The IT Nerd

This weekend Concur announced a number of new offerings to improve corporate travel at the annual GBTA Convention 2017. Here is a short summary of announcements:

• Concur announced an expanded partnership with Airbnb. Corporate travellers will be able to search for and book Airbnb listings embedded within the Concur Travel platform. Itineraries and e-receipts will also sync with Concur Expense.  This is the first time Airbnb listings will appear on a corporate travel partner’s platform.
• Concur announced the availability of Concur Locate and Active Monitoring, which gives businesses the tools they need fulfill their duty of care and find, inform and communicate vital information with employees who are travelling in minutes during times of crisis and uncertainty.
• Concur Travel has new features that reduce time and costs associated with booking and managing travel. The features include new TripLink supplier connections and increased adoption, virtual cards for hotel bookings and branded fares to offer low-cost airfares bundled with select travel perks.

Concur Locate and Active Monitoring is available now. The Airbnb offerings and new Concur Travel features will become available in the coming months.

Concur today announced the availability to view and book Airbnb listings embedded within Concur Travel.

Embedded listings allow travelers to search for Airbnb listings directly on the search results page of the Concur online booking tool. The tighter integration will deliver greater flexibility for businesses to offer alternative lodging choices to business travelers within their existing travel management program and policy framework while delivering the ease of use customers have come to rely on from Concur, with itineraries and e-receipts being automatically fed back to Concur to simplify expense reports. Concur is now the only online business travel booking tool with Airbnb listings.

Airbnb usage continues to show strong growth over time, with the number of business travelers expensing Airbnb accommodations increasing by 33% year-over-year in Q2 2017.  In fact, employees from more than 250,000 companies in over 230 countries and territories use Airbnb for work. Concur Travel connects users seamlessly, while allowing organizations to maintain control over spend and compliance with corporate and regulatory requirements.

Airbnb listings are expected to be available in the coming months. For more information, visit the Airbnb blog.

Concur, an SAP company and the world’s leading provider of travel, expense and invoice management solutions, today announced its expansion into South Korea. Concur will join SAP’s Seoul office offering Expense solutions to large conglomerates, enterprise businesses and multi-national companies with operations in South Korea.

Barry Long has been appointed as Vice President of Global Sales, Asia Pacific for Concur, and Jaesung Kim is Head of Sales for Concur Korea. Concur will be building out additional sales, solution consulting, marketing, service delivery and business development teams in the coming months.

In the fourth quarter of 2016, among its current customer base in Korea, Concur saw more than 125 percent year-over-year growth in expense transactions, and more than 113 percent growth in reimbursed expense spend. According to the Global Business Travel Association’s BTI Outlook, total South Korean business travel spend was $32.6 billion in 2015. The BTI Outlook projects spend volume will grow at a rate of 4.4 percent per year through 2020, outpacing the 2.6 to 2.8 percent economic growth.

South Korea currently ranks among the top 10 countries for business travel spend, according to the Global Business Travel Association. With today’s launch in South Korea, Concur is now operating in all 10 of the top global markets for business travel.

SAP, which acquired Concur in 2014, will help fuel Concur’s go-to-market strategy in South Korea. Concur offers a fully connected travel, expense and invoice platform ecosystem that integrates its products, suppliers and partners. This open platform connects spend data to deliver insights that help customers and partners run their businesses more efficiently.

With heightened uncertainty around the world – from terrorist attacks to severe weather –businesses identify travel security as one of their top challenges in 2017.

To address this issue, Concur today unveiled the first integrated traveler risk management offering – Risk Messaging and Active Monitoring – to help businesses find and share critical information with employees at a moment’s notice during a crisis.

Concur, the world’s largest provider of travel and expense management solutions, is uniquely positioned to deliver this offering.

• Risk Messaging leverages Concur’s comprehensive travel and expense data set, giving travel managers immediate visibility into employees that may be at risk and empowering them to take action.
• Active Monitoring services include 24/7 monitoring, communication and assistance services – from pre-travel guidance to emergency safety information.
• This can be severe weather, global health crises or terrorism attacks – anywhere in the world, at any time of day. For example, following terrorist attacks in Nice, France, Concur was able to locate employees within the hour.

Concur previewed new travel risk management capabilities at its annual Fusion customer conference in Chicago. Concur Risk Messaging and Active Monitoring will become available to global customers in 2017.

Cloud-based travel and expense management company Concur yesterday announced it is entering Brazil. If you’re not familiar with Concur, the platform offers a fully connected travel and expense platform ecosystem that integrates its products, suppliers and partners.

Brazil is the 9^th largest market globally for business travel with $30.5B in spend and a key market in Concur’s global growth strategy. With the launch, Concur will have a lock on the top 10 global markets for business travel according to GBTA.

The opportunity in Brazil has connections to the recent recession. Despite no local market investment or presence to date, Concur is the leading travel and expense provider in Brazil with more than 160 local customers using Concur solutions – and demand is quickly growing. During a recession, companies tend to evaluate and review costs more closely. Concur helps companies bring greater transparency and control to their travel and expenses which builds trust with stakeholders.

If you want to learn more about Concur surf over to concur.com or the Concur blog.