<B> IDC Sizes Expense Market</B>
By Mary Ann McNulty
In its first in-depth study of the travel expense management application market, International Data Corp. of Framingham, Mass., projected that software license and maintenance revenues will grow at a 35.6 percent compound annual rate over the next five years from the $72.9 million starting point in 1998.
Profiling 11 expense vendors that meet its definition for license and maintenance sales--including enterprise resource planning leaders Oracle, PeopleSoft and SAP, which have expense applications--IDC analyst Brian McDonough ranked Concur Technologies as the market leader, with $16.4 million in revenues in 1998 for a 22.5 percent share. All other vendors that McDonough ranked held shares of 8.6 percent or less, starting with InterPro Expense Systems, Captura, Extensity, Necho Systems, Oracle, Vin.net, Peoplesoft, On the Go software, SAP AG and Ariba.
The other category actually held the biggest market share at 32.7 percent and $23.8 billion in revenues in 1998. Included here are revenue estimates for IBM, InterCoastal and other regional and national companies selling expense applications. More than 50 corporations are using the IBM solution, however, expense unit revenues are not broken out from global services. Absent from the report were outsourcers Gelco Information Network and RPL, neither of which meet IDC's definition of a software vendor. Gelco's expense unit told BTN it had 1998 revenues in excess of $30 million. Figures for RPL were not available at press time. Combined with IDC's software revenues, the expense market is really more than $100 million today.
McDonough said the Internet is spawning much of the growth in travel expense applications. "A Web-based travel expense application is a true e-business application. These Internet applications could not have existed four years ago in the form they are in now. The need to automate time-consuming expense operations, increase expense control and capture information to negotiate and manage supplier agreements will drive adoption of the travel expense market in 1999 and beyond," he wrote.
Segmenting the market geographically, IDC said that the United States generated 70.6 percent of the revenues in 1998; Western Europe generated 18.1 percent of the market. While sales and maintenance of travel expense applications will grow in Asia, Europe and other parts of the world over the next five years, IDC forecasts that the United States will continue to dominant, generating 68 percent of the revenues in 2003.
As part of the 63-page report, IDC presents background on the market, lists both positive and negative influencers in the years to come and includes a 20-page software market glossary. To purchase copies of the report, contact Cheryl Toffel at (508) 935-4389.