The IT Nerd

 By Brian Veloso, Managing Director at SAP Concur Canada

2025 saw a record high number of CEO exits across global indices, driven largely by planned succession as leaders from across the C-suite stepped into top executive roles. In Canada, this shift is also reshaping how organizations view finance leadership, with businesses increasingly looking to CFOs not only for financial oversight, but also for strategic leadership.

One common transition is from CFO to CEO roles. According to this year’s annual SAP Concur CFO Insights Survey, 78 per cent of Canadian CEOs and MDs believe their company’s finance head has the potential to become the CEO in the future.

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Yet, while CFOs bring a high level of skill to the C-suite, most business leaders (67 per cent) say they have critical areas to upskill in before they take the top spot.

Let’s unpack the top three skills CFOs must develop before they become CEO, according to the survey’s findings.

1. Strategic leadership
   50 per cent of Canadian CEOs and MDs cite strategic leadership as a CFO skill that requires the most development. If finance chiefs want to transition from setting the financial agenda to the overall direction of the enterprise, they’ll need to develop their ability to make strategically sound, effective decisions around business priorities, trade-offs, and timing.

Strategy again comes to play when thinking about where finance should contribute the most to business growth. As an integral part of this strategic focus, CEOs want CFOs to provide new business models that ensure their companies long-term success.

2. People leadership

The second-largest skills gap that Canadian CEOs and MDs perceive is people leadership, cited by 50 per cent of respondents. Business leaders see the jump from managing a ringfenced finance team to leading an entire organization as a hurdle for finance chiefs to overcome. But why do they lack confidence in their CFOs?

It could come down to how they perceive the head of finance’s ability to run their own department. Nearly a quarter (24 per cent) of Canadian CEOs report that finance faces talent and skills challenges which impact performance. Technology is a particular talent leak, with 86) per cent of CFOs finding it challenging to attract or retain talent with hybrid finance-technology skills.

If finance chiefs can overcome department-level talent challenges by enhancing recruitment, upskilling, and mentorship programmes, they could present a “proof of concept” of their wider people leadership capabilities to CEOs and MDs. It would illustrate that CFOs are capable of building a high-performing culture that can be replicated across the wider business – positioning them as the natural successor to the CEO.

Beyond finance, spearheading cross-functional initiatives that target multiple departments would help CFOs showcase expertise in other areas that business leaders see as developmental priorities. These include communication (25 per cent ) and visibility (25 per cent).

While CEOs and MDs believe the latter two skills need less development than others, they’re by no means unimportant.

3. Commercial insight

Commercial or customer insight is ranked as the CFO’s third-largest development area (63 per cent%). Business leaders aren’t looking for finance leaders to play a background role that centres only on cost optimisation. Instead, they want a strategic partner who understands why customers buy and why they exit the revenue stream.

How the CFO works with customers, boards, investors, and partners – and accurately reports on revenue – matters just as much as internal performance management.

That’s not to say demand has fallen for traditional financial management activities. Canadian finance and business leaders still believe that finance priorities such as risk management (71 per cent) and cost efficiency (79 per cent) should contribute to growth. However, there’s a feeling that more could be done, just 46 per cent and 43 per cent of respondents say these areas contribute to the company’s growth, respectively.

To support business leaders as needed, CFOs will need to deliver substantive insights on revenue, costs, and growth opportunities both internally and externally. This is where data and analytics upskilling can unlock new opportunities for forecasting, scenario planning, and cost control.

By prioritising the focus areas identified by the business leaders of today, CFOs can prime themselves to become the business leaders of tomorrow. It’s the aspiring few with the necessary strategic leadership, people leadership, and commercial capabilities who will become CEO and play an integral role in shaping the future of business.

At SAP Concur Fusion 2026, we’re bringing together finance and travel decision-makers, customers, and partners to explore how AI-enabled innovation is transforming integrated travel, expense, and invoice management.

New innovations and new and expanded partnerships announced at the event reflect our focus on smarter automation that drives efficiency and compliance, deeper visibility that supports better decision-making, and solutions that help organizations control costs while improving employee experiences.

Joule Integration, New Agents and Innovations Streamline Travel and Expense Workflows

Building on the integration between Joule and Microsoft 365 Copilot, SAP Concur is bringing AI-enabled travel and expense management directly into the Microsoft applications employees use every day. Available now, employees can create and submit expense reports, track expense status, ask policy-related questions, upload receipts, book travel, and more without having to leave the application they’re working in to log into Concur solutions. With this enhanced organizational context, Joule introduces greater business intelligence into the flow of work, helping employees complete travel and expense tasks more easily, offering guidance, and reducing manual effort while maintaining compliance. Bringing Concur experiences into the tools employees already use regularly removes friction, streamlines workflows and improves productivity.

Existing Joule Agents from SAP Concur focus on intelligent receipt analysis and expense report validation, automatically enriching expense data, detecting errors, and guiding employees to submit accurate, compliant reports. Now, two new Joule Agents join the SAP Concur lineup to further streamline expense compliance and reporting.

• Expense Automation Agent: A Joule Agent that acts as a virtual delegate creating the expense report and automatically adding transactions, including populating custom fields based on contextual details and user history. Employees can simply review and refine the report before submitting, reducing manual data entry and saving considerable time. This agent delivers a modern expense management experience – the expense report that practically manages itself.
• Expense Pre-Submit Audit Agent: A Joule Agent that provides accurate, relevant receipt checks early in the expense report process. It proactively flags discrepancies in receipts before submission, helping address inaccuracies early, reduce report rejections and review cycles, and shorten reimbursement timelines. Drawing on decades of expertise and innovation in expense report auditing, SAP Concur delivers an agent that ensures receipt validation is robust and precise.

Concur Expense will soon support new capabilities to submit receipts via text message, offering another easy way for employees to capture receipts without manual data entry.

Expense Pre-Submit Audit Agent, Expense Automation Agent, and receipt texting capabilities are currently in the SAP Early Adopter Care program, with general availability expected later this year.

Expense Automation Agent will be available as part of Joule Premium for Travel and Expense.

Additionally, leveraging the power of the SAP Business Suite, the SAP Sales Cloud solution now integrates with Booking Agent to streamline workflows and enhance productivity for sales teams. Salespeople can use Joule within the SAP Sales Cloud solution to book travel for planned client visits. Joule recognizes key details of the client visit and presents personalized travel itinerary options for the salesperson to choose from for quick, seamless booking within the existing workflow. This eliminates the need to manage separate workflows for client visits and trip bookings, as Joule connects planned visits directly with easy booking options. The integration is planned for general availability in Q2 2026.

Simplified Administration, Stronger Compliance and Increased Automation Across Travel and Expense Processes

New AI-based rule creation tools simplify the complex process of managing policy rules in Complete by SAP Concur and Amex GBT, Concur Travel, and Concur Expense, especially for administrators without a technical background. These tools help customers automate enforcement of even the most nuanced policies using natural language or company policy documents as the input. Now, administrators can manage rule creation efficiently and confidently. Administrators can upload a travel policy document, and the travel rules will automatically be created or modified, saving time and strengthening policy compliance. This capability will be available as part of the SAP Early Adopter Care program in Q2 2026. Concur Expense administrators can create and manage audit rules using natural language starting in Q2 2026. The ability to create rules from uploaded policy documents is planned for later in 2026

Additionally, SAP Concur is strengthening two key financial industry partnerships to further streamline expense reporting and compliance.

SAP Concur and American Express (Amex) are deepening their partnership to enable joint customers to create and manage American Express Virtual Cards in Concur Expense. An American Express Virtual Card features a uniquely generated card number and security code associated with an employer’s Amex Corporate Card account, reducing the burden of out-of-pocket expenses by supporting online payments and transactions on-the-go through a digital wallet.

American Express Virtual Cards with SAP Concur enable employees to make purchases in just a few clicks, while providing organizations with enhanced visibility, stronger controls, and greater efficiency. They also can be used as a payment method within Concur Travel. This capability is available now to select U.S.-based American Express® Corporate and Business customers using Concur Expense with availability for all such customers planned for Q3 2026.

Last year, SAP Concur and Amex launched a real-time notification (RTN) capability that automatically generates and categorizes eligible business expenses from Amex Corporate Card purchases in Concur Expense. Enrolled cardholders will get real-time notification via the Concur mobile app when making a purchase, so they never miss key details like uploading a receipt or adding attendees for a meal.

SAP Concur teams up with Visa to drive greater integration between Concur Expense and Visa through the Visa Commercial Integrated Partner program. The first integration milestone will be for Concur Expense to enable real-time notifications to automatically create expenses from Visa card swipes and reduce the risk of lost receipts or duplicates. The capability will be available as part of the SAP Early Adopter Care Program in Q3 2026.

SAP Concur will now support RTN from all major credit card networks.

Corporate Travel Experience Enhancements and New AI-Enabled Capabilities

SAP Concur is advancing the corporate travel experience with new capabilities, expanded global availability, and enhanced partner integrations designed to support travelers and travel managers worldwide

SAP Concur and American Express Global Business Travel (Amex GBT) are announcing new innovations to Complete, an AI-enabled, co-developed solution for booking, servicing, payments, and expensing. New capabilities include AI-enabled travel support with hand-off to a live travel counselor and a specialized home page for travel managers. Concur Expense also integrates with Amex GBT Egencia for customers worldwide. For more about these co-innovations, visit the Concur blog.

For all customers using the new Concur Travel experience, it now fully supports guest bookings, offering an improved reservation workflow for hosting guest travel. Enhanced booking capabilities provide a streamlined experience, allowing guest profiles to be created quickly without having to establish new profiles for recurring visitors each time.

Starting in Q2, India joins more than 150 countries with access to the new Concur Travel experience. With expanded content from Cleartrip that supports all fare brands, seats, bags, and ancillaries, combined with new One-Way Faring capability and mobile user experience, travelers can shop IndiGo and SpiceJet, as well as new supplier additions including Akasa Air and Air India Express.

TripIt by SAP Concur is also enhancing the travel experience with new intelligent, on-device capabilities that help travelers organize plans effortlessly while staying informed about potential disruptions in real time.

• TripIt Pro Image to Plan with Apple Intelligence: Travelers can turn photos or PDFs—including tickets, reservations, event flyers, and receipts—into organized TripIt plans in just a few taps. Using Apple Intelligence’s on-device foundation models, TripIt Pro securely extracts key details such as dates, times, locations, confirmation numbers, and costs, all without leaving the device.
• Expanded TripIt Pro Risk Alerts: Based on the address entered with a trip plan, TripIt Pro monitors breaking news that may disrupt the itinerary. Travelers will now receive proactive, timely alerts about incidents that could affect lodging, car rental, rail, activities, and other plans, in addition to flights, airlines and airports.

These new capabilities in TripIt Pro are generally available now.

To learn more about announcements at SAP Concur Fusion, or to join the virtual event, visit here.

Today at SAP Concur Fusion, SAP Concur and American Express Global Business Travel (Amex GBT) are announcing new advancements in Complete by SAP Concur and Amex GBT, an AI-enabled, co-developed solution for travel booking, servicing, payments, and expensing. These updates mark an important milestone in building the framework and foundations for next gen business travel between the two companies, expanding content access, strengthening service, and further integrating travel and expense into a more seamless and intelligent experience enhancing customer value.

Since announcing the strategic alliance in October 2025, adoption of Complete has continued to accelerate. Product and engineering teams from both companies have been focused on building the foundations to connect Amex GBT’s marketplace and servicing with Concur Travel & Expense to deliver features that simplify process, increase visibility and support smarter decision making across the entire travel lifecycle.  

Integrated Travel Support from Joule and Travel Counselor

An enterprise integrated chat platform with automated hand-off to a live travel counsellor for additional support is in pilot for customers now. This is the first of many features to go live for Complete customers. Layering in Joule in Q2 2026 will bring SAP’s agentic AI directly into the experience to help travellers find answers faster and with greater confidence.

Joule will be trained on Amex GBT’s most common inquiries and supplier marketplace data, enabling it to resolve frequent questions more effectively throughout the trip lifecycle. When a request requires additional support, the conversation can transition to a live travel counselor from Amex GBT without the traveler needing to leave Complete. This experience brings together the convenience of AI and the reassurance of human support, all in one place.

New Travel Manager Home Page

As the role of the Travel Manager continues to expand, bringing information together in one place helps reduce friction, improve efficiency, and keep teams focused on optimizing their travel program rather than managing multiple systems.

To support this need, Complete is introducing a new home page designed specifically for Travel Managers. This home page integrates SAP Concur and Amex GBT data and brings key travel and expense tools, insights, and controls into one central place, with a cleaner look and simpler navigation. Travel managers will have a single starting point to monitor programs, access reports, manage approvals, and connect to duty-of-care information.

Initially, the home page will provide essential insights, with more advanced analytics and reporting planned over time. In the future, it will deliver a comprehensive, real-time view of the travel program to help travel managers make faster, more informed decisions, including spend trends, savings opportunities, and policy compliance to reduce leakage.

Expanded Content Across Air, Hotel and Ground

Content breadth is foundational to delivering a better travel experience, and Complete continues to expand access across key categories. The Amex GBT marketplace is being fully built into Complete and will provide access to all of Amex GBT’s Air, Hotel and Ground content. This will include NDC, core GDS content, Booking.com and Expedia hotel content and much more.   Complete users also now have access to more than 80 rail providers. These live rail connections expand transportation options and support regional travel needs, particularly in regions where rail is a preferred or more sustainable choice.

SAP Concur and Amex GBT are also building the foundation for expanded NDC content with a single, unified implementation to lay the groundwork for symmetry across the SAP Concur and Amex GBT ecosystem. This will help provide customers with consistent, predictable access to NDC airline content without needing to worry about where or how that content is sourced.

Concur Expense and Amex GBT Egencia Integration

Additionally, Concur Expense is integrating with the Amex GBT Egencia solution, introducing enhanced e-receipt and itinerary data integration. This integration is enabling Egencia travel bookings to automatically flow into Concur Expense, with eligible items pre-populated and enriched with detailed itinerary and transaction data.

Travelers no longer need to manually enter booking details, making it easier to move from booking to expensing without re-entering information or manually uploading receipts. Finance and travel teams will also benefit from more timely, accurate expense data that supports stronger compliance, reporting, and visibility into travel spend.

The pilot integration is delivering a configurable, personalized, end-to-end digital travel experience for joint customers now and will be generally available in April 2026.

A Continuation of Their Shared Vision

Together, SAP Concur and Amex GBT are delivering:

• A unified marketplace with access to 600+ airlines and 2 million+ properties, offering greater incentives and cost savings
• Accelerated NDC releases and modern retailing capabilities
• AI-powered tools trained on unmatched travel and expense data
• Integrated traveler support through conversational, connected channels
• Streamlined processes across booking, servicing, payments, and expensing

TMC Partner Program by SAP Concur and GBTNetwork

SAP Concur and GBTNetwork have announced the TMC Partner Program by SAP Concur and GBTNetwork. This joint program extends select benefits to our most trusted and capable mutual TMC partners—those who can bring this vision of superior travel marketplace content and travel technology of the future to customers and prospects. 

With this program launch, we’re also introducing two levels of partner capability and competency recognition – TMC Gold and TMC Silver aligned to travel content, and technology adoption, and delivery excellence. These levels are intended to help customers understand which TMCs have earned our highest level of trust to bring this vision to life. 

Learn more about Complete from SAP Concur and Amex GBT here: https://www.concur.com/solutions/complete.

SAP Concurs announced a strategic alliance with American Express Global Business Travel (Amex GBT) and the launch of Complete by SAP Concur and Amex GBT. Complete, a co-developed next-gen solution with AI at its core, is intended to combine booking, servicing, payments and expensing into one experience.

Complete will benefit from each entity’s technology, and business travel expertise. Concur Expense will also integrate with Amex GBT Egencia providing additional options for customers interested in an integrated travel and expense solution. The two companies will allocate funding and development resources to build joint innovations on behalf of mutual customers with the vision to redefine the corporate travel and expense experience.

The combined investment through this strategic alliance creates an opportunity to deliver end-to end value in three foundational areas – marketplace, software, and services. Complete will be a streamlined solution with a single road map and integrated servicing model providing customers with accelerated innovation and program optimization including:

• The integration of the Amex GBT marketplace into Complete – access to 600+ airlines and spanning 2 million+ properties – and into the SAP Concur technology stack, offering greater incentives and cost savings.
• Access to richer airline, hotel, ground and rail options and Complete will deliver the next generation of modern retailing.
• Access to unified traveler support via an integrated chat agent designed to deliver a single experience to manage the entire trip with increased time savings and a great user experience.
• Expedited releases of NDC content delivering increased content options, choice and clarity of fares plus increased compliance within existing travel policies.
• The ability to benefit from combined AI offerings trained on the unmatched data from Concur Travel and Expense and Amex GBT that represents millions of trips and transactions to fine-tune experiences in near real-time. 

Availability 

Later this month, mutual customers will have access to Complete with additional features to follow in the coming months. Concur Expense integration into Amex GBT Egencia will be available soon. Future co-innovations will continue to roll out in core areas including content availability and display, travel manager capabilities, utilizing AI to create a new booking experience, manage travel disruptions and provide program insights. Lastly, the SAP Concur Partner Program for TMCs will transform and is intended to generate value for our mutual current and future customers.

According to latest research from SAP Concur, half (50%) of Canadian business travellers expect travel budgets to stagnate or decrease in 2025. A further 86% report cuts to allowances over the past year. But how do travellers spend their company’s money while travelling? Is there a new cost awareness? New data suggests that business travellers have two travel personas: one for work and another for vacation.

This is what SAP Concur data reveals about spending behaviour in 2025:

1. Travellers making the most of their travel allowance

Most Canadian business travellers (88%) have recently started taking steps to make ends meet at the end of a business trip – ranging from making sure not to overspend on daily allowances to making the most of freebies. More than a third (37%) eat cheaper meals in order to underspend on their per diem, while a further 29% prepare their own meals rather than dining out. Some business travellers also benefit by taking leftover food and drinks (31%) and packing the complimentary amenities from hotels and conferences (24%) to return home with. There are clear generational differences: 92% of Gen-Z travellers take steps to make the most of their travel allowance, compared to 87% of millennials, 73% of Gen X, and 64% of baby boomers.

2. Travellers splash the cash on business trips

Different spending patterns apply on a business versus a private trip. Just over one in three employees (33%) opt for higher quality hotels or premium rooms when travelling for work, while a third (33%) book direct flights, even if they’re more expensive. They’re also more likely to take private transport options, such as Ubers (37%) and spend more dining in nicer restaurants (28%). The generations most likely to adjust their spending behaviour are Gen Z (94%) and millennials (89%), followed by 72% of Gen X and 56% of baby boomers.

3. Travellers spend their own money on upgrades

Travel budget cuts are affecting the experience travellers have on the road. While employees try to make the most of their travel policy, the majority of Canadian travellers (86%) are also willing to spend their own money to enhance a trip. Younger employees are more likely to invest in their experience, with 93% of Gen-Z and 88% of millennial travellers willing to spend their own funds on upgrades, compared to 62% of baby boomers and 74% of Gen X.

Canadian travellers will pay their way for perks including higher-quality accommodations (42%), an additional hotel night to avoid a long travel day (35%), and seating upgrades (27%).  They are also willing to shell out for more sustainable travel options (28%), more expensive routes that avoid layovers or use their preferred airport (27%), or preferred airlines or hotels (28%).

Integrated travel management solutions offer companies the ability to define travel policies and set booking categories to guide booking behavior. Friendly nudging with suggestions for cheaper or preferred providers with whom companies have negotiated particularly favorable terms can also help provide employees with the greatest possible convenience without paying exorbitant amounts. Find more insights in the seventh annual Global Business Travel Survey from SAP Concur.

Business travel is up in the air. The toss-up between cost-savings, employee safety, and the value of in-person interaction is an ongoing boardroom debate. In the age of virtual calls, many employees are desperate to hit the road, while others prefer to conduct their business via digital channels.

Whichever side of the fence you fall on, business travel remains vital to build working relationships and drive growth. Yet, there are certain topics relating to company travel initiatives that stakeholders don’t quite agree on. To understand the perspectives, challenges, and opportunities, it’s vital that leaders know where the disconnects lie.

The latest Global Business Travel Survey from SAP Concur asked Canadian business travellers, travel managers, and chief financial officers (CFOs) about friction points in business travel. These are the main areas of disagreement:

1. The need for business travel: The overwhelming majority (95%) of business travellers believe travel is helpful, if not essential, to success in their roles. Yet, 51% of Canadian CFOs say more than half of their company’s business travel could effectively be replaced by teleconferencing or other communication methods that don’t require travel. A (27%) of travel managers view the tilt towards virtual meeting options as a direct threat to their company’s business travel.
   
2. Employee willingness to travel: 74% of Canadian business travellers are very willing to travel over the next 12 months, marking an increase from 67% in 2023. However, nearly half (46%) of Canadian CFOs believe employee reluctance or refusal to travel could negatively impact company health within the next year. Additionally, 35% of Canadian travel managers view employees’ unwillingness as a threat to business travel.

3. Changes in travel budgets: Each role has a different view on how travel budgets are evolving. Although not a majority, (38%) of Canadian business travellers think their company’s travel budgets will remain stagnant or decrease this year. Yet, only 16% of Canadian CFOs and 8% of travel managers say budgets will be maintained or cut – suggesting a disconnect between employee perceptions and management’s financial outlook.
   
4. The roles that hold the most influence: There’s a perception gap over who influences business travel decision-making. Canadian business travellers believe travel managers (46%) and Canadian CFOs (32%) have similar influence, significantly ahead of their own at 22%. However, Canadian travel managers are broadly aligned in feeling they (39%) have nearly the same amount of influence as CFOs (34%), compared to only 27% for business travellers. Canadian CFOs strongly disagree, with 61% believing they are the most influential decision-makers, ahead of travel managers (25%) and travellers (14%).
   
5. The impact of budget limitations: Although they see travel as critical to their roles, two-thirds (66%) of Canadian business travellers say important trips have been curtailed due to costs. In alignment, 75% of travel managers believe their company travel budget fails to reflect the importance of business travel to their organization’s success. And whilst CFOs acknowledge the problem, there’s dissent in the ranks. 57% of CFOs somewhat agree that budget limitations stop employees from travelling as much as they need to do their jobs well, while just 22% strongly agree.

Kristen Hrycoy, Senior Global Partner Business Manager at SAP Concur says “These findings highlight the points of contention between travellers, travel managers, and CFOs, for the first time in our Global Business Travel Survey. To empower employees to develop professionally and create new opportunities on the road, it’s vital that every role in the organization aligns on common goals.”

Explore more insights in the seventh annual SAP Concur Global Business Travel Survey.

By Brian Veloso, Managing Director at SAP Concur Canada

Winter is turning to spring, and businesses are looking for new growth opportunities amidst shifting geopolitical dynamics, changing strategic priorities and technological advancements. While the business environment may be challenging, it presents new opportunities, too. The new SAP Concur CFO Insights Report 2025* suggests that against this backdrop, increased collaboration between HR, IT, and finance departments can yield a particularly good crop and maximise growth opportunities for the business.

However, the real picture on the ground is quite different, with organisational silos spreading like a weed hindering growth momentum and costing businesses money. New data from the report shows how differently HR, IT and finance leaders see even the root cause of this issue: finance (53%) while for the majority of HR leaders (75%) insufficient data sharing and transparency is the main culprit behind lacking integration across teams.

Cross-departmental disagreements continue when it comes to finding a cure to siloed work, too. More than half of finance leaders (50%) and IT (67%) prioritise implementing flexible budgets for collaborative projects. HR leaders number one priority however is to create cross-functional working groups (58%).

Talent retention and acquisition as growth drivers

Other key findings from the SAP Concur CFO Insights report reveal how talent retention and acquisition are undervalued as growth drivers:

• While finance leaders recognise the significance of finance talent retention and acquisition, only 23% see them as ‘essential’ factors to growth. They feel it’s important, but other challenges, such as manual processes, cost management, growing complexity of financial forecasting and budgeting, and adoption of technology/ digital transformation, require more attention.
• HR leaders see collaboration with finance as an essential element of a successful recruitment and retention strategy – for instance, 75% want their finance partner to provide them with financial insights to support workforce planning.
• Opportunities for deeper collaboration between HR and finance don’t stop there: almost half of HR leaders (50%) identified the need for finance to asset in developing metrics to better measure the impact of HR initiatives and 50% want increased budget allocations.

IT leaders are confident in cybersecurity, but human factor may be a weak point

Statista’s Market insights suggests the global cost of cybercrime is expected to surge in the next four years, rising from $9.22 trillion in 2024 to $13.82 trillion by 2028. This is quite a steep surge, largely attributed to phishing and social engineering attacks, insufficient endpoint security, and inadequate employee training. Against this backdrop,  of IT leaders are surprisingly confident and feel their organisation is prepared to respond to an increased threat of cyber-attacks.

Human factors are the security weak points in the business though, warranting increased investment into education and training on cyber hygiene:

• Phishing and social engineering attacks are the top risk perceived by 67%.
• Inadequate cybersecurity training (33%), remote work and unsecured personal devices (33%) and weak or reused employee passwords add to the challenge (33%).

However, in the grand scheme of things, cybersecurity isn’t a key priority for finance leaders, and they don’t feel the urgency of collaborating with IT teams to make the business more secure against cybercrime. This is emphasised by the data, which shows only 17% of finance leaders planning to align with IT teams on cybersecurity.

The New SAP Concur CFO Insights report shows areas for improvement between key business functions such as HR, IT and finance. For organisations that can bring the silos down, increased collaboration creates a fertile soil for fostering growth this year.

*SAP Concur surveyed 350 chief financial officers and senior finance leaders, 115 HR leaders and 115 IT leaders for its latest CFO Insights report.

The research, conducted between December 2024 and January 2025, covered Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Japan, Mexico, the United Kingdom and the United States.

New data from the latest annual SAP Concur CFO Insights Survey* reveals the evolution of top priorities for Canadian finance leaders amid challenging economic conditions and geopolitical tensions – from AI to cybersecurity. The 2025 research highlights the opportunities and barriers finance leaders face today, while also providing comparisons with previous years’ results.

Economic conditions are the greatest external challenge

External factors are playing a big role in the decision-making of Canadian finance leaders. The following highlights demonstrate the uphill battle finance leaders now face:

• The highest ranked external challenge is worsening economic conditions, with 50% placing the concern in their top 3
• However, geopolitical tensions soared this year (30%) as a concern for finance leaders when compared with 2024 results (15%)
• Regulatory compliance related to climate change is no longer as much of a worry in 2025, remaining in the top three for just 30% of respondents – compared with 83% in 2024
  

Though the challenges businesses face externally are outside of the finance leaders’ control, being able to mitigate their impact is within their remit – and it comes down to the software solutions and tools they have available. Yet, a lack of data visibility is impacting      53% of Canadian finance leaders – with problems with ease-of-use and adoption (43%), and limited reporting and analytics (47%) next in line.

Unlocking AI & Cybersecurity

Manual processes are a top internal challenge for more than a third of Canadian finance leaders (43%). This has risen significantly in the past few years, with just 1% ranking manual processes as the top challenge in 2023.

However, finance departments are embracing AI today, with over half (63%) highly automating general office tasks – a significant increase on 2024’s results with just 7% reporting this level of automation in their organisation. That’s a significant uptick in usage in the space of a year.

• Other top AI automation use cases include journal entries and bookkeeping (63%), monitoring for fraud (47%) and financial planning (33%).
• Finance leaders report AI is having a positive impact on various areas of their organisation including decision-making (97%), risk reduction (83%) or achieving ESG goals (40%).

When it comes to cybersecurity, more than half of finance leaders (63%) plan to increase their cybersecurity budget. Only 17% plan to enhance collaboration with the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) and across the IT department though.

In fact, finance leaders today are split about who in the C-Suite should be responsible for driving progress on the increasing cybersecurity threat: 47% of finance leaders believe that driving progress on cybersecurity should be the reserve of IT leaders only, while 53% report it should be finance and IT leaders.

This sentiment comes at a time where the evolving cybersecurity landscape has the potential to influence organisation’s ability to pursue upcoming growth initiatives.

• A third (43%) of finance leaders report that their growth plans will proceed as planned, while half (47%) say they will adapt growth initiatives to align with the cybersecurity landscape.
• Just 10% say they will slow down growth initiatives to focus on cybersecurity.

Growth in 2025

For Canadian finance departments in 2025, optimising costs and efficiency is a key priority to drive growth (80%) – with investments in AI technology (70%) and focusing on sustainability and ESG (60%) next in line.

But they know they can’t do it alone – ensuring cross-functional collaboration is vital for driving growth.

• All respondents (100%) rate themselves as ‘excellent’ or ‘good’ at communicating to get buy-in from the wider business on new growth initiatives – and 83% of HR leaders and 67% of IT leaders agree.
• Yet, there’s controversy among those working in finance over who should be responsible for this growth – with 81% of CFOs believing the CFO is the primary driver of growth despite only 52% of finance Senior Vice Presidents (SVPs) agreeing.
• Finance SVPs are more likely to think CFOs should support – but not lead – growth initiatives (20%) or that growth leadership should be shared across the c-suite (28%). While just 9% of CFOs agree that growth leadership should be shared.

*SAP Concur surveyed 350 chief financial officers and senior finance leaders, 115 HR leaders and 115 IT leaders for its latest CFO Insights report.
The research, conducted between December 2024 and January 2025, covered Canada, Australia, Brazil, Germany, Japan, Mexico, the United Kingdom and the United States.

At SAP Concur Fusion 2025 today, we are bringing together customers and partners to explore how SAP Concur delivers AI, and greater visibility, to travel and expense management. At the event, we’re debuting new product innovations and strategic partnerships that harness AI, enhance visibility, automate tasks, and drive compliance—unlocking new efficiencies, spend insights, and improved employee experiences.

SAP Concur Debuts Joule with Concur Travel and Expense

SAP is transforming the way businesses run with Joule, its generative AI copilot. Now, this evolution will extend to business travel and expense management. SAP is embedding Joule in SAP Concur solutions, bringing the portfolio one step closer toward a fully automated travel and expense management process. In Concur Expense, Joule helps to ensure that expense reports are ready for submission with minimal effort. For example, Joule can assemble a timeline view of expenses, review for mistakes or missing expenses, and make recommendations for how best to complete the expense report. Additionally, Joule can answer employees’ questions so they no longer have to search through Concur Expense or the SAP Help portal, resulting in fewer support cases and improved efficiency for both employees and administrators. Joule with Concur Expense is expected to be generally available in the second quarter 2025.

SAP Concur also will embed Joule in Concur Travel initially to help with planning locations for offsite meetings. Joule can provide meeting location recommendations and high-level flight and hotel cost estimates based on meeting attendees’ origination points. Once the meeting site and hotel options are selected, Joule will create an email template to send to team members with a link to book directly in Concur. Joule with Concur Travel is available now as part of the early adopter program with general availability expected later this year.

Automating Expense Management in Concur Expense

SAP Concur and American Express (Amex) are expanding their partnership to simplify expense management for shared customers. One-third of SAP Concur customers use the Amex corporate card to capture expense transactions. To streamline the end-to-end experience, SAP Concur and Amex are launching a real-time authorization data capability whereby American Express Corporate Card purchases automatically generate and categorize expenses, starting with meal transactions, in Concur Expense at the time of spend. This integration will include real time mobile notifications via the Concur mobile app that alerts the employee with expense policy reminders in the moment to help drive policy adherence and minimize manual effort.

The most common type of expense submitted within Concur Expense is meals. In fact, a quarter of all expenses are meals, which is why the capability will first be available for meal expenses. For example, when users purchase lunch with their Amex Corporate Card, an expense entry is automatically created and the user can be notified if additional information is required, such as capturing the receipt image or adding attendees.

SAP Concur is on a journey to fully automate the expense management process, from purchase to reimbursement. Last year, we took a big step with our partnership with Mastercard. With the integration, meal expenses purchased with participating Mastercard corporate cards are automatically populated in Concur Expense, and alerts are issued if any additional information is needed.

We’ve heard from customers that they love the hands-free experience, commenting:

• The automation is really nice, and keeps the trips organized.
• Much faster data, and less time organizing expense reports.
• Solicits faster receipt capture while reducing duplicate risk.

We’re working to expand access to the integration so more Mastercard customers can benefit from a simpler and more efficient experience.

“At SAP Concur, we’re creating a world where travel and expenses practically manage themselves,” said Brian Veloso, Managing Director at SAP Concur Canada. “We continue to deliver on that journey with these touchless experiences enabled by industry-leading generative AI and close partnerships with top payment providers.”

Additionally, American Express Global Business Travel has integrated its hotel marketplace, featuring over 2 million properties across 180 countries with competitive rates, into the new Concur Travel solution, providing customers access to comprehensive hotel content, including negotiated programs and preferred partner rates.

With its Concur Travel and Expense solutions, SAP remains the market share leader for worldwide travel and expense management software, with 49.6 percent 2023 market share [source: IDC]. These leading solutions are part of the SAP Business Suite, SAP’s comprehensive portfolio of integrated solutions that combines our core Cloud ERP and Line of Business applications, fueled by the world’s most powerful business data and actionable AI.

“We are redefining the business travel experience, raising the bar for integrated travel and expense management like never before with the power of SAP Business AI,” said Brian Veloso, Managing Director at SAP Concur Canada. “It’s exciting to see our large, global customer base benefit from continual innovations that enhance the user experience and serve the needs of travelers, travel managers and CFOs.”

To learn more about announcements at SAP Concur Fusion or to join the virtual event visit here.

Global travel has shown a significant rebound, with volume nearing pre-pandemic levels. A development, that at SAP Concur, we’ve seen in a rebound in business travel bookings. “Overall, Canadian domestic air travel volume for business trips is up 4 per cent, year over year,” said Brian Veloso, Managing Director at SAP Concur Canada. “The return to business travel is driven by business travelers’ enthusiasm. The most recent SAP Concur Global Business Travel Survey revealed that 76 per cent of global business travelers enjoy business travel and 67 per cent feel it’s critical for career advancement.”

To get a sense of the state of business travel, SAP Concur analyzed domestic and international air travel bookings in Concur Travel between January 1, 2024, and December 31, 2024, and compared airfare and overall travel volume to the same timeframe in 2023.

It found: 

Year-Over-Year Travel Volume

Month	Domestic	International
January	+9%	+15%
February	+8%	+15%
March	-7%	-3%
April	+11%	+14%
May	-1%	+5%
June	-5%	-2%
July	+14%	+14%
August	+5%	+3%
September	+8%	+8%
October	+5%	+10%
November	-2%	+2%
December	+12%	+14%

The above chart reflects the percent difference in total bookings year over year (comparing 2023 and 2024)

• Overall Canadian domestic travel volume is up nearly 4% year over year. January, February, April, and July were popular months for business travel.
• International travel saw a 7.83% increase year-over-year, with significant growth in January, February, April, and December.
• Overall Canadian travel volume increased nearly 8% year over year. International travel volume increased most months in 2024. Like with domestic travel, January (15%), February (15%), April (14%), July (14%), and December (14%)

2024 Travel Volume

• January marked the busiest month for domestic business travel in Canada, as travelers resumed business activities after the holiday season.
• December had the largest year-over-year increase for both domestic and international travel, reflecting renewed confidence in business travel.
• Summer months (June and July) saw contrasting trends, with a drop in domestic airfare demand in June, but a strong rebound in July.

Domestic Airfare

Month	Average Fare (CAD)	YoY Difference
January	$574	+1%
February	$654	+6%
March	$667	+10%
April	$630	+6%
May	$620	+4%
June	$619	-3%
July	$589	-8%
August	$579	-3%
September	$605	-1%
October	$598	-1%
November	$619	+1%
December	$579	-4%

The above chart reflects the percent difference in airfare year over year (comparing 2023 and 2024)

• Canadian domestic airfare fluctuated throughout the year, with the highest increase in March and the lowest in July and December.
• The cost of Canadian domestic flights decreased in mid-year months (June to August), making summer a more affordable time for business travel.

International Airfare Trends

Month	Average Fare (CAD)	YoY Difference
January	$998	-3%
February	$1,131	+1%
March	$1,109	+1%
April	$1,088	+1%
May	$1,078	-4%
June	$1,102	-6%
July	$1,059	-6%
August	$1,015	-9%
September	$1,061	-5%
October	$1,048	-2%
November	$1,056	+8%
December	$996	-2%

The above chart reflects the percent difference in airfare year over year (comparing 2023 and 2024)

• Canadian International airfare decreased in the first half of 2024, particularly in the summer months (June to August), making it a more affordable time for global business travel.
• Fares remained relatively stable in the second half of the year, with a notable increase in November, aligning with peak business travel periods.

The Future of Business Travel in Canada

Business travel volumes in Canada are approaching pre-pandemic levels, demonstrating the resilience of corporate travel. Domestic travel remains strong, and international travel has stabilized with increasing demand. As inflation pressures ease, we anticipate further normalization of travel costs. At SAP Concur, we are excited about the continued evolution of business travel and remain committed to supporting Canadian business travelers on their journeys.

Methodology: SAP Concur analyzed travel booking data from Canada-based travelers in Concur Travel between January 1, 2023, and December 31, 2024.