Larger corporations
are beginning to take advantage positive benefits that can come when
they integrate their expense management systems with travel booking
applications and other relevant tools, according to a report from the
Business Travel News Expense Manager Survey. The poll found that 45
percent of respondents had integrated their travel and expense report
systems with online booking, up from 34 percent recorded during the
previous year. Six percent reported that they planned to install such
technology over the course of the coming year.
"Now you're
not just picking that $5 million [of spend] and signing your style on
an Excel spreadsheet and issuing checks against it," said
Anthony Wessels, vice president of marketing at Coupa. "Now
you're actually optimizing, looking at spend as a whole, taking the
spend power you have and saving the company money."
Writing for Fast
Company, American Express Global Business Travel president Kim
Goodman agreed with the need for innovation in the business travel
market, stating that mobile integration across different channels is
a necessity for high-level expense reporting software.
"The bar has
been set for technology that talks the best individual happening
without sacrificing the priorities of corporate travel programs,"
she wrote.
