Unlock Business Goals with Effective Spend Management Systems

Business leaders face a mountain of challenges when it comes to managing spend, from keeping employees engaged to staying agile in difficult times. When business spend management processes are disconnected, your expenses become a liability – but when they are connected, they become an opportunity. One where you can reach your business goals faster with increased efficiency.

In this blog we’ll explore how for all senior leaders, thinking big when it comes to achieving your business goals means focusing on the small actions that will get you there. By setting achievable goals, and allowing SAP Concur solutions help you reach them, you’ll work smarter, not harder. 

Contents

The Three Cs of Spend Management Success

How Can Integrated Spend Management Elevate Leadership Success?

A Clearer Path to Achieving Business Goals

The Three Cs of Business Spend Management Success

For business leaders across finance, HR, travel and IT, seamlessly connecting spend data, effectively managing spending behaviour and fostering collaboration to ensure spending is compliant across the organisation is crucial to success.

By introducing finance automation solutions to connect these processes, you boost not only business efficiency but your bottom line.

When delving deeper into the distinct priorities of senior leadership, it becomes evident that three essential elements underpinning success: Connectivity, Control, and Collaboration.

Let’s take a closer look.

Connected Business Spend Management 

Connecting all business travel, expense and invoice data with SAP Concur solutions will streamline processes and accelerate achievement of business goals. 

Advantages of a connected spend management system

• Enhanced visibility: Data from both internal and external partners and suppliers across travel, expenses and invoices seamlessly consolidates into a unified system, enabling more comprehensive analytics.
   
• Improved compliance: Every step, from capturing expense charges and invoices as they are received to paying suppliers and reimbursing employees, is seamlessly interconnected within a single digital workflow. This integration eliminates gaps that can introduce risks and cause delays.
   
• Enhanced employee experience: The reduction of manual data entry liberates valuable time that employees can redirect toward more strategic tasks.

Supercharge your spend connectivity: You can connect additional sources of spend data with solutions such as Company Bill Statements, Intelligence, and ExpenseIT.

Controlled Business Spend Management 

When you manage travel, expense and invoice with SAP Concur solutions, you gain more control over business spend, regardless of where, when and how it happens. 

Advantages of a controlled spend management system

• Budgets and forecasting: With instant access to data directly from your dashboard, you can proactively manage your budget and forecasting needs, safeguarding cashflow with ease.

• Supplier negotiations: A connected business spend management system provides heightened visibility into supplier expenditures, empowering you to negotiate more effectively and secure favourable rates.

• Accuracy and compliance: Rest assured that policy changes are consistently applied throughout your organisation, ensuring accuracy and compliance. Streamlined audits and rapid report generation reduce risks and alleviate concerns.

Supercharge your spend control: Take an even firmer grip on business spend with solutions such as Intelligent Audit, User Support Desk and Concur Detect by Oversight.

Collaborative Business Spend Management

When your travel, expense and invoice solutions are in the same cloud-based system, collaboration becomes effortless. Information flows in automatically in near real-time, so you can be confident everyone is looking at an up-to-date picture, no matter where they are.

Advantages of collaborative business spend management

• Remote/hybrid working: Say goodbye to the hassle of multiple systems and reimbursement delays. SAP Concur solutions fully support remote and hybrid work settings, ensuring seamless operations and swift reimbursements.

• Flexibility and scalability: As your business grows, your system grows with you. Enjoy the flexibility and scalability of SAP Concur, ready to adapt to your expanding needs.

• Safeguarding enhancement: Ensure the safety of your employees with near real-time visibility into their travel expenses and itineraries, allowing for proactive measures and peace of mind.

Supercharge your collaborative spending: Work better together by adding Budget, Concur Request and Concur User Assistant by WalkMe. 

For further insight into how to supercharge your business spend connectivity, control and collaboration, including the best practice bundles of SAP Concur solutions that help you do more with less, read our ‘Helping Business Leaders Work Smarter Not Harder’ eBook. 

How Can Integrated Spend Management Elevate Leadership Success?

Each senior leader faces unique challenges. Regardless of your department or responsibilities, disconnected business spend management processes can create obstacles between you and your objectives. Many organisations are now embracing integrated spend management solutions that offer a unified platform for monitoring and overseeing business expenditure across departments.

With a connected business spend management system in place, you can excel in your role, knowing that strict policy controls and audit checks are seamlessly managed. Irrespective of your responsibilities, you'll be empowered to:

• Effectively manage cashflow

• Enhance operational efficiency

• Gain actionable insights

• Mitigate and manage risks

• Foster employee engagement

• Cultivate agility and resilience

Let's explore how a connected business spend management platform can revolutionise the approach senior leaders take toward achieving their goals.

Money Back for Finance Managers

The most obvious focus for the finance manager is cutting unnecessary expenditure, especially at a time when budgets are stretched and costs are rising. It’s a stark reality that 90% of CEOs expect inflation to rise significantly within the next 12 months.

When business spend is recorded across disparate systems, it becomes nearly impossible to identify the spending trends, behaviours and habits that need your attention, as well as any compliance issues.

By investing in an AI-driven spend management solution, businesses can enjoy 54% reduced costs and 68% increased financial visibility.

Increased Engagement for HR Managers

Employees today are more willing to cut ties, jump ship and seek more satisfying career avenues than ever before – and with hybrid working now the norm, their opportunities to do so are greater than ever.

Up to 81% of the eligible workforce will be hybrid or remote in the future. Keeping employees satisfied, loyal and engaged is a challenge, but one that can be at least partially won by streamlining the business spend management process. The most obvious place to start is to make employee’s day-to-day life more rewarding and what better way to do that than cut down manual data entry and expense reconciliation processes? 

By investing in a streamlined management solution businesses can enjoy 68% improved employee experience.

Safety and Sustainability for Travel Managers

With a return to business travel in full force against a backdrop of more rigid safety concerns and sustainability metrics, travel managers are looking at pricing and supplier performance even more closely.

At the same time, sustainability has become an important issue – 76% of travel buyers incorporate or are planning to incorporate sustainable practices in their travel policies. 

By investing in an intelligent, organisation-wide spend management solution businesses can enjoy 50% reduced carbon emissions and 47% improved policy compliance.

Futureproofed Efficiency for IT Managers

The IT manager has the unenviable task of tying all these concerns together, by implementing, integrating and maintaining the systems that provide each of the departments with the data they need. But, across multiple systems, the risk of data breaches and security vulnerabilities becomes greater. In fact, 52% of digital initiatives take too long to complete and 59% too long to realise value.

How do IT managers streamline operations, modernise inefficient processes and futureproof the business, while supporting employees in their day-to-day tasks? By investing in an integrated spend management solution businesses can enjoy 53% increased efficiency/productivity and 55% increased scalability and flexibility.

To gain a deeper understanding of the key priorities of senior leaders in finance, HR, travel and IT, and how a connected business spend management platform can assist them in meeting their goals, read our Infographic ‘Connect Spend Management to Work Smarter Not Smarter’. 

A Clearer Path to Achieving Business Goals 

A connected spend management platform enables you to consolidate your view of near real-time spend so, whatever your business goals, you can make savings and drive efficiencies across both travel, expense and invoice. 

Whether the aim is to drive growth or increase profits, the integration of your business spend management takes care of the details automatically, allowing senior leaders to focus on achieving significant victories.

SAP Concur solutions help business leaders across the board gain a more cohesive and insightful view of spend, which helps them to collaborate effectively and work smarter, not harder, in pursuit of their goals.

To forge an even clearer path to success, we’ve put together a handy rundown of everything you need to know about SAP Concur solutions. 

Check out ‘Think You Know SAP Concur Solutions? Think Again!’ to discover how to extend your business spend management platform even further.

And to recap, for an overview of how connected spend management helps employees work smarter not harder, check out our Infographic ‘Connect Spend Management to Work Smarter Not Smarter’. 

To gain deeper insight into reaching your business objectives faster, read our eBook ‘Helping Business Leaders Work Smarter Not Harder’.