Concur Technologies removes the hassles from business travel

Padgett speaks during the keynote.

Concur Technologies continues to work towards minimising the hassles of business travel. At its fusion exchange event in Singapore, Barry Padgett, Chief Product Officer, Concur, talked about how an integrated ecosystem that incorporates the latest technology makes life easier for corporate travellers, from voice-activated commands for booking flights to "the expense report that writes itself".

"We should work in the background quietly while you're out there doing your job," said Padgett, describing how patrons of Concur partners such as American Express, Starbucks, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide and Uber can have their transactions show up automatically in expense reports.

An app called ExpenseIt can interprete the text on photos of receipts, then match it with calendar appointments to fill in the expense report. There is typically with more information available with Concur than would have been possible in the traditional paper receipt, Padgett said.

Concur is also making things easier with alerts from the wrist. Concur's TripIT app for the Apple Watch was one of the chosen feature apps to be launched when Apple brought the watch to market, said Padgett, sharing that notifications for flights, rental cars, hotel checkins and directions to destinations can all be delivered through TripIt. "It takes us one step further on that path to a perfect trip," he said.

Barry Long, Senior Director, Solutions Consulting, Asia Pacific, Concur, disclosed that the company has been working to connect expenditure data, drive transparency based on 'personas', or responsibilities such as travel overviews, finance overviews, expense overviews, department managerial roles, and supplier interactions.

"We want to make the data work for you instead of you working for the data," he said.

Enhancements to the Concur portfolio over the past year have included active reports, tax dashboards, budget integration, and actionable analytics. A new overview for the departmental manager includes enhanced visualisations and ease of access with dashboards, as well as suggestions on how to correct problems.

The company is working to deliver additional personas, more language support as well as more dashboards. "We're going to take a look at other reporting solutions and see how we can link in to that information," Long said.

Long added that Concur is developing more alerts and working on delivering them "pretty much in real time". This may allow users to take action before the transaction has happened, or before it has been processed.

Interested?

View the TripIt video for the Apple Watch app