Author: Nancy Lyons Callahan

Where did that receipt go? You invited a client out to dinner, grabbed the receipt, tucked it in a safe place. But now that you’re ready to do your expense report, you can’t find that pesky receipt anywhere...and your company really, really needs that receipt to manage and track expenses.

As Concur’s mobile application enters its second generation the folks at Management.Travel recently talked with Concur’s COO and President Rajeev Singh about the growing trend of users embracing and adopting new mobile apps to make their lives easier. You can find the entire interview – 5Q With Concur COO Raj Singh – online.

Here are a few quick highlights from the interview:

Today’s news issued at NBTA makes one thing perfectly clear: mobile is top of mind for us here at Concur. Having just announced our mobile strategy, we’re extending our platform to developers and travel partners, all with the goal of providing business travelers and employees with more choices and easier access to the tools they use most.

With all the talk around mobility, we’d like to share some thoughts from Rajeev Singh, our President and COO, that were recently featured in our client newsletter regarding Concur’s thoughts around the impact of mobility.

After months of designing, planning and testing work, today we are excited to unveil a number of new enhancements to our travel booking tool, Concur Cliqbook Travel, and our flagship product, Concur Travel & Expense. We’ve made some big changes to the look, feel and performance of Concur Cliqbook Travel, and hope that travelers will enjoy using it as much as we do. The new user interface is easy to navigate, customize and in our opinion is downright good looking.

I’m one of the original architects and principal software engineers behind Concur’s market-leading travel technology. Back in the late 90’s, while at Outtask, I helped develop the original travel booking tool that eventually became Concur Cliqbook Travel. In 2005, we rewrote the user interface, and in 2006, after Concur acquired Outtask, I was thrilled to stay on and help integrate it into Concur Travel & Expense.

I’ve been involved in several iterations of this travel booking tool and am thrilled with the updates we’ve made to it; we hope you will be too. In approaching the redesign and update process, I, along with a team of engineers, designers and a small army of software testers, set out to create what we feel is the best corporate travel booking tool available today.

Concur’s mission is to drive costs out of businesses through innovation. Here’s a new client case study that demonstrates how one company uses Concur to help them increase compliance, keep employees productive while on the road with mobile and support the organizations global needs.

A leading company in global electronic design innovation was using an automated expense solution, but the company needed greater flexibility to manage its complex, global travel program. A satisfied Concur® Cliqbook Travel client for many years—managers “love” the automated workflow process—Concur® Travel & Expense was a logical choice.

“We have gained enormous flexibility,” says their global travel manager. “We needed a fully customizable solution. Concur works for us because it’s not a cookie cutter approach.”

Important enhancements for the company include VAT reclamation and better management of global travel policies. They have rolled out Concur Travel & Expense in several international markets to support a global corporate standard. In North America, total visibility into travelers’ choices and an automated pre-trip approval process enable travel managers to maintain the tightest possible controls.

Xconomy Seattle recently sat down with Concur co-founder and COO Rajeev Singh for a candid interview about Concur’s history, growth and shifts in the industry overall, including the transition to SaaS and the increasing presence of mobile.

In this two-part interview, Thea Chard of Xconomy observes, “And while travel and expense reporting software may not sound like the hottest product on the shelves these days, according to co-founder, president and chief operating officer Rajeev Singh, the company has found a way to maintain rapid growth by shifting away from business services and into the fast-evolving mobile scene.”

This article provides fascinating insight into a culture of constant innovation that is the hallmark of Concur’s continued growth. It also provides a bit of detail on interesting chapters from Concur’s past – from what it takes to build a company from the ground up to lessons from surviving the dotcom crash – and even includes thoughts on where Concur might be in five years. To read more, check out part 1 and part 2 of the article.

As I’m sure you’ve probably heard, this morning at Apple’s WWDC event in San Jose, CA, the iPhone 4 was officially unveiled. Understandably, there has been quite a bit of buzz around the latest version of the device and for good reason. In April alone, Apple sold some 7 million iPhone devices and market analysts expect the company to sell 36 million globally in 2010. In fact, if you don’t have one, Wal-Mart recently announced it will sell the 3GS version for just $97.

While the iPhone continues to set a blistering pace for both sales and application development, it’s not alone as there are multiple devices battling to capture both the consumer and enterprise market. In fact, according to research firm Gartner and mobile advertising firm AdMob, worldwide mobile phone sales grew 17 percent in the first quarter of this year. Between Nokia, Samsung, LG and RIM, makers of BlackBerry, these four companies combined to sell a staggering 212.7 million in the first quarter.

Concur’s core mission revolves around delivering innovation to help organizations cut costs and streamline processes. For years, we’ve helped businesses of all sizes reap the benefits of an automated, seamless T&E solution. Every once in a while, it’s nice to take a step back and reflect on some of the successes our clients see with Concur everyday – like Cannon Cochran Management Services, Inc. (CCMSI) for example. As a company with 900 employees, the organization needed a solution to allow their employees to focus on business, not on travel logistics and paperwork, and that’s where Concur stepped in.

CCMSI reports their “employees have the easy life” with Concur Travel & Expense, together with Concur's mobile solution.

With more and more business travelers doing more while on the road – it’s no wonder why so many road warriors rely on their smartphone to stay connected with their office. In fact, according to a recent Forrester report, smartphone usage amongst adults increased by more than 50 percent from 2008 to 2009, underscoring a clear point – smarthphone usage is on the rise. With tens of thousands of users utilizing Concur Mobile today to help them manage travel and expenses from their smartphone, things just got easier. We have two exciting new Concur Mobile enhancements to announce!

The first is Concur Invoice on Concur Mobile. When a payment request is entered into Concur Invoice, the approver can use Concur Mobile to view line items, vendor information and images. After reviewing invoice related information, the approver can approve the payment request or send it back to the owner – all from the convenience of their smartphone, thanks to Concur Mobile. Plus, with the convenience of invoice approvals on Concur Mobile, invoice cycle time is reduced, which reduces the risk of late payment fees and provides the opportunity to take advantage of early-pay discounts.