SAP Concur gains 38500 customers and reaches 46.5 million end users globally.

Mike Eberhard, President, Concur Technologies, in an interview with BW BusinessWorld, discusses changing business travel dynamics and rising demand for business travel.

Concur Technologies has gained **38500 customers** and reached **46.5 million end users globally** over the last **15 years**.

The company focuses on business travel and connected spend. With increased globalization and rapid business growth, Concur Technologies has entered Indian markets for international travel.

Mike Eberhard also notes that India has a manual-based system for controlling company spend. Concur Technologies aims to support a more digital experience by providing API’s (Application Program Interface).

What does Concur Technologies do globally?

Concur Technologies says it serves 38500+ customers and 46.5 million+ end users worldwide, helping companies manage business travel and connected spend across countries and regulations.

We have over 38500 customers with more than 46.5 million end users at the global level. For the rest of the world, this change has been happening for the last 15–20 years.

Business travel is growing, and businesses are becoming more global. Demand for Concur as a global platform has grown as business travel globalizes and companies seek to manage connected spend.

It has worked extremely well for Indian customers because of their growing global outlook. They are turning into MNCs themselves.

Our ability is not only to help them in India but also across different tax situations and regulations all over the world.

What is the status of the global business travel market?

Mike Eberhard states that companies spend over U.S. $1 trillion on business travel worldwide each year, and Concur was founded to help manage and control this spend.

On business travel, over U.S. $1 trillion is spent worldwide every year. It is certainly one of the reasons why Concur was founded.

There is a significant part of company spend that is not well managed. Our first foray in the business was tracking spend from the expense claim.

Customers then asked if we could help them manage it. This also meant influencing buying decisions and providing integrated travel booking.

Since then, it has evolved significantly.

How does Concur plan to evolve in India?

Concur positions India as a fast-growing market where companies want better spend visibility and need help adapting to changing requirements such as GST.

India is one of the fastest growing markets as Indian customers are becoming more global. They have a similar interest in visibility of spend to control and manage this spend.

Indian companies also face challenges such as GST, where the landscape is rapidly changing.

We believe entry of spend into the system is important. We are positioned to help customers enter GST items into the system and process so they can be properly accounted for moving forward.

What is Concur’s view on GST and where is the gap?

Mike Eberhard says GST is still new and evolving, and emphasizes that companies need to capture GST correctly for accounting—an area where Concur aims to help via digital data capture and platform APIs.

I think it is too new to have a full opinion. We know it is still relatively dynamic and is being refined.

It appears everything is done for the right reasons, but the “how” is still being determined.

The important part is that everyone needs to capture GST in such a way that they can properly account for it.

We think this is a perfect role for Concur—whether it is an expense you may reimburse or an invoice you may need to pay for—so the company has the information to process it properly.

As we look at the future, India’s push towards digital invoices and receipts is a brilliant move. Concur has been facilitating this.

We started about seven years ago with a vision to become a platform and open our system digitally using APIs. We wanted to receive information instead of manually punching it in.

A practical example is taking an Uber or Ola, or even My Taxi in Germany: when you book and pay, it is linked to your account and you receive a digital receipt—no data entry.

As India moves towards being more digital—whether for tax or any other reason—we will take the platform approach for our customers.

Why is India a key market for Concur in 2018?

Concur describes India as important not only due to business travel growth, but also because many companies still rely on manual paper/Excel processes that create cost, errors, and low transparency.

We consider India an important market for many reasons. Many companies have extremely manual processes, and a lot of corporates still use paper or Excel-based systems.

They are focusing on digital employee experience—not just digitizing customer interactions, but employee workflows too.

Manual processes have significant cost, lack transparency, and increase the possibility of errors.

Concur initially understood India through global customers deploying Concur services in India. Those customers highlighted that travel practices, approvals, and payments in India are different.

We began developing capabilities specifically suited for the Indian market. This helped us grow with global India companies, especially Indian companies intending to become global.

What kinds of customers is Concur targeting in India?

Concur says its customer base in India spans multiple industries because the need to manage employee spend applies across most businesses.

Our customer base in India includes large IT services companies, financial services companies, and retail.

This is a common problem regardless of industry: if employees spend company money—customer-facing or traveling—this applies to nearly every type of business.

Our customer profile in India has been broad across industries and verticals.

When we first focused on Indian companies back in 2010, some companies did not have mobile phones for employees, and some did not even have laptops—those companies were not ready.

It is very rare now for companies where people spending company money do not have a device. The barriers to digitization have gone.

How does Concur monetize its assets?

Concur monetizes through a cloud, consumption-based model that reduces upfront costs and aligns pricing with usage, such as the number of expense claims processed.

Since we are a cloud application platform, there is no big upfront cost—whether implementation or licensing—and then waiting a long time for returns.

Cloud allows a more consumption-based model. For example, customers may have a certain number of expense claims, and pricing is determined based on that number.

Customers pay monthly based on the number of claims being used. This aligns value with received value and has accelerated our growth significantly.

This is a baseline for cloud application success: no huge upfront investment in hardware, infrastructure, and consulting. That has helped us be successful in India.

Is Concur planning investments in India, and what is the business plan?

Concur describes India as one of its fastest-growing markets and says its India presence supports both global operations and India-specific customer needs.

India is one of our fastest growing markets.

We have two aspects to our presence in India. One is supporting functions that help us operate the business at the global level.

We also have functions and suites specifically tailored for Indian customers. These have been successful from an investment standpoint.

How does Concur plan to increase employee productivity through automation?

Concur reports customer feedback that mobile-first automation reduces time spent on travel and expense tasks, improving efficiency for travelers and employees.

The feedback we get is from users—the travelers—because now everything is on the mobile.

They are taking pictures of receipts. It is becoming easier through this process.

Efficiency has gone up significantly for employees. It takes many hours more for customers who have not automated travel and expense management.

We see this as a significant time investment that can take away from family or personal time.

After automation, filing expense claims becomes much easier. The biggest benefit is for actual travelers and employees.

Where does Concur see the company in the next 5 years?

Concur says its goal is growth and continued automation of customer pain points, connecting digital spend management with compliance, visibility, and better expenditure control as part of SAP.

Our goal is centered on growth. This is our responsibility as part of SAP.

In the next 5 years, we will be automating pain points for our customers.

This will connect the digital aspects of how employees spend company money, facilitate regulatory compliance, improve visibility, and enable truly managing expenditure.

FAQs

1) How many customers and end users does Concur Technologies have globally?

Concur Technologies states it has 38500 customers and 46.5 million end users globally, gained over the last 15 years.

2) How much is spent on business travel worldwide each year?

According to Mike Eberhard in the BW BusinessWorld interview, over U.S. $1 trillion is spent worldwide on business travel every year.

3) Why does Concur view India as a fast-growing market?

Mike Eberhard describes India as one of the fastest-growing markets due to customers becoming more global and seeking visibility and control over spend, alongside evolving requirements such as GST.

4) What problem is Concur trying to solve for Indian companies?

He says many Indian companies still use manual, paper, or Excel-based processes for spend control, which can increase cost, reduce transparency, and create errors—areas Concur aims to improve through digitization and APIs.

5) How does Concur’s pricing model work?

Concur explains it uses a cloud, consumption-based model where customers pay monthly based on usage, such as the number of expense claims processed.