SAP Concur gathered insights from global CFOs on the core skills finance leaders need, including agility and a growth mindset, strategic foresight and data leadership, digital and AI fluency, change management, and communication and collaboration. It also recommends building future-ready finance teams through training, automation, and cross-functional collaboration while addressing the ongoing finance talent shortage.
MediaKind's Corporate Travel and Expense Manager Amber Lee shared her journey from Concur skeptic to champion on the SAP Concur Conversations podcast. She emphasized leading with empathy and context to drive adoption, empowering users by helping them understand the reasons behind policies to improve compliance, and community as a critical but underrated tool. She has over 15 years of experience driving user adoption.
On the SAP Concur Conversations podcast, Chloe Carver, Head of Corporate Travel Consulting at Acquis Consulting Group, shared how to build a traveler-centric travel program. She recommends policies that guide behavior rather than control it, treating implementation as a key transformation opportunity, and prioritizing traveler experience as the foundation of compliance. Host Jeanne Dion emphasized that organizations should not undermine their values through over-regulation.
SAP Concur published a change management guide for healthcare T&E implementation, addressing unique challenges including budget constraints, staffing limitations, patient priorities, and complex workflows. The article introduces the ADKAR change management model applied to healthcare T&E implementation, covering awareness, desire, knowledge, ability, and reinforcement. The guide also discusses HIPAA compliance, research grant tracking, and Continuing Medical Education (CME) expense management as healthcare-specific compliance requirements, and how automation can streamline compliance and audit trails.
A SAP Concur blog post explores digital transformation of travel and expense (T&E) management in the public sector. A GovTech study found that approximately 60% of employees identify legacy infrastructure and lack of automation as significant operational barriers. The article notes non-compliant expenses are estimated at roughly 29% of annual T&E spend, and modern T&E solutions can increase policy compliance rates by 32%. It provides a change management framework including impact assessment, strategic foundation, and leadership support, and cites success cases from Booz Allen Hamilton, the University of Alabama, Cardinal Health, and others.
SAP Concur published an article on modernizing travel and expense (T&E) management in U.S. state and local government agencies. It notes that many agencies still rely on manual processes and outdated systems, leading to higher error rates, delayed reimbursements, increased costs, poor budget visibility and compliance issues. Modernization can deliver cost efficiency, resource optimization, enhanced transparency and improved employee satisfaction. The article stresses change management and offers strategies including communication, training, emphasizing automation as support rather than replacement, and personalized engagement.
SAP Concur podcast features Chris Elmore, Chief Evangelist of AvidXchange, discussing the transformative power of AP automation. The conversation notes that although AP automation can increase efficiency, visibility, and control, fewer than 20% of businesses have fully automated AP processes, and 70% of invoice processing is still paper-based. The discussion covers the evolution of the AP profession, automation opportunities, and how to drive change by focusing on mission, purpose, and outcome.
SAP Concur podcast features Jenny Chen, Senior Accountant at Dermalogica, sharing the company's digital transformation and change management experience. Dermalogica grew from a 5-person company to over 150 employees and implemented SAP Concur's travel, expense, and purchase request and invoice platforms to streamline processes and improve efficiency. Chen emphasized understanding employee pain points, gradually introducing changes, continuous training, and a long-term perspective.
The SAP Concur Conversations podcast features Grace Swain, Senior Consultant at TCG Consulting, discussing accounts payable (AP) automation. Only 10% of businesses have fully automated their AP processes, with most still heavily manual. The conversation covers key barriers (upfront cost, process volume, change management), a phased implementation path (supplier portals, OCR, ERP integration), and the value of automation in reducing risk, lowering costs, and improving spend visibility.
The SAP Concur Conversations podcast features Chris Elmore, Chief Evangelist at AvidXchange, discussing barriers to innovation in AP automation. Elmore notes that the risk-averse culture in accounting trains younger workers to uphold the status quo rather than drive change. He emphasizes that the real value of automation is freeing up time for accountants to focus on high-value work, citing the historical example of loom industry automation creating new markets.
SAP Concur published a guide on the role of finance leaders in supporting software deployment in a remote-work environment. The article notes that analysts predict 25% to 30% of personnel will work from home at least multiple days a week by the end of 2021, and finance leaders need to actively engage in four areas: stakeholder engagement, rollout strategy, change management, and software/process optimization to ensure ROI.