. Its cloud platform offers monthly settlement, automatic reimbursement vouchers, and streamlined processes to reduce irregularities.