Concur’s Role in SAP’s Global Business Network

Last month, PayStream learned of SAP’s acquisition of one of our partners, Concur. The leader in travel and expense management (TEM) software, Concur stands out within the industry for their unique and dynamic expense reporting features.

Recently, it has become clear that Concur will play a major role in SAP’s upcoming efforts to expand their already impressive company offerings. SAP will incorporate Concur’s travel booking features and partnerships into their upcoming global marketplace for business products and services.

The creation of this business network could hypothetically place SAP on the same playing field as Alibaba—an online marketplace that supports global business commerce. However, according to the New York Times, SAP’s customer base sets them at an advantage to Alibaba—the SAP network would be bigger, more sophisticated, and “involve larger sums changing hands.” In addition, the possibilities for analytics of that business activity could potentially enable SAP to “identify the kind of economic behavior that stocks trade on faster than most government agencies can presently publish.”

This is all great news for Concur, both in terms of expansion opportunities, and for their involvement in innovative and industry-leading ventures—something their organizational history has not lacked. The most impressive evidence of their close ties to this project is the announcement that Concur CEO, Steve Singh, will be a key player in the development and management of the global marketplace. He has been made a member of SAP’s Global Managing Board and will head the Business Network strategy.

According to Bill McDermott, CEO of SAP, Concur’s role in the business network will be beneficial because of their shared vision to help customers ‘Run simple.’ “With Concur,” said McDermott, “people are given the professional courtesy and ultimate flexibility to make the choices that are right for them. No longer does cost control for companies have to come at the expense of people.”

PayStream is excited to see the talent of Steve Singh and Concur put to good use with SAP and their global marketplace. For more information on Concur and their industry leading travel and expense management software, look out for our 2015 travel and expense management report set to release next month.