Concur CEO Steve Singh (Part 9)

As a smaller company, Concur does have to compete in a very deliberate manner with industry stalwarts such as SAP and Oracle. In order to win, they must have a definite comparative advantage. Here I search to understand what Concur believes is their unique advantage.

SM: When you compete with SAP, what is your competitive pitch? SS: Obviously SAP has incredible mass and distribution. They will oftentimes price the solution, at least the software side, free, leaving you to pay only the consulting and maintenance costs. It is a very tough competitive situation to be in.

We are finding that we can win a significant portion of the time because of a couple of things. First, the solution we provide is just fundamentally better. The experience is so much better that the customer looks at it and does not find the other solutions nearly as compelling. Second, we provide the solution at a cost structure that is so compelling it is hard to find a way to do it cheaper. Fundamentally, those two things will always win in the market.

SM: This is probably not one of the business processes which SAP has started delivering as an on-demand solution yet either. SS: That is exactly right.

SM: You are winning on the delivery model as well. SS: Which leads to exactly why we did the Outtask solution: we have to build scale. We have a great reputation in the travel market and the expense market, but we have to also face some very big competitors. Although we are doing very well as a company, great management teams cannot focus just on today. They have to look at how markets will be five years down the road. We look for opportunities to add scale and value added services, like payment processing, which is why we did the Gelco acquisition.

SM: What is the payment processing service? SS: This is one area we believe adds great value. As you process your expense report, they will actually take money out of your corporate bank account and pay your employees on your behalf. As an employee you are getting paid very quickly.

SM: You are then completing the loop. SS: Exactly, it is procure to pay.

SM: Very interesting. SS: With our booking product, we have the procure side of it, expense reporting is the processing side of it, and with Gelco we have the pay side of it. So, procure to pay is a start to finish solution.

[to be continued]

[Part 8]
[Part 7]
[Part 6]
[Part 5]
[Part 4]
[Part 3]
[Part 2]
[Part 1]

This segment is part 9 in the series : Concur CEO Steve Singh
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