“The control and transparency of being able to see what we’re actually spending saves us money.””
- Company:
Ericsson - Implementation:
Concur® Expense - Industry:
Telecommunications - Company size:
75,000 employees
The problem
- Utilised numerous expense management processes
- Lack of effective process to gather spend data and trends
- Lengthy expense reimbursement cycle time
- Time-consuming and ineffective process to file expenses
The solution
- Valuable information on T&E spend data and trends
- One seamless, global expense reporting solution
- Process to file and approve expense reports is quicker and more efficient
- Stores international currency rates for automatic conversion
- Powerful travel allowance capabilities
The benefits
- Automatically records and reports VAT
- 100 percent employee adoption rate
- Increased employee and manager efficiency with automated solution
- Leverage expense claim data to negotiate favourable supplier rates
- Dramatically cut expense reimbursement time from two months to six days
- Increased control and visibility into travel spend through powerful reporting
With its ongoing innovation and commitment to technology, Ericsson has been the telecommunications industry leader since the late 1800’s. With a presence in 175 countries and offices in 108 countries, the company relies on solutions that meet the needs of their employees across the globe.
Using multiple expense management systems – from manual to Web-based – was costly and inefficient for Ericsson to mange. The company lacked control and had no means to track travel spend. Ericsson looked for an on-demand global solution that would reduce costs and universally meet the needs of its employees.
After a brief pilot, Ericsson implemented Concur® Expense, a Web-based on-demand service that streamlines and automates the expense process. As a global expense management solution, Concur Expense drives significant costs out of the expense process by automating the processes Ericsson uses to manage employee spend. In just the matter of a few months, Ericsson implemented Concur Expense in India, Sweden, Netherlands and Germany.
“Concur is the perfect system for us,” Ali Sadek said, Ericsson’s global travel and expense manager. “The most important thing for us was to have one standard global process. The second most important thing to us was to control costs and know how much we’re spending and analyse why we’re travelling. With Concur, we have all that.”
When it came to choosing an automated expense solution, Concur’s powerful global functionality met the needs of a multi-national company like Ericsson. Prior to using Concur, Ericsson employees manually entered VAT, travel allowance and currency rates into expense reports. With Concur, VAT is automatically recorded and reported in both local and foreign VAT, travel allowance reimbursement rates are automatically presented, and currency rates are automatically captured. Concur makes it easy for Ericsson’s employees to complete their expense report quickly, with minimal effort.
With Concur Expense’s powerful reporting capabilities, Ericsson now has the ability to monitor the suppliers employees frequently book. With Concur, management can quickly analyse employee spend data to optimise supplier negotiations, spend management and fraud reduction
Now that Ericsson has a better view into their employee spend, the company can negotiate better deals with suppliers they use most, like hotels and taxis. Plus, the reporting and access to precise data allows Ericsson to ensure their contracted rates with suppliers are being honoured.
“The control and transparency of being able to see what we’re actually spending saves us money,” Sadek said.
Ericsson has gained additional visibility into employee spend as a result of its global corporate card agreement with American Express. By integrating Concur with a corporate credit card, expense data is automatically imported and pre-populated into the expense report, saving time and improving accuracy.
“The general corporate card functionality is a big advantage for Ericsson employees,” Sadek said. “Byusing American Express, it makes it easier for travellers to claim their expenses and saves time, as the corporate card is linked to Concur.”
Delivered over the Web, Concur Expense is intuitive and user-friendly, enabling employees to quickly create their expenses. With Concur, Ericsson employees are reimbursed in six days, rather than up to two months. The speed of reimbursement not only increases user satisfaction, but has also helped Ericsson realise a 100-percent employee adoption rate.
Not only does Concur Expense increase productivity for employees, but it also benefits management. With Concur’s automated solution, Ericsson management can quickly review, approve and process expense reports – a great improvement from Ericsson’s once costly, manual, Excelbased expense reporting process.
“For management approving an expense report is easy,” Sadek said. “They push one button to approve expense reports. That’s it.”
Since adopting Concur Expense’s automated, on-demand expense reporting process, Ericsson has realised increased control, efficiency and cost savings. After seeing great success, Ericsson is deploying Concur Expense in 28 additional countries within the next five months.