Concur, provider of travel expense management technology, rolled out enhancements to its services that, it said, provide more meaningful analyses of corporate travel spending and offer improved options for curtailing carbon emissions associated with the corporation’s travel.
The Redmond, Wash.-based company announced its newest developments today in advance of the National Business Travel Association conference in Los Angeles where it will provide demos.
Michael Hilton, executive vice president, worldwide marketing, said Concur is launching “the next generation of analytics capabilities,” by combining and reconciling travel agency data, credit card data and supplier data “to the line item level” for a 100% match between booked travel and real spending.
He added that the perfect match also depends on the “intelligence of the business traveler,” who often has to explain mismatches that no computer program will make clear.
Historically, he noted, Concur and other service providers have matched travel agency and credit card data, but added that information does not match up well enough to provide the quality that customers want.
He said it is possible now to collect so much more good data because suppliers — especially car and hotels companies — are in a position, and working with the Concur Connect program, to drop electronic versions of their invoices into the Concur expense reporting program. Concur Connect participants also provide Concur clients with direct access to their inventories for booking purposes.
Concur, which previously brought up electronic links with such companies as Choice Hotels, Hilton Hotels, InterContinental Hotels and the Deutsche Bahn railroad, announced that Avis/Budget and SNCF, the French rail company, have signed on as well. Other new participants on the airline side are Mexican carriers Interjet and Volaris, plus Southwest’s corporate booking arm, SWABiz.
As for the beefed-up green travel component, Concur said it can now display rail options, the better choice from the environmental standpoint, on the screen with air services. And, its software allows for sorting of the air and rail options based on carbon emissions.
Hilton said getting the rail options on the screen was particularly important to European customers, but the database includes Amtrak and Via Canada, as well.
Concur also offers corporations a choice of standards for calculating emissions.
Post-trip reports can show carbon emissions and enable companies to delve into the variances between booked travel and actual travel, Concur said.
Another green option is avoiding the trip altogether: companies can now highlight a videoconferencing option for internal company travel, Concur said.
Hilton said Concur is seeing increased demand for ways to automatically curtail travel. This new feature, he said, enables corporations to highlight videoconferencing alternatives when they exist in company locations or to simply state that it is company policy not make a specific trip if there is a videoconferencing alternative.
Similarly, for formal company meetings, the software may either encourage or demand that staffers attend virtually.