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SAP agrees to buy expense software maker Concur for $7.3B

in.reuters.com

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Re: SAP agrees to buy expense software maker Concur for $7.3B

#21

Post by smackfu »

jacques_chester wrote: post #8

I use Concur as part of my job. It is stunningly, stupefyingly awful. However, it is popular with the kind of hyperglobocom companies that SAP deals with. I can submit expense reports (which take about as long as it would to scratch them into clay tablets) and I can book travel. That's about it. I imagine that -- for the anonymous finance dept folk who delight in taking weeks to examine my reports while I am legally…

I kind of feel like an expense reporting system is like an iceberg: the end-user UI is just the tip that is visible.

Like here are things that you don't see as a user:

* Data feeds from various providers, each with their own formats.

* Rules-engines to route for auditing.

* Auditing UIs.

* Management reporting.

* Fraud analytics.

* Feeds to accounting systems.

* Feeds to payroll and corporate card providers.

* Support for constantly changing laws around taxation in various countries.

Those are all actually complex things that need to exist to be competitive for an enterprise system. Your fancy UI is one checkbox, but you're not getting the contract against someone who does all those other things.

Re: SAP agrees to buy expense software maker Concur for $7.3B

#22

Post by smackfu »

Wonder how IBM feels about this development. From May: "IBM will cease operating Global Expense Reporting Solutions as a standalone product, effective March 31, 2016, and instead will refer customers to Concur."

http://www.businesstravelnews.com/More-News/IBM-will-cease-o...

Re: SAP agrees to buy expense software maker Concur for $7.3B

#23

Post by abakker »

jfoster wrote: post #11
jacques_chester wrote: post #8

I use Concur as part of my job. It is stunningly, stupefyingly awful. However, it is popular with the kind of hyperglobocom companies that SAP deals with. I can submit expense reports (which take about as long as it would to scratch them into clay tablets) and I can book travel. That's about it. I imagine that -- for the anonymous finance dept folk who delight in taking weeks to examine my reports while I am legally…

I have horrible memories of needing to switch back-and-forth between the Concur mobile app and the desktop version to submit expenses. The mobile app was very convenient for uploading photos of receipts, but as you mentioned, half the time the upload just sat there. It wasn't feature-complete enough to submit the expense claims directly from mobile, so I'd go in and fix up fields on the desktop. The people who have t…

There are some companies doing this - Expensify, for one.

I've no doubt that there are others. I know some outsourcers of HR services, like TriNet have some modern capabilities.

Re: SAP agrees to buy expense software maker Concur for $7.3B

#24

Post by abakker »

It is likely that SAP will bring Concur in as a SuccessFactors module, which means it will get integrated to the rest of the suite over their HANA Cloud Platform. In the long term, this is likely to result in much better integration to their cloud based systems than they would have had in their legacy/on-premises systems. It is also likely that it will take significant time for them to fully integrate it with their existing solutions, and to be able to sell it. Ultimately, this acquisition will bolster short-term cloud revenues, and help give its existing enterprise clients a reason to move toward HANA.

Re: SAP agrees to buy expense software maker Concur for $7.3B

#25

Post by joanatello »

jacques_chester wrote: post #8

I use Concur as part of my job. It is stunningly, stupefyingly awful. However, it is popular with the kind of hyperglobocom companies that SAP deals with. I can submit expense reports (which take about as long as it would to scratch them into clay tablets) and I can book travel. That's about it. I imagine that -- for the anonymous finance dept folk who delight in taking weeks to examine my reports while I am legally…

Try out Expensify - it's a post-2000 expense web and mobile app (already way above your expectations right?)

Seriously though, Expensify is an expense reporting solution that simplifies the process for all users invoved - employees, submitters, administrators, finance departments, HR, and the companies themselves (tax reporting, etc). Our goal is to completely change the way people do expense reports (for how we work, check out: http://blog.expensify.com/2014/07/29/how-do-you-expensify-fo...).

PS - If it's not obvious yet, I currently work at Expensify and am totally drinking the kool aid. BUT, our vision for the space is completely user driven and goes beyond a simple expense reporting solution, which makes things trés exciting around here.

On @martijn_himself's point, Expensify's business model employs a bottom-up approach. We offer a free version of Expensify for individual users to try out first, and we have found that many individual users like our product enough to introduce it into their company; in fact, that's how we've been able to fill our pipeline since we launched. User feedback actually helps us figure out what features to build next.

Take a look, try us out! use.expensify.com

PPS - we're hiring engineers if you're into this sort of thing http://we.are.expensify.com/who-we-need/

Re: SAP agrees to buy expense software maker Concur for $7.3B

#26

Post by mikegioia »

Osmium wrote: post #20
_pmf_ wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To give a brief impression, two things: - parts of the server side SAP components communicate via telnet - the user interface of SAP requires users to navigate between different dialogs/forms by manually entering a so-called transaction code (p.e. http://www.tcodesearch.com/ )

I really, really do not understand that website you linked to. I feel like enterprise software is so far out of the realm of my experience that it may as well be another planet. It makes me feel like I don't understand computers anymore or what they're meant to do . I don't understand why it's necessary?

I wouldn't necessarily equate SAP and "enterprise software" so much. My experience with SAP's systems is a summer internship for them and 2 years at an employer where I entered time-tracking and expense info into one of their programs. The entire system is basically a database engine developed a long time ago and impossible to re-engineer now so what you're seeing is an artifact of the past. That might be why SAP and their tcodes seem so bizarre.

Enterprise software suffers from its own problems but not all enterprise software looks and feels like SAP.

Re: SAP agrees to buy expense software maker Concur for $7.3B

#27

Post by martijn_himself »

joanatello wrote: post #25
jacques_chester wrote: post #8

I use Concur as part of my job. It is stunningly, stupefyingly awful. However, it is popular with the kind of hyperglobocom companies that SAP deals with. I can submit expense reports (which take about as long as it would to scratch them into clay tablets) and I can book travel. That's about it. I imagine that -- for the anonymous finance dept folk who delight in taking weeks to examine my reports while I am legally…

Try out Expensify - it's a post-2000 expense web and mobile app (already way above your expectations right?) Seriously though, Expensify is an expense reporting solution that simplifies the process for all users invoved - employees, submitters, administrators, finance departments, HR, and the companies themselves (tax reporting, etc). Our goal is to completely change the way people do expense reports (for how we work…

I do realise I am quite cynical in my comments but FWIW I do like the look of your product- it seems to be 'leaner' and more targeted towards usability.

Re: SAP agrees to buy expense software maker Concur for $7.3B

#28

Post by eranation »

I'm using it at work on a daily basis almost. Their expense + flight / hotel booking system is surprisingly OK relative to enterprise software, they also have a mobile app which is pretty great.

It's quite a complex topic, lot's of corporate policies to enforce, and basically they had to develop all the tech facade that Kayak, Expedia etc have (flight and hotel booking) as well as a lot of financial logic for expenses.

There is a lot of money in enterprise software... I wish more YC startups would tackle that area...

Re: SAP agrees to buy expense software maker Concur for $7.3B

#29

Post by brown_ghost »

eranation wrote: post #28

I'm using it at work on a daily basis almost. Their expense + flight / hotel booking system is surprisingly OK relative to enterprise software, they also have a mobile app which is pretty great. It's quite a complex topic, lot's of corporate policies to enforce, and basically they had to develop all the tech facade that Kayak, Expedia etc have (flight and hotel booking) as well as a lot of financial logic for expense…

So I wonder why Concur Government edition is so awful. I mean really, really, unusable.

Re: SAP agrees to buy expense software maker Concur for $7.3B

#30

Post by omnibrain »

_pmf_ wrote: post #18
aunty_helen wrote: post #12

Ok so this is the third time I've drafted a comment about SAP and the enterprise landscape to try explain this and all I can now think of is GRRRRR!!! To avoid a the down votes, I should probably mention that you have to experience the enterprise landscape firsthand to be able to comprehend why it is. (That's it, 'why it is').

To give a brief impression, two things: - parts of the server side SAP components communicate via telnet - the user interface of SAP requires users to navigate between different dialogs/forms by manually entering a so-called transaction code (p.e. http://www.tcodesearch.com/ )

Manually entering them is only the "shortcut" (at least nowadays).

After logging in the user should see a User menu (tree form) filled with entries depending on his given role. If there are no entries then it's the administrator's/consutlant's/integrator's fault and not SAP's fault. Additionally you can add transaction to your Favorites by simply rightclicking the "Favorites" menu entry and clicking on Insert Transaction. You can even sort and rename your favorites.

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