Deem Is Taking On Concur & the Industry's Expense-First Mind-Set

If there's any doubt that Deem, as a way forward for its own corporate revival, is not-so-subtly targeting the industry's dependence on Concur, one need only look at Deem's announcement of its new software suite to confirm it. "Let's face it: We all concur that almost everyone finds the traditional corporate booking tools lacking in many ways," Deem president and COO John Rizzo says in the company's press release. See what he did there?

The Work Fource platform, which Deem will announce today, targets the four major corporate travel stakeholder groups: travelers, corporate travel managers, travel management companies and suppliers. Central to each segment of the software suite are machine learning, predictive analytics and consumer-style user experiences and interfaces. "We believe conceptually that if we're focused on serving and solving the problems of each of the four constituents in the business travel ecosystem and on doing that without preference or without penalty to other members of the business travel ecosystem, that we're going to have a very unique strategy," Rizzo said.

With the platform, Deem is first and foremost asserting a new commitment to business travel. "We're laser focused on travel, corporate travel," Rizzo said. "All the other businesses that were … hard to understand, we're not in anymore." It's a position the company has clarified over the past nine months as it revamped its executive team, raised $40 million in capital and acquired sentiment engine Olset.

But to put travel first, the platform also minimizes the company's expense product. "We do have our own expense product. We're going to continue to sell that into the market. We're not walking away from that at all," said Deem SVP and chief commercial officer Tony D'Astolfo. When Deem's team assessed the market, he said, there were "70-plus expense providers" but fewer T&E providers, and Deem wanted to fill that gap. "We're saying to any expense provider interested in partnering with a travel application [to] deliver an integrated travel and expense experience: Deem is now open for business."

Rizzo recognizes that Deem has its work cut out for it as it confronts an industry stuck in an expense-first state of mind. "The market has become associated with expense—really big expense, really small travel," Rizzo said. "Our point of view is: Travel is the big dog, and expense is the tail. Our whole strategy is around: How do we find a way to get travelers, travel managers, travel management companies to make decisions at the time [they're choosing] what button to push and what flight and hotel to buy—to make the right one rather than trying to deal with it after-the-fact, because after the fact, it's way too late."

Challenging the Concur Platform

Despite ongoing industry complaints about Concur's travel product, it continues to hold a significant market share among online booking tools, thanks to its dominance in the travel expense management marketplace. According to a report last April from research firm Gartner, Concur had captured more than 75 percent of travel expense management market share among IT and financial buyers.

"When you're selling a booking tool to a travel manager, most times you're likely dealing with individuals who are part of a finance organization, a procurement organization or even HR,” said Shari Quackenbush, strategic travel sourcing professional for IBM, which uses Concur for both travel and expense. "But when you're selling expense to large corporations, you're likely dealing with a different group of people. I’d say Concur is pretty effective at selling to that group of people, and now that they're part of SAP, they have an even stronger entry into that type of buyer.”

With worthy challengers coming into the expense space, however, some management professionals who oversee both expense and travel are looking for new options. "Concur is a great tool and they dominate the marketplace, but not often do you get some of the flexibility and innovation that I feel my travelers are yearning for," said Dycom Industries corporate travel manager Jennifer Steinke. At previous companies, she used Concur for T&E, but at Dycom, she chose Certify for expense because it proved to be nimble, cost-effective and customizable.

When it came time to choose a booking tool for Dycom, Steinke had the option to use Concur Travel or Short's Travel Online from Short's Travel Management. She opted for STO in order to mirror the customizable experience she had achieved with Certify. "I hear all the time that Concur Travel is just not in that user-friendly, happy place."

That "happy place" is where Deem would like to be.

More on Deem's Plans

Deem's sales strategy is to work with small and midsize clients through reseller agreements and to sell directly to Fortune 1,000 companies, including those with multinational or global footprints. "Companies that take a best-of-breed approach to travel technology are our best targets," said D'Astolfo. "They understand the investment we’ve made in the travel platform and our Open Expense approach, which allows them to manage their dollars as well as their data without sacrificing the traveler experience."

The company is in production in over 20 countries, and clients used the platform in 61 countries last year, according to Rizzo. Deem also now supports 15 languages. "If someone says they have a multinational or global program, we're ready to take that on," D'Astolfo said.

As for new partnerships, he said Deem is still working with a few partners to resolve any technical snags, but "Open Expense announcements are likely to begin in the next few months."