SAP Concur continues to hold a dominant position in the
corporate booking and expense management vertical, but the company is facing
increased challenges from other players seeking to carve out market share by
emphasizing user experience, customization and access to a full range of
content, including NDC.
While no other single provider is likely to challenge Concur's
spot as the 800-pound gorilla in the market any time soon, the collective
competition—from startups and longtime providers with recently scaled-up
ambitions—could represent a potential threat to at least some of Concur's
market share. But the company isn't standing pat in the face of the new
challenges—and isn't simply relying on its market ubiquity to fend off
competition. Instead, it has launched a major booking platform overhaul, with
user-friendliness, flexible architecture and a fuller array of content sources
as driving principles.
Dubbed T2 internally, the project has been in the works for "the
last couple of years," and is envisioned as a "complete re-write"
of Concur's online booking tool according to Chip Craw, senior director for
travel product strategy for the company.
While maintaining core existing features such as expense
management integration, policy controls and visibility into off-channel booking
via Concur TripLink, T2 adds several new capabilities, Craw noted. Key among the
updates are a revamped user interface offering consistency across desktop and
mobile and "seamless integration of content from both GDS and non-GDS
sources" Craw said. Meanwhile, "richer and more complex data sources"
enable more dynamic policy benchmarking, while advances in spend and approval
workflow capabilities help move "toward our vision of eliminating expense
reports altogether," Craw added. It's all built from the ground-up on new
systems infrastructure, with a modular architecture that enables easy
enhancements and add-ons, he noted.
The decision to overhaul Concur's booking tool was driven by
the emergence of "new markets with new customer challenges," according
to Craw. "These markets require new solutions with fundamentally different
core technology [and] they're less dependent on GDS technology" than are
the U.S. and Europe.
Craw went on to cite the "hard lessons" Concur
learned from prior efforts to develop by evolving upon existing technology and
systems rather than making more fundamental-level changes. "So we
refocused our efforts on rebuilding our technology from scratch… and those
major efforts are now ready for us to build client-facing solutions on top of
them."
The first T2-powered solutions will be rolled out this year,
with rail and hotel bookings the first to be addressed, and air to follow, Craw
said. First out of the gate will be a new rail booking platform for Spain—a
market where Concur is making its local debut—with full market availability
projected by the fourth quarter of 2020. Rail booking for the Benelux region
will follow.
For hotels, a new Concur booking platform will offer a more
consumer-like booking experience, with features including finer details on
rates and amenities, as well as GDS and direct connect sourcing in one channel
for easy rate comparison.
As Concur prepares to roll out its revamped booking
platform, other players that could be making moves in the sector include Deem,
which is doubling down on booking after sunsetting
its expense platform and coming under the corporate umbrella of Enterprise Holdings
last year. Deem recently launched a marketing
initiative with two dozen TMCs under which the company will front marketing
funding to TMCs, which will in turn promote adoption of Deem's booking products
to their corporate clients.
Meanwhile, tech-forward—and deep-pocketed—travel
management specialist TripActions continues to build out its booking
and expense
capabilities, while the recently re-branded
Emburse conglomerate continues to more closely integrate
payment and expense management across its various brands.