Corporate travel managers and their companies are not naive.
They know their employees have access to savvy technology and mobile apps that
simplify everyday life. They also realize that employee expectations for such
conveniences are extending into work life.
Almost three-quarters of companies are trying to close the
gap by updating their T&E tools, according to a Forrester report commissioned
by Concur. In April, Forrester surveyed 500 financial decision-makers in Asia/Pacific,
Canada, Europe, Mexico and the United States.
More than three-quarters said user-friendly tools form the
most important aspect of a new solution or are at least equally as important as
being business ready, which means a solution can integrate with existing and
third-party finance applications. Referencing user-friendliness, the survey
said, "Older solutions lack the features needed to better empower users to
track expenses, such as mobile connectivity."
Among those North America- and Canada-based executives who
are concerned with their companies' finances, the two most common challenges are
the amount of time required to manage T&E paperwork and approvals and the
number of inaccuracies caused by human error. Each of those was cited as the
largest T&E challenge by 32 percent of executives. A quarter said not
having an expense tool with an associated mobile app was challenging.
In April, BTN's2016
Expense Manager Survey posed similar questions, but to travelers and travel
managers. The survey put mobile receipt imaging at the top of 76 percent of
travelers' wish lists. Travelers were also keen to have mobile expense
reporting (59 percent) and mobile expense approvals (58 percent).
The Forrester survey acknowledged that traveler perspective.
"With limited bandwidth, financial leaders recognize the need to improve
the overall T&E process in order to enable employees to become more
equipped to spend responsibly and track expenses properly," the report
stated.
Finance-side executives are taking action. Twenty-six percent
plan to update their T&E systems within six months, while a quarter are
selecting new systems and 22 percent are implementing new systems or updating
their current ones.
"With 68 percent of companies having a solution that is
less than four years old, businesses recognize the need to continuously improve
their capabilities to keep pace with changes going on right now in the
market."
Likewise, the BTN Expense
Manager Survey showed that the number of first-time expense-tool
implementations totaled 11 percent, a decline from 33 percent the previous
year.
With new T&E solutions, financial executives
expect faster invoice processing time and reimbursement (38 percent), a
reduction in the amount of time spent on expenses (38 percent), a reduction in employee
expenses (36 percent), improved employee productivity and satisfaction (36
percent), fewer errors (36 percent) and better integration with other financial
systems (35 percent).