Concur Fusion was held last week (Feb. 1-4) at the Boca Raton Resort and Club. Concur Technologies is the largest provider of what it refers to as “Employee Spend Management” solutions. These solutions enable the management of the travel and entertainment (T&E) category as well as the expense reporting and accounts payable processes. Fusion 2010 presented a great opportunity to interact with many of Concur’s customers and partners and for me to spend an entire day and a half in one-on-one meetings with Concur’s executive team. It was also nice to take a break from the Boston (and Raleigh) winter. There were several announcements before and during the event that have significance for travel, procurement, and accounts payable leaders that I will cover in my next story. For this article, I’ll highlight a few of the key takeaways from my meeting with Steve Singh, Concur’s Chairman & CEO and his brother Rajeev Singh, Concur’s President and COO and from the keynote address that they jointly gave on Tuesday morning. The Keynote is available for playback here.
Steve and Raj believe that the large or macro trends in their market help position Concur for success in the future. These primary trends are:
- Industry consolidation
- Globalization
- Mobility and technological innovation
- An increasingly connected world
To take full advantage of these trends and maintain the growth it has seen in recent years, Concur plans to continue to innovate its products and services, specifically by making significant investments to (1) enhance its mobility capabilities, (2) enter new global regions, (3) grow its SMB business, (4) improve and expand the content used by its customers, and (5) broaden its core platform. As Concur makes these and other investments in the future, Steve says that it will do so with its core mission of helping its clients drive costs out of their businesses, as a guiding principle.
When you hear the executive team talk about the opportunity that lies before Concur, they often compare their business today to where ADP was in the maturity of its business 50 or 60 years ago. This means that their view of the market opportunity and overall growth story for its solutions is one that will continue to ramp over the next 20, 30, or even 40 years. I find this to be very informative since it provides great context to the plans and strategies discussed above. I believe that this view gives a very clear indication that Concur will continue to be aggressive with its corporate, product, and partnership strategies as a way to ensure its leadership in this market. As Steve said in the keynote when quoting Gandhi “The future depends on what we do in the present.”
