Item: SAP Concur
Rating: 10
Author: Sean Warren

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Concur was used for Expense management as well as Travel at both Omniture and Adobe. It was then integrated into SAP at both locations. It was used company wide by Omniture (ticker" OMTR) who was then bought by Adobe. Adobe like most other Fortune 500 companies was using Concur / SAP and that made transition all the better for both parties. Under the guidance of the CFO was asked to evaluate T/E software. I looked at the top five that were the most well known.

Pros and Cons

Integration in to Anything. Concur will integrate into almost any package in the world. Making manual journal entries from outside systems a thing of the past. There are a robust set of API's that will accommodate the quick books install and easily handle the SAP / Oracle install.
Travel: Once your rules are in place for travel management Concur not only takes care of all the work, it will enforce the rules. If a flight is 500 dollars cheaper and it see that you still selected a flight with your preferred carrier, your superior is notified and you have to explain why. That's one feature that could pay for the install in most companies.
Mobile: The mobile suite of products will impress anyone. The ease of use and simplistic yet elegant design of the mobile apps assure a high adoption rate by all.
Workflow: Few competitors can rival Concur's rule based engine. These rules make things like SOX easy to evidence.
Compliance: Audits can be cheaper and cost of concur used to offset them. How? Because concur can go directly to many of the vendors and provide evidence (Receipt) with out an end user being able to manipulate it, the sample sizes chosen in an audit will be smaller. That's a small item but there are many others that are too exhaustive for this review. Summed up though, the system is closed end to end from and audit POV and that means smaller samples can be taken and that results in a cheaper audit. All of the BIG FOUR firms are extremely familiar with Concur and that makes things easier as well. Our particular partner (ENY) already had scripts that could read from concur. Again, making it faster and cheaper for the audit. This is perhaps one of the areas that are most often overlooked.

Finding a weakness in Concur is hard. Concur implementation could be challenging for companies with NO IT department. How many very small companies don't have the expertise to integrate into their accounting package? The likely scenario is that they are so small they would not need it.
Again, finding a weakness is difficult in Concur. If I could dig enough into the development, I may find a bug or two, but top to bottom the product is as strong as you will find.

Return on Investment

Concur allowed the company to close a full day faster. So many times, companies are rushing through the month end close. Concur allowed the process to be done one full day sooner. This was a huge win that many thought was possible but were not willing to use as ROI until it was confirmed.
EFFICIENCY: Previously many reports were done and were consistently late, and mis-categorized. Because Concur can book expenses almost 'on the fly' for users and the accounting department, it was able to almost completely eliminate reports that were chronically late by the same individuals....Translation: Concur was easy to use, Adoption was 100% and reports were instantly sent in.
Adoption: Many times, companies use software and do not receive a high adoption rate. With concur, you will have 100% adoption. The excel sheets go away and executives can even do their own expense reports because to the ease and simplicity of creating a report.

Alternatives Considered

During the comparison I looked at Expesnsify, SAP's T/E module and a few others. There is simply no match for Concur. I would say that many other products can rival Concur in the expense area but the two particular areas to be aware of are 1) Travel (compliance and prices) 2) Work Flow (rules engine and approval process) 3) Reporting (Concur uses a Cognos based engine that will do just about anything users could need that was not being sent to an EDW (enterprise data Warehouse) for reporting.

Executive Summary: Individually one package may rival Concur in one area or another. Collectively I don't a package that has the same abilities.

Likelihood to Renew

Ten. They are the second largest pure SaaS based company in the world. They are second only to SFDC. There is no way I would consider changing. I have used Concur in my last three jobs and until others are able to develop a better travel management tool that is built into their expense management with all the other features in mobile, the choice will be easy. There is a reason for companies that reside in the magical upper right corner. Concur is squarely in that company. The management of Concur with partial ownership by Amex has proven to create a compelling product that few of the rivals can come close to. While others may rival the feature set or an individual module, collectively in any product comparison matrix, I see no one that can handle the customization, features and strength of the company as Concur can. Others are only competing on price. This is a great product.

Likelihood to Recommend

Concur is suited for most companies but in particular those that are processing lots of expense reports with any amount of travel. Concur's cost may seem expensive on the surface. When combined with travel and the reduced entries and approvals with workflow into an accounting package, the costs are easily absorbed into the savings. While smaller companies can take advantage of Concur and especially the travel rules that will save them money, it is the enterprise that reaps the advantages.

Implementation Rating

I put a nine because I could always go faster and no one is perfect. Concur has a professional services groups that does a great job.

Implementation Details / Implementation Partner

Vendor implemented

Implementation Phases

Yes - The implementation followed the classic 'as is', 'To be' and Gap completion model. Concur is a very easy implementation that is can be done with very little effort in most companies.

Change Management Lessons

Change management was minimal

Implementation Issues

A couple of items came up for the 'pick up' of files that are sent to Concur. These are normal firewall issues.
There were a couple of items that I consider user error. These were users looking for reporting items that are not native to concur reporting. These are user education issues.

Usability

ITs not ERP software. It's T/E software. I believe that the thing to point out here is this: The software is supposed to be simple and easy. The software is going to be used by every person in the company. It has to be easy for adoption to remain high. Concur does this. I think that the competitors do this as well but with out all of the functionality that Concur offers.

Usability Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Technical support not required Well integrated Consistent Quick to learn Convenient Feel confident using Familiar	None

Easy Tasks

Travel: Give the details of your trip (It remembers all of your locations, how you pay, FF numbers) Concur shows you the options and your travel is complete. Pick a flight that is X% higher than the lowest (The company decides X) and you have to email your manager why you chose that particular one!
Mobile: If you are out and have expenses, take pic with your phone and viola, you have submitted them to Concur to be matched in your company credit card.
Reporting: IF you like congnos and the ability to practically report against anything, then you will enjoy the reporting side.

Difficult Tasks

I personally did not have any issues with cumbersome items. I can see that for some there could be an issue if you have never used SaaS based software and have a bunch of spreadsheets to complete when in the mapping of the Concur to Accounting package with the integration.
If a smaller company does not know how to implement SSO (Single Sign on) I suppose it could seem challenging. I would not say this is a Concur issue though. SSO was a breeze for us in the install. I am trying to be fair here.

Mobile Interface Availability and Impressions

Yes - The concur interface is simple, fast, and can handle all of your needs. The mobile portion supports SSO (single sign on) and will allow the end user to take pictures. These photos are then matched to the company recorded expenses. Making it a very tight system that can in many ways prevent items of risk in an audit.

Why no one can really compare with Concur

Software Version

Modules Used

Overall Satisfaction with Concur