A New Era for Business Travel and Expense: SAP Concur and Amex GBT establish strategic alliance

Today, SAP Concur announced a strategic alliance with American Express Global Business Travel (Amex GBT) and the launch of Complete by SAP Concur and Amex GBT. Complete, a co-developed next-gen solution with AI at its core, is intended to combine booking, servicing, payments and expensing into one experience. Complete will benefit from each entity’s technology, and business travel expertise. Concur Expense will also integrate with Amex GBT Egencia providing additional options for customers interested in an integrated travel and expense solution. The two companies will allocate funding and development resources to build joint innovations on behalf of mutual customers with the vision to redefine the corporate travel and expense experience.

“This strategic alliance represents the future of travel and expense management. By uniting SAP Concur technology and global expertise with Amex GBT’s unmatched marketplace, software and service plus our mutual AI capabilities, we are delivering a unified solution that makes business travel not only easier, but smarter and more impactful for organizations everywhere,” said Fred Fredericks, General Manager and Chief Product Officer, SAP Concur.

The combined investment through this strategic alliance creates an opportunity to deliver end-to-end value in three foundational areas – marketplace, software, and services. Complete will be a streamlined solution with a single road map and integrated servicing model providing customers with accelerated innovation and program optimization including:

• The integration of the Amex GBT marketplace into Complete - access to 600+ airlines and spanning 2 million+ properties - and into the SAP Concur technology stack, offering greater incentives and cost savings.
• Access to richer airline, hotel, ground and rail options and Complete will deliver the next generation of modern retailing.
• Access to unified traveler support via an integrated chat agent designed to deliver a single experience to manage the entire trip with increased time savings and a great user experience. 
• Expedited releases of NDC content delivering increased content options, choice and clarity of fares plus increased compliance within existing travel policies.
• The ability to benefit from combined AI offerings trained on the unmatched data from Concur Travel and Expense and Amex GBT that represents millions of trips and transactions to fine-tune experiences in near real-time.

“This bold step forward with SAP Concur reimagines how travel and expense solutions can deliver unprecedented value to our customers and their travelers in the AI age. Our unique collaboration empowers us to build new software together that deeply integrates our data, marketplace, and servicing capabilities across both travel and expense to deliver the future that the industry seeks," said Evan Konwiser, Chief Product & Strategy Officer, Amex GBT.

Availability

Later this month, mutual customers will have access to Complete with additional features to follow in the coming months. Concur Expense integration into Amex GBT Egencia will be available soon. Future co-innovations will continue to roll out in core areas including content availability and display, travel manager capabilities, utilizing AI to create a new booking experience, manage travel disruptions and provide program insights. Lastly, the SAP Concur Partner Program for TMCs will transform and is intended to generate value for our mutual current and future customers.

Looking Ahead

Today marks the beginning of an exciting journey. Over the coming months, we will share more about how Complete is evolving and how organizations worldwide can benefit from an AI-powered travel and booking experience that is delightfully seamless, built to learn and made to fit.