Aside from improving spend management processes and increasing employee retention, the latest SAP Concur solution — which integrates with Qualtrics EmployeeXM’s capabilities — aims to help businesses redesign travel and expense programs to support a hybrid work environment.
A report conducted by Qualtrics and SAP Concur in October has indicated that companies are eager to return to pre-pandemic levels of travelling for business purposes, with 70% of business travellers polled expecting to travel as much as they did before COVID-19 hit. Considering the findings of the study, Qualtrics Chief Product Officer Jay Choi stated that corporate travel demand is recovering, however, delivering a positive employee experience is more nuanced and complicated than ever before.
“It is critical for organisations to understand how employees feel about the new world of travel and use that experience data to meet their evolving health and safety needs,” he remarked.
And with travel volumes slowly picking up again, SAP Chief Financial Officer Luka Mucic highlighted the positive increase in revenues that SAP Concur has posted in a long time during the third quarter. In SAP’s Q3 2021 Earnings Conference Call, he noted that SAP Concur is “already showing a recovery.” Mucic further explained:
“Still a moderate one, but still, they are up in mid-single digits. On a revenue perspective, they had now a very strong order entry performance in Q3, and this will start to show in the backlog, but also in the revenues. So they will become, next year, certainly a very positive contributor to our growth.”
Reflecting on the abovementioned study and recognising that the hybrid workplace will be the new future of work, Qualtrics and SAP Concur have teamed up to launch an innovative joint offering called Concur Experience Optimizer. The solution incorporates Qualtrics Employee XM’s listening and analysis tools and operational intelligence data from SAP Concur Travel and Expense solutions.
Latest Qualtrics and SAP Concur Solution Supports the Future of Work
With Concur Experience Optimizer, IDC Research Director Kevin Permenter believes that financial leaders and travel managers can be active drivers of improved employee experiences by combining the capabilities of SAP Concur with Qualtrics.
“This solution has potential to help companies get ahead of spend problems by shaping spend with employee sentiment as a guide,” he emphasised.
According to Qualtrics and SAP Concur, the goal of Concur Experience Optimizer is to enable businesses in listening to, analysing, and acting on employee data in order to establish continuous feedback loops and evaluate the impact of changes made over time. In addition to improving employee experiences, the solution can also be leveraged by companies to effectively control costs, minimise risk and non-compliant spend, streamline programs for growth, and promote sustainability across their entire program.
Expounding on the new offering’s benefits, Mike Koetting, SAP Concur Solution Area Leader at SAP, explained:
“A company’s travel and expense programs can directly impact an employee’s experience. Concur Experience Optimizer helps organisations understand the reasons behind employee behaviour so they can make adjustments that are in line with both employee sentiment and business objectives.”
The announcement of Concur Experience Optimizer comes just a few weeks after the leading provider of cloud-based experience management software launched Experience ID. Built on the Qualtrics XM Operating System, the solution is a connected, intelligent system that stores all employee and customer profile data, including preferences, attitudes, and sentiments regarding their product or brand experiences.
SAP Concur, on the other hand, has also released several travel and expense solutions this year to assist organisations in achieving greater visibility, governance, and compliance on spend management. The company sees a growing demand for integrated risk, spend, compliance, and employee experience management solutions as businesses prepare for the new normal.
