Businesses need to become more agile and transparent, increase employee satisfaction and make duty of care a strategic priority. Here are four key areas companies should look to restart, smart:Ìý

1. Money Matters – Improve compliance & cost control

2020 has shown how quickly circumstances can change. For finance leaders, this has resulted in a host of new challenges, from enabling employees to submit expense claims and invoices remotely, to adjusting to new VAT rules and keeping a close eye on their company’s finances. At a time when financial stability is critical for businesses of all sizes, the finance team needs to see and assess all costs easily to ensure they are compliant with the corporate and government policies in place. This leads to improved compliance and cost control, alongside better management and faster processing. After all, you can’t manage what you can’t see.

As businesses maintain hybrid remote-working models and plan for other potential disruptions in 2021 and beyond, the role of automation and AI in the workplace will continue to grow. AI will gather costs and insights in real-time to help financial leaders make accurate decisions faster and respond to their changing business needs in a more agile manner. This includes managing spend in near real-time to improve budget management and liquidity, increasing compliance and eliminating errors, as well as using automation to take on mandatory tasks and maximising profitability. With most companies keeping a close eye on their finances and revenue, the role of financial leaders will become more critical than ever. By relying on AI to process basic tasks, finance leaders will be able to focus on their role as a strategic advisor within their company.

Unauthorized and out of policy spend can create massive costs and compliance issues at any time. Therefore, businesses need to implement solutions to gather better insights and make strategic decisions. For instance, automated solutions using AI and machine learning to automatically identify VAT-eligible expenses, validate receipts, and optimize reclaim potential help businesses navigate complex tax regulations faster and more accurately. This increases compliance and gives business leaders more control over their spending. Digital financial tools can also provide business and finance leaders with an overview of all expenses in real-time, which improves spending decisions, increases compliance and provides the C-suite and finance leaders with greater control of their business spend.Ìý

2. Safety first

No one can predict which scenarios 2021 will have in store for business travel management. However, companies today need to reassure their staff that their safety is a business priority. This will increase employee satisfaction and engagement and ensures that business travellers are fully prepared once they resume travel.

In fact, according to the the safety of the traveller has become the most important factor when assessing organisations (airlines, hotels, car rentals, etc.) and services (apps, websites, tools, etc.) to approve for use by the organisation. For instance, due to the COVID-19 outbreak, travel managers are now planning on implementing mandatory personal health screenings for travellers (41%)^. while 32% also plan to give easier access to personal protective equipment like gloves or masks to business travellers to support their health while on the move.

Thanks to state-of-the-art technologies and user-friendly tools, businesses can help employees with their daily tasks. This includes solutions that allow for pre-trip approvals as part of broader efforts to safeguard employees or providing business travellers with a travel organizing app that provides relevant safety information in addition to more basic information like the travel itinerary.Ìý

3. Improve sustainability

Business travel has too often been associated with big carbon footprints, the use of single-use plastics which end up in landfill sites and weary workers. The past few months have put these issues in the spotlight and forced the industry to rethink its relationship to sustainability.

Change is often driven from the bottom up, and we’re seeing a clear impetus for sustainable travel among business travellers themselves. In our , a survey of 2,450 corporate travel decision-makers and 2,000 business travellers in 12 European markets, 58% of business travellers admitted that they would disregard travel policy and budgets for a ‘greener’ travel option, and 55% would do so in order to book more environmentally friendly accommodation, such as an AirBnB, over a hotel. Better still, 97% of business travellers are willing to add additional time onto their journeys if it improves its sustainability. Being greener is not just a long-term goal the industry should aspire to. It’s a real revenue driver today, and neglecting it is likely to drive business away.

To deliver on this demand from their employees, businesses need to implement tools that give them access to real-time information about the sustainability credentials of their transport and accommodation partners. This will enable travelling employees to see and make a positive impact on their own carbon footprint. This will show environmentally minded employees that the business is committed to sustainability and help less knowledgeable employees to learn about the impact of their choices on the planet. Combined with robust cost information and reporting and analysis options for the travel managers or finance departments, these tools also enable business leaders to drive positive change within their organisation to make sustainability a corporate priority.

Team Spirit

In times like these, the success of a company depends on the commitment of its employees. With the many pandemic challenges’ employees have to face, simplifying everyday admin and work tasks can be a great way to support them. Tools that digitalize and streamline manual processes like expense management tasks, allow employees to simply take a picture of their receipts and submit their expense reports electronically — speeding up the process and freeing their time. Furthermore, finance departments can be relieved by outsourcing time-consuming audit tasks for example, in the view of business travel.

2021 is a crossroad for businesses of all sizes. Those that are willing to embrace change and adapt will set the standard for business best practice now, and in the future. What we need is the right tools and services to enable our businesses to make strategic decisions and restart smart – starting with a tighter and transparent grip on finances.

To learn more about how 51·çÁ÷Concur solutions can help lead the digital transformation of your organisation’s financial processes, visit

Angelique Montalto is Regional Director for 51·çÁ÷Concur Africa. Follow her on Twitter

About 51·çÁ÷Concur

SAP® Concur® is the world’s leading brand for integrated travel, expense, and invoice management solutions, driven by a relentless pursuit to simplify and automate these everyday processes. The top-rated 51·çÁ÷Concur mobile app guides employees through every trip, charges are effortlessly populated into expense reports, and invoice approvals are automated. By integrating near real-time data and using AI to audit 100% of transactions, businesses can see exactly what they’re spending without worrying about blind spots in the budget. 51·çÁ÷Concur solutions eliminate yesterday’s tedious tasks, make today’s work easier, and help businesses run at their best every day.Ìý

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Taking a look at the internal processes, there is also a lot of time to collect and save money.

Here are five tech trends that give back to your company’s finances.

1. Employees adopt AI

Employees are constantly becoming more and more open to letting artificial intelligence (AI) take over some of their tasks – especially the mundane, routine tasks.

Millennials are now the largest group in the workforce, and they are instinctively more prepared to use AI solutions. Yes, in fact, in the future, millennials might even expect routine tasks to be automated.

In the not too distant future, in many workplaces, artificial intelligence will sort emails, proofread texts, book meetings, etc.

As a company, it is therefore a good idea to consider where AI can contribute best and whether or not you can achieve efficiency improvements and savings by automating certain tasks today.

2. Data shifts from analysis to decisions

Data can be used even more to make good decisions – here and now. Through intelligent platforms and networking systems, companies can access data that can, for example, be used to make budget decisions based on insights throughout the company’s current consumption, or that can shed light on a potential supplier’s financial capacity.

Looking a little further into the future, it will also be possible to identify and predict possible threats and challenges for one’s supply chain.

For example, if you are a South African manufacturing company, you can get an automated warning if your suppliers of essential components are all gathered in the same geographical region, making them more exposed to unforeseen events.

3. Companies treat their employees as tech consumers

South African consumers have become accustomed to, for example, streaming and payment apps working easily, conveniently and without major problems.

As consumers become accustomed to strong digital experiences in their private lives, they expect just as much of the technology in their workplace.

In the coming years, more companies will focus on improving the technology that employees use on the job. And there can be a lot of time to spare if the technological solutions are up-to-date, fast and stable. For example, it can be compared to solutions for travel management and consumption.

More and more companies will choose solutions based on AI and machine learning. This gives both employees a good experience, as well as enabling the company to easily monitor and control consumption.

4. Remote work wins even more

With the Internet, companies can recruit employees in a whole new way because they are no longer bound by the narrow ties of geography.

The trend of virtual meetings has been going on for a long time, and today they are as normal as physical meetings.

The technology for teleworking is constantly evolving, and with more companies moving their business to the cloud, it will only be easier in the future to offer flexible workplaces. There is also a greater demand among employees to work from home – either every day or just once in a while.

This development will spread to the interior of the workplace, which must be designed more to accommodate the fact that some of the employees are only present sporadically.

With telework, companies can achieve savings and streamlining, among other things by being able to recruit the right manpower as the field of potential candidates has expanded to reside worldwide.

5. Receipts will be digital

Every year, billions of receipts are printed around the world, and most of us can hardly recognize that they are quickly thrown into the nearest trash can.

Receipts cost both money and trees, so in many ways it makes good sense to be glad that the opportunity to offer digital receipts is constantly improving.

The cashless society is gaining ground in several countries, where receipts and invoices are also being digitized to a greater extent – much to the satisfaction of the employees, as it makes the work on arranging spending vouchers somewhat easier.

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