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:听

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鈥檚 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鈥檛 manage what you can鈥檛 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.听

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.听

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鈥檙e 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 鈥榞reener鈥� 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鈥檚 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鈥� 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 鈥� 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 鈥� starting with a tighter and transparent grip on finances.

To learn more about how 麻豆原创 Concur solutions can help lead the digital transformation of your organisation鈥檚 financial processes, visit

Angelique Montalto is Regional Director for 麻豆原创 Concur Africa. Follow her on Twitter

About 麻豆原创 Concur

麻豆原创庐 Concur庐 is the world鈥檚 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 麻豆原创 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鈥檙e spending without worrying about blind spots in the budget. 麻豆原创 Concur solutions eliminate yesterday鈥檚 tedious tasks, make today鈥檚 work easier, and help businesses run at their best every day.听

The post Four Areas Companies Should Look to Restart, Reinvent and Renew appeared first on 麻豆原创 Africa News Center.

Although no one has a crystal ball, or all the answers, here鈥檚 what our experts are predicting:

Higher prices and fewer options

鈥淚n the short term, you鈥檙e going to see leaner staffing from airlines and hotels as they try to conserve cash and identify exactly when their travellers are coming back. They鈥檝e already cut capacity 鈥� parking planes and accelerating the retirement of aircraft,鈥� explained Angelique Montalto, Regional Director for . 鈥淪o, even when travel opens up, you鈥檒l see a lot of the non-stop flights going away, which means business travellers will spend more time at the airport, waiting for connecting flights 鈥� particularly if they鈥檙e going to smaller markets.鈥�

To adhere to social distancing guidelines, these flights will likely have fewer passengers, leaving the middle seat open. This not only means that seat availability will be limited but is likely to increase the price of airfare.

Decreased international travel

Even when domestic air travel begins to rise, Montalto expects international travel for business to become more of a rarity. Not only is it expensive, but now companies must consider the medical capacities of the country, the incidence of today鈥檚 unprecedented health pandemic, as well as the fact that the traveller could be quarantined after returning home. Organizations must weigh whether the trip is worth the risk of potentially side-lining a key employee for 14 days.

Increased car travel and car rentals

While air travel decreases, at least for the short term, car travel and car rentals are likely to increase. 鈥淚f the destination is drivable, I think people will start doing that, both because flight capacity is down and they don鈥檛 want to be in crowded environments,鈥� Montalto said.

Montalto also expects a large swath of business travellers who were using ridesharing services before the pandemic will go back to renting a car.听鈥淚f I rent my own car, I have control over its cleanliness, and I also know that I鈥檓 the only one who鈥檚 been in that car for those 24 or 48 hours, as opposed to getting into a lot of different vehicles through the course of a trip,鈥� she said.

Increased focus on duty of care

For every travel manager and every company, the pandemic has underscored the need for traveller visibility and Duty of Care. 鈥淎s things open up, I believe companies will be hyper-focused on the safety of their travellers, and making sure they have a means of knowing exactly where their employees are, whether they booked through an agency, a tool or decided to book on their own,鈥� Montalto said.

Organizations will seek out a solution to give them this world view of traveller location, and a way to communicate with them, if they don鈥檛 have a mechanism in place already. 听What should travel managers be doing right now? While we鈥檙e in this 鈥渨ait and see鈥� period, travel managers should take steps to prepare for the inevitable changes ahead.

In times where budgets and staff are lean, finding a way to streamline your operation is more critical than ever.

Assess your entire end-to-end process to look for areas for improvement. Then, start looking at solutions that can streamline those trouble spots. Assess the ROI and, if possible, start making incremental changes before travel volume picks-up again.

Although no one knows exactly what will happen next, by using this time to reassess your policies, procedures, agreements, and most importantly, your plan for keeping your travellers safe, your organization will be ready for whatever the new normal of travel looks like.

The post The New Normal of Business Travel: What to Expect and How to Prepare appeared first on 麻豆原创 Africa News Center.

鈥淥rganisations owe it to their employees to keep them safe either while working remotely or travelling on official company business.听In times of major disruption or heightened risk, companies need to take all necessary measures to ensure they can meet the necessary duty of care obligations and keep their employees informed and away from harm while they are operating on behalf of the organisation.鈥�

Duty of care refers to a company鈥檚 moral and legal responsibility to care for the wellbeing of its employees during the course of business.

In South Africa, duty of care obligations are guided by the statutory requirements of the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

In terms of the act,听the CEO of every employer is liable for contraventions and can be fined or criminally convicted if found negligent.

鈥淭his puts pressure on听companies to meet their duty of care obligations,鈥� said Montalto.

鈥淏usinesses should know听where their people are, whether far away or close to the office, and must be able to alert employees during a crisis, provide them with any assistance they may need, and keep open lines of communication until everyone is safe.鈥�

Montalto believes there are four things companies need to bear in mind during this time to ensure听they live up to their duty of care obligations, namely:

1. You need to know where your teams are during a crisis

In one study, 77% of finance leaders said they were not confident they could quickly and accurately locate employees during an emergency.听鈥淭his exposes employees and the employer to significant risk, especially during the types of global crises we鈥檙e experiencing in 2020. Companies need to take all reasonable steps to locate traveling employees and track their progress home until they are brought to safety.鈥�

2.You need to be able to communicate with teams throughout a crisis

According to Montalto, companies often fail at communicating with employees that are affected by a crisis.

鈥淥rganisations need a reliable, secure way to directly and instantly communicate with remote employees to warn them of potential risks, guide them through the crisis and ensure they can get to safety quickly and with as few issues as possible. It is simply not enough to send a static informative message but rather to elevate your duty of care platform to enable bi-directional communication for real-time coverage and protection.鈥�

3. Employees notice when companies fall short in their duty of care obligations

鈥淎larmingly, one study found that 41% of employees that were near a natural disaster said they were never contacted by their company at all,鈥� said Montalto.

鈥淎side听from possibly contravening their own duty of care obligations and opening the company up to legal issues, the听experience for the employee is unlikely to lead to greater loyalty or productivity.听Considering the importance of employee experience to talent retention and productivity, such听companies may suffer reputational damage.鈥�

4. There are tools that help companies meet their duty of care obligations

Montalto cites the Concur Locate service within 麻豆原创 Concur as a powerful tool for capturing and accessing real-time employee location data and communicating directly and securely.

鈥淟ocate enables companies to reliably communicate with employees regardless of the situation, and gives employers a single tool to monitor employee location and gain intelligence on country-specific travel disruptions or risks. Companies can also mitigate risks associated with business travel by conducting assessments and providing alerts pre-trip, during a journey and after.鈥�

In short, Concur Locate provides a powerful employee risk management and safety communication solution that allows you to make sure your employees are safe, no matter where they are.

Organisations will be able to identify risks and assess their impact, pinpoint employees鈥� locations and know their travel plans using machine learning, leverage multiple options for two-way communications, and deploy local response teams if necessary.

For more information about how 麻豆原创 Concur鈥檚 Locate service can support companies with safeguarding their traveling employees, please visit听

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