Every app is a representation of a particular solution or a platform behind it
T&E is becoming a bigger part of companies’ spending and it is more critical than ever for CXO’s to get a stronger grasp on expenses. Nick Evered, SVP and GM Concur Technologies, Japan & Asia-Pacific talks about simplifying the expense reporting process and how Concur Technologies comes in to the play with Jasmine Desai.
How is Travel and Expense management changing and why is it more relevant today?
Evered: Travel and Expense management has got various components and aspects to it. Firstly, it is about what the organisation wants to do with its travel and expense management and how it wants to deal with it. Concur looks at it holistically, from traveler’s perspective of making it seamless and from Manager’s perspective who is supposed to approve it. We want to make a business trip for the end-user a perfect experience. For example, the moment traveller arrives at the airport he should get to know immediately at which terminal is his Airlines at, which gate the boarding takes place etc. One can take a picture of the bill and send it for approval without filling any required forms. If the traveller is exceeding the spending it can be known immediately rather than a month later. The company knows exactly how much is being budgeted and how much is being spent. It is not only a compliance piece, it is a cash-flow piece as well. It is the second largest expense the company has, besides the people.
Employees are most important assets of the company. Their travel safety is very essential. With this the company knows where exactly the employee is. In the wake of Paris attacks, our management was able to tell us where all the executives were and if they were safe. Concur touches everyone in the organisation. We are integrated into SAP as ERP system and also into all of the major ERP systems.
Does Concur have customised apps for organisations or different verticals?
Evered: We do not have industry specific solutions, but we do have situations where the solution might have more affinity with specific client industry. Certain modules of Concur are released differently in different countries. We tend to be adopted to by companies that have large number of employees. Every customer has everything as far as the software is concerned. However, every organisation will have different rules of how they want to plan their expenses. Some companies request that every single travel request be approved by the manager.
Concur has 31,000 customers globally. Most of them have had there own set of processes and workflow. It is a very scalable and flexible platform. We however encourage them to adopt best practices. For example, booking tickets a week before the travel, submitting expenses within a month of the travel trip, if there is an expense on the weekend then there should be a mechanism of flat-off. It has the ability to pick up information from HR system and after the expense has been incurred to feed it to the ERP.
How is Travel and Expense management approached in APAC as against Europe or US?
Evered: In US and Europe organisations have traditional processes about IT and traditional processes about how companies work. In US there is far more traditional approach to travel. In APAC there is a revolutionary change in adoption of IT, like BYOD. For many employees it could be their primary device. We have a policy of mobile first. It is imperative for organisations to look at where people are and not where people were. Our TripIt application and other booking systems sits on Concur Integrated Information management. In APAC people do not want to use booking tools.
APAC is different because they do not confirm anymore and are embracing the latest technology. We do not have data centres currently in India. In USA we have lot of government people using for which we have specific facilities. We are right now focusing more on Oil and Gas, Mining, Manufacturing, BFSI, IT/ ITSE, hospitality and all other sectors where there are lot of employees who travel a lot. In scenarios where there are very few employees in such a role, this solution might not make sense.
What is the next stage after mobile?
Evered: The lines between what is corporate and what is personal have started to blur, especially when lot of companies have started to have contract labour. Ease of use in any application is extremely critical in today’s business world. What is emerging now is integrating these applications and give one seamless experience. Multiple supplier and eco-partner platforms have to be integrated. Every app is a representation of a particular solution or a platform behind it. This is called services mash-up. For example, when you sit in an Uber car it automatically messages you whether to play your favorite song. In corporate world, from SAP perspective there is something called business network. Through this, using one window or platform one can combine different services. It is making the personal corporate and corporate personal.
Concur also has a TripIt version for watches. We enable that when someone books through Uber, the bill automatically goes through company credit card and then the receipt is sent to the company and it is integrated with the expense management system and is already put in the expense report. Also if it has information of future meeting in it with the place of meeting, it already puts details of the expense in it automatically. Avis, Starbucks, Uber, Starwoods and many other companies are part of this eco-system. If an appointment is booked in the Concur, it gets credit card transaction and already puts it in the expense report.
We also send reports to companies on their usage patterns etc. With 30 million subscribers and 51,000 customers we are the single largest platform related to business travel data. We release a report called ExpenseIQ every year.
