The article previews a panel at the TravelDaily China Summit discussing localization challenges for international hotel brands in China. Data shows oversupply in China's hotel industry, with 2025 occupancy, ADR, and RevPAR all declining, and ROI dropping from 15% to 8-10%. Executives from Hilton, IHG, and Shangri-La will discuss adapting to Gen Z demands.
A Skift podcast discusses the reality of AI adoption in travel: Google reportedly paid $10 million for Spirit Airlines' data, Airbnb shows real AI-driven savings, while Booking reports AI accounts for less than 1% of room nights. The industry focus shifts from AI hype to data, trust, and ROI.
Travel's AI race is entering a more disciplined phase, with companies increasingly explicit about AI's value. Booking and Airbnb demonstrate measurable ROI: Airbnb's support cost per booking fell ~16% YoY, with ~45% of issues resolved without a human. Expedia's recommendations and search ranking boost conversions, while natural-language search yields 60%+ more traveler-intent data but not yet direct conversions. Sabre and Amadeus invest in AI infrastructure ahead of clear payoff, viewing consumer agentic travel as medium-to-long-term.
IDC research shows that businesses using SAP Concur Travel & Expense gain over $3.1 million in average annual benefits, with a three-year ROI of 406%. Savings come from travel bookings, expense management efficiency, and improved compliance, including reduced errors and time savings.
SAP Concur blog post discusses how to measure and maximize ROI from AI investments. It cites the 2024 CFO Insights survey showing 51% of CFOs have embraced AI, up from 15% in August 2023. However, 58% admit limited understanding. Gartner forecasts that by 2025, costs could overshadow returns for 90% of AI projects. The article suggests starting with small wins and considering non-financial impacts.
SAP Concur released a guide for finance leaders on AI return-on-investment, covering AI terminology, AI-powered spend management features and steps to accelerate ROI. The article states companies using its solutions report a 92% audit automation rate and expense report approval times under two days. SAP Concur offers AI-powered solutions including Concur Travel, Concur Expense, ExpenseIt and Concur Invoice, citing data showing AI reduces travel booking time by 19.2% and improves policy compliance by 78%.
SAP Concur's CFO Insights Series article 'Solving the ROI Puzzle' combines research and finance-leader input on how businesses can measure and maximize AI returns. It says 51% of finance leaders are investing in AI, and measuring ROI requires understanding the challenges of defining returns, using nontraditional performance indicators, and recognizing long-term human benefits. It cites McKinsey's estimate that about 75% of generative AI's total value comes from customer operations, software engineering, R&D, and marketing and sales.
A SAP Concur blog post cites survey and IDC analysis data on how travel and expense (T&E) tools affect productivity. IDC's analysis of select SAP Concur customers found the time needed to book a trip fell 54% with Concur Travel, employees completed expense reports 43% faster with Concur Expense, and reimbursement time was cut in half. The post says organizations adopting SAP Concur solutions saw a 48% reduction in user time costs, saving about $777,000 annually in travel- and expense-related costs.
A SAP Concur blog post argues that because ERP implementations require significant time, effort and money without immediate ROI, companies should implement a spend management solution alongside a new ERP. It says spend management can integrate spend data with systems such as HR, eliminate manual expense steps, enhance compliance and cap overspending. SAP Concur recommends integrating ERP with its travel and expense (T&E) solutions for a holistic view of spend and automating manual expense processes.
This SAP Concur blog post introduces Premium Assistant, a support service designed to help businesses optimize their use of SAP Concur solutions. The service provides expert assistance to streamline processes, improve productivity, save time, scale flexibly, and offer direct support to employees. With personalized service, Premium Assistant ensures investments continue to deliver value.
SAP Concur published a blog arguing that small and medium-sized businesses also need expense automation. It describes Concur Expense's mobile receipt capture, automatic categorization, and approval features, and cites data on its ROI.
SAP Concur published an article exploring strategies for efficient event management to optimize investments in meetings and events. It suggests measures such as data-driven decision-making, consolidating purchasing power, simplified budget tracking and ROI measurement, automating planning processes, and prioritizing participant safety to help organizations reduce costs and improve financial outcomes.
A SAP Concur blog post aimed at small businesses examines the hidden costs of manual credit card reconciliation. It says out-of-policy spending and outright fraud can easily fly under the radar with manual processes, and risks multiply if multiple employees share a single corporate card or if personal credit cards are used for business expenses; the average time span fraud lasts before detection is 14 months, and 76% of cases are committed at the employee or manager level. It says SAP Concur users reported 32% less time to approve expenses, 13 hours saved per finance/accounting employee per week, $18 saved per expense report, and positive ROI in 8 months after automating the expense process.
A SAP Concur blog post aimed at companies that have received new funding recommends digitizing and automating spend management—employee expenses, vendor invoices, and travel costs—to maximize the value of that funding. It says automation can improve business intelligence and actionable insights, help make contingency plans, strengthen working capital, improve spend visibility, and find cost-saving opportunities. It cites data showing roughly 20% of expenses fall out of policy and organizations lose an estimated 5% of revenue to fraud each year, and a 2022 Analysys Mason survey showing companies saw positive ROI within 8 months on average after implementing travel and expense and/or vendor i…
SAP Concur released ROI data reported by Concur Expense customers. Customers report a 43% reduction in misplaced receipts, 32% reduction in expense approval time, 50% less time to reimburse expenses, 65% more compliant expense reports and 26% reduction in budget overspending after automating. Customers also say it took only 7 months to pay back the initial investment, with a three-year ROI of 628%. The data comes from an AMI 2022 global study.
SAP Concur released ROI data reported by Concur Invoice customers. Customers report a 60% reduction in missing invoices, 29% reduction in time spent by AP/finance teams capturing invoices, 26% reduction in budget overspending and 11% cost savings through supplier-negotiated rates after automating. Customers also say it took only 7 months to pay back the initial investment, saving an estimated $43,000 annually. The data comes from an AMI 2022 global study.
A SAP Concur blog post argues manual and spreadsheet-driven processes are costly and inefficient at any scale, with an even bigger impact on resource-constrained SMBs. It cites data: 26% use spreadsheets to manage expenses, 49% of small businesses still use handwritten records to track spend, accounting and finance staff spend 14% of their time each week processing invoices, 50% of SMBs say manual processes hinder cash flow visibility, 42% report invoice reconciliation errors, and 75% of finance leaders say their business often exceeds expense, travel, and invoice budgets. It groups reasons SMBs haven't automated into four categories and cites AMI-Partners data showing automation yields ave…
A SAP Concur blog post explores how Asian businesses' reliance on high-touch customer service when adopting SaaS platforms can slow deployment and ROI. It notes that 3 in 4 consumers in Asia think customer service should be every company's top priority, leading businesses to prefer dedicated reps guiding implementation step by step. However, self-service models can accelerate deployment; one of SAP Concur's largest customers rolled out its platform to seven markets in just seven weeks. The post suggests shorter but more frequent contact points between sales teams and customers.
A SAP Concur blog post notes that SMB growth brings more employee spending and expense reports, while manual processes are inefficient and risky. Studies show automated travel and expense users save an average of US$30,000 annually, or about $600 per year per employee using the application, and $20 per expense report. The post recommends choosing cloud expense management solutions with automation, spend visibility, data consolidation, and scalability.
SAP Concur argues that manual and spreadsheet-driven processes have an even bigger impact on the efficiency and growth goals of small-to-midsize businesses (SMBs) given their resource constraints. It cites research that 41% of businesses have a paper-based expense process, 26% use spreadsheets to manage expenses, and 73% do not use automated expense management systems at all. It lists four categories of reasons SMBs have not automated, and cites AMI-Partners data that automated spending solutions deliver significant savings: improved tracking saves finance firms US$28,000 per year and retail businesses $33,000 per year; more-accurate data saves professional services firms $39,000 per year;…
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.
A SAP Concur blog post shared insights from a webinar featuring three U.S. small business finance professionals discussing their experiences implementing SAP Concur. The main takeaway was that implementation should prioritize people and team dynamics over the system itself. One panelist emphasized evaluating team strengths and adjusting roles before implementation. Another noted that Concur Invoice helped save on office space costs, improved employee satisfaction, and sped up supplier payments. A third advised treating SAP Concur as an investment rather than an expense and leveraging its customizability to streamline processes. SAP Concur research shows that after implementing expense and t…
This SAP Concur blog post guides businesses on justifying the investment in an automated expense management system. It poses questions about labor costs, data integrity, report generation time, visibility, opportunity costs, mobility, policy violation detection, cash flow, integration, and time savings. By evaluating these areas, companies can build a business case showing how automation improves efficiency, reduces errors, and yields long-term savings.
A SAP Concur blog post cites an IDC white paper finding that eight interviewed businesses improved their AP processes with Concur Invoice: staff time on invoice processing fell 68%, employee compliance rose to nearly 100%, late payments to vendors dropped 67%, line-of-business productivity rose 11%, and IT staff time managing AP solutions fell 29%. The white paper also projects annual benefits of $775,401 per organization ($15,418 per 1,000 invoices) and a 505% ROI over five years.