Sara Turner talks to co-founder of Concur, Mike Hilton, about recent acquisitions, industry trends and mobile technology
Q Why did Concur decided to buy Global Expense?
A: Global Expense has always been a strong competitor to Concur in the UK. We think it complements our existing solution for the UK in particular, and a lot of its services [can be applied] throughout Europe. We believe there could be a real opportunity to extend those services to Germany, France and, perhaps, beyond.
Q Could you explain how Global Expense's expertise could be extended into Europe?
A: It has a set of receipt services that were very complementary to ours, but it solved the receipting problem in a different way to Concur. Global Expense has a receipt-based service where receipts are physically mailed to a processing facility, so it's a completely outsourced solution for receipt handling. Employees can simply gather all of their paper receipts, stick them into a bag, and mail them to a processing facility, whereas at Concur a lot of our receipting services are more focused on the employee doing some of that [data] entry.
Q Is this something you would look to introduce in the US?
A: In general in the US the need for paper receipts is much less than it is in Europe. In Europe, paper receipts are still required for things such as VAT reclaim, and in the US credit card transactions are considered valid receipts for expense reimbursement purposes. One of the innovations Concur has introduced that is more prevalent among US vendors than their international counterparts is to provide electronic receipts directly into the Concur solution.
Q Is the European market more complex than the US?
A: Yes. You've got several countries that all have different tax and regulatory standards. VAT reclaim is a good example of something that makes things a bit more complex.
Q Does this make the expense management process more difficult and expensive than it would be in the US?
A: Yes. As an expense management provider, the value that can be obtained through automation in Europe is much higher because of the complexities, particularly if you're a multinational. In Europe it's hard not to be a multinational once you reach any sort of size. So the need for automation and the value that automation can provide is quite high.
Q How will Global Expense customers integrate with Concur's technology?
A: We've done several acquisitions of companies with overlapping technologies in the past and we're going to approach Global Expense in a similar way. We will honour their existing contracts, we're going to keep them on the same technology and our aim is, over a period of time, to migrate our customers to a common solution. It'll happen over an extended period and it will be in a way that makes sense for the customers as well as for Concur.
Q What is going to be your UK market share, and will there be any job losses?
A: I think we can safely say we will have the majority of the market. Our aim is to retain 100 per cent of the Global Expense employees.
Q Are you looking to make other acquisitions in the UK or in Europe?
A: This is our second acquisition in Europe. Two years ago we acquired an expense management provider in France - Etap On Line. There are still opportunities in Europe that fit within our existing objectives. We may do more acquisitions.
Q On what timescale?
A: If you look at our history over the last five to seven years, you've seen us grow primarily through organic growth, and we've augmented that with some strategic acquisitions. I think that trend will continue.
Q Can you comment on why the acquisition of Tripit was seen as such a good move for Concur?
A: We acquired Tripit in January and it was a strategic acquisition. We had been watching them for a few years and I think they were at the forefront of a wave that is a trend in the industry, which is that the business travellers are increasingly becoming a major stakeholder in the corporate travel process. The interesting thing that Tripit did was to create a tool that was just for the travellers. Tripit took full advantage of this revolution in smartphone adoption, and created a novel way for travellers to take back control. We saw Tripit had a mass of several million users with a large overlap with Concur's users, and marrying up Tripit and its mobile trip management capabilities with our existing travel and expense management solutions was a combination that just made sense.
Q Will we see a lot more development at Concur with Tripit?
A: Absolutely. We love the Tripit mission that existed before the acquisition and we are accelerating that mission to basically give end-users and travellers a fantastic tool to manage and share trips. But we're also integrating Tripit into Concur. The first step was announced recently - any trip that is created within Concur travel can automatically be pushed to Tripit. You can see it automatically in Tripit without having to forward emails or do any other kind of integration. We've already created an initial link of integration between the two and there will be more to come after that.
Q What do you think about corporate travel buyers being nervous about travellers having more control with new technology?
A: A Let travellers use the tools that they want to use, because they're going to use them whether you want them to or not. Travellers have these devices, they have access to these apps, and they're going to use them because they're great apps. I don't think travel managers or buyers should be afraid of these tools. They should try to work with them in a way that still gives the control and compliance to their travel policy. We're trying to build a set of solutions that does exactly that. Let the traveller do what they want on the device, but let the buyer have the control and compliance in the corporate solution, and let the two integrate with each other.
- Mike Hilton co-founded Concur in 1993 and served as Concur's chief executive officer until 1996. He has been executive vice president, worldwide marketing for Concur since 2007. Hilton also served as chairman of the board of directors for Concur from 1996 until 1999. Before co-founding Concur, he served as senior development manager at Symantec Corporation, an international technology firm focused on protecting information and computer systems, and as director of product development for Contact Software International, a personal computer software publisher that was acquired by Symantec.