Concur and Amadeus IT Group this week announced an alliance to combine their technologies for an integrated booking and expense tool, marking Concur's first such tie-up with a booking tool outside of its own Cliqbook offering.
With the agreement in place, the two companies plan to have a tool that integrates Concur's expense reporting tool with Amadeus E-Travel Management booking tool by the second half of this year, said Michael Hilton, Concur's executive vice president of worldwide marketing. Amadeus also will integrate its core distribution technology into Cliqbook, marking the first time Amadeus has done so with a third party.
"This partnership is very complementary in terms of the assets we can bring," said Amadeus vice president of strategic planning and business development Stewart Alvarez. "We've had a relationship with Concur/Cliqbook for a number of years, but this is really opening it up for value-added functionality. The interface between Cliqbook and Amadeus will be much richer."
For Concur, the alliance is a chance to broaden its global scope, Hilton said, similar to its acquisition of Etap-On-Line last year
(BTNonline, Aug. 17, 2009). The companies plan to market the integrated E-Travel/Concur tool in select markets, he said. "Europe and Asia/Pacific are two very important regions for this agreement, both markets where Concur and Amadeus have joint marketshare," Hilton said.
Amadeus already has integration agreements in place with other expense reporting tool suppliers, including SAP and some smaller regional players, Alvarez said. The Concur alliance does not change those relationships, he said.