Expense management providers are continuing to enhance their product offerings although none are mimicking largest competitor Concur Technologies' recent move of acquiring a booking tool. DataBasics, Extensity and Gelco executives expressed confidence that they can compete in the ever-integrating marketplace, providing tools and service that facilitate travel manager oversight of corporate expense reports.
In some ways, expense reporting has remained a constant for corporations. That's because the basic function of the tool hasn't changed, said Corporate Solutions Group travel management consultant Bob Langsfeld. However, even with a limited number of products out there, those suppliers that don't keep up with integration could find themselves left behind, he said.
"Expense reporting is still General Accounting 101," said Langsfeld, a former executive with expense reporting companies, including Outtask. "The real key is the front- and back-end integration to make the process easier for the traveler. That's where the high value is."
Concur's acquisition of Outtask Inc. in January
(BTN, Feb. 6) revived talk of the coveted but unrequited end-to-end travel management technology. Outtask is the provider of booking tool Cliqbook and expense application Vinnet, making Concur able to offer a booking tool and match booking data with expense data. While some companies have been able to integrate their own versions of end-to-end technology components, such systems are rare, and Langsfeld said the industry is finally getting to the point where such an offering could happen.
Other expense reporting firms, however, don't see such an acquisition as necessary to provide their own version of end-to-end technology.
"We have no intention to buy an online booking provider, but we do have the integration to get there," said A.G. Lambert, senior director of product management for Extensity. "We have an open approach to integration with online booking, rather than buying one and forcing customers to us it."
Extensity has recently reemerged as a brand after years of being a part of Canadian software provider Geac Computer Corp. Golden Gate Capital, which acquired Geac last year, announced in March that it was reforming Extensity to focus on planning, budgeting and expense management. Other unrelated components of Geac, such as the manufacturing and supply chain components, are now separate from Extensity, Lambert said.
For now, Extensity's focus will be on marketing the application, and the company has added about 13 new people to sell it, Lambert said. It's also working on some enhancements on the reporting side and plans to have announcements regarding those within a month.
The company has spent the last year improving the tool, Lambert said. It has added new methods of accessing the application as well as adding new applications, such as pre-trip approval requests. In addition, Extensity has added the new capability of accessing level-three data profile data from corporate card providers, such as hotel folio expense information.
The Eden Prairie, Minn.-based Gelco Information Network generally produces three major releases of new features each year, which are provided at no charge for customers, said Jeff Cronin, vice president of solutions marketing for Gelco Expense Management. One example is a new audit service that allows users to log in, approve it and go.
Gelco, which Cronin said boasts a 97 percent retention rate, will stay competitive by focusing on such innovations that make expense reporting less of an effort, he said.
"We're about getting out of the way with users and letting them get on with their day-to-day work," Cronin said. "The user interfaces have been static, so we're ready for a revolutionary change for travelers."
Other companies have made innovations focusing on benchmarks. DataBasics, for example, recently embedded its expense-reporting tool with benchmarking data from consulting firm Runzheimer International
(BTN, March 20). Such tools allow businesses to remove subjectivity from their reporting by using an outside source for benchmarks. DataBasics executives have told Business Travel News it will give them a chance to market their offering to larger corporations, whereas their clientele primarily had been in the mid-sized range. Runzheimer also has formed a partnership with Concur in the past. David Kaufman, consultant with Acquis Consulting Group, said it might take time for companies to realize the usefulness of such an offering.
"In theory it's a great idea, but it hasn't caught on as of yet," Kaufman said. "Part of the obstacle is the people implementing the systems aren't necessarily the same people that are looking at benchmarking data."
Meanwhile, Concur is continuing the integration of its new acquisition, said Elena Donio, Concur's vice president of worldwide marketing. "The organization gets an enormous benefit out of a richer set of data," Donio said. "There's just a lot of benefit to doing transactions online."
In addition to competition from expense management firms, Corporate Solutions Group's Langsfeld said enterprise resource planning systems such as Oracle, which acquired expense reporting system provider PeopleSoft last year
(BTN, Feb. 7, 2005), would continue to play a role in the field.
Donio said the expense management firms will have a leg up because of their experience. "T&E are sort of afterthoughts to those organizations," she said. "What we bring to the table as far as core expertise and community, they don't necessarily bring to the table."
However, Acquis' Kaufman said he might recommend an ERP if the company does not already have a system in place. The ERPs are catching up in many of the core requirements for expense management, he said. "I do think that if an organization is going through an ERP implementation, it's certainly something that they should consider," Kaufman said. "In some ways, it's easier dealing with one vendor."