What stage are you at with the migration to the new Concur Travel?

One of the earliest adopters, we went live with the new Concur Travel in the US in November 2023 and then began the rollout to the rest of the world from November 2024, starting in the UK.

Already we’ve seen our online adoption rate – which was already high at 95% – rise even higher to 96%. This migration will lay the groundwork for the next generation technology for our travel programme.

What are the key benefits to your organisation?

One of the key drivers is the greater access to NDC content. As every travel manager will know, the biggest ‘noise’ from travellers relates to being able to find fares cheaper elsewhere, but with the help of the new Concur Travel and our TMC partners, we have been able to act really fast to turn on NDC where it’s available.

As a result, we’re hearing less of that noise on our internal ‘Road Warriors’ Slack tool on the Salesforce platform, and we’re also seeing savings due to the access to additional fares and to continuous pricing.

What about the benefits for your travellers?

Of course, our travellers don’t know or care if they’re booking an NDC or an EDIFACT fare – and nor should they. They want the right schedule for the lowest price and they want to find that in fewer clicks.

Thanks to the new consumer grade user experience, and how the air content is displayed and filtered, they are now booking in just a few clicks and not wasting time trying to find a better option. We have seen an increase in speed (sometimes up to 30-40%) with a more streamlined interface, from booking to check out. We’re also seeing an increase in Tripit Pro usage as Concur has created a new, simpler, Triplink connection process.

How is Concur’s continued investment in AI helping you and your travellers?

It’s already bringing significant time saving benefits with Concur Expense reporting. I saw that first hand after a recent trip when I got back and my month’s expense report had already been filed, based on the photos of receipts I’d taken in the Concur app.

In future I know it will help personalise searches, so it will remember that I fly out of a certain airport or will suggest hotels based on where I’ve stayed before. It will make bookings even more seamless.

What do you expect from Concur and other technology partners?

As a technology company, we expect from our partners what we’d expect of ourselves – trust and transparency, innovation and collaboration to ensure customer success.

Speed is also important to us and as an early adopter of Concur Travel we were able to change things quickly when needed and enjoy the benefits when new features are rolled out.

What’s next?

We can really see AI helping with that first and last mile, for example recommending public transport options from the airport instead of using taxis, and telling travellers exactly what train line they need to get to their hotel.

Concur’s integration with Trainline and the work it’s doing to lift point of sale restrictions for European rail travel will also bring significant sustainability benefits, encouraging more travellers to switch from air to rail as part of our policy, driving even more compliance.

Once we can also see a mixed air and rail display, which is coming by the end of this year, that will also make a huge difference.

The ability to do carbon budgeting, also coming in quarter four, will also help us reach our emissions reduction goals. We are doing lots of work in this space and see big opportunities with Concur as a partner.

Jenny Sabineu is Senior Manager, Travel (EMEA/LATAM) and Sustainability, at Salesforce, a global software company with 75,000 employees, 60% of them active travellers, and with an annual travel spend of $250 million.

concur.co.uk