Concur Unveils Enhanced Social and Mobile Capabilities For Concurforce

REDMOND, Wash., Sept. 18, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Concur (NASDAQ: CNQR), a leading provider of integrated travel and expense management solutions, today unveiled Trip Maximizer for Concurforce, the Concur travel and expense management offering designed for Salesforce. Trip Maximizer enhances the entire process of planning, booking and conducting business travel for employees who need to visit with prospects and clients in the field. Trip Maximizer will be previewed at salesforce.com's Dreamforce and is expected to be generally available for all Concurforce clients by the end of 2012. Trip Maximizer will also be available to Concur clients using the Concur Connector for Salesforce. All of Concur's latest innovations can be seen throughout Dreamforce 2012 by visiting Concur's booth #507.

With Trip Maximizer, a salesperson using Concurforce can start a business trip by simply opening a record within Salesforce Sales Cloud, enter initial travel plans, and automatically be shown recommendations for additional sales opportunities to visit during the trip. With just a few clicks, the selected opportunities are added to the traveler's calendar and itinerary, eliminating countless emails and toggling between applications. And because the typical salesperson is busy enough preparing for those meetings, Trip Maximizer provides dining recommendations and automatically shares itinerary details with relevant colleagues through Salesforce Chatter, enhancing collaboration and supporting the needs of the enterprises.

Concurforce is specifically tuned to the needs of the heaviest business travelers and most frequent expense report filers – those employees in the field sales and client service functions. Since these employees are also the real drivers of revenue and client satisfaction, helping them become more productive – while also enabling their companies to measure the true cost of client acquisition and client service – represents a new opportunity for today's enterprises.

"Since implementing Concurforce we have increased visibility into our T&E spend, with a deeper understanding of the cost vs. opportunity for each account," said James Mayfield, Business Analyst for Cascade Orthopedic Supply, Inc. "As Concur continues its partnership with salesforce.com with improved features and integrations we anticipate getting even more value from the product by maximizing every account visit and making that data visible to upper management with Salesforce reports and dashboards."

According to a recent Aberdeen research report "T&E Expense Management and the Social Enterprise", best-in-class companies are nearly 46 percent more likely than others to integrate CRM with expense management systems. The research reveals that there is strategic value in this approach, with these organizations experiencing 56 percent lower expense-processing costs than those companies who have not linked CRM with the enterprise's travel and expense management program.

"When two leaders work together to deliver innovation on behalf of business travelers and their companies, good things happen," said Elena Donio, executive vice president for Concur. "Through the Concur T&E Cloud, we're making life easier for field sales and client service functions – the real drivers of revenue and client satisfaction in today's social enterprises. Couple that with the ease of integration with the Salesforce Platform, now every Concurforce client has access to unprecedented capabilities for managing travel and expense, enhancing the business travel experience and driving additional value as companies make the transition to social and mobile cloud technologies within their business."

"Companies around the globe are transforming the way they connect with customers, partners and employees through social and mobile cloud solutions," said Mike Rosenbaum, senior vice president AppExchange and Force.com Operations, salesforce.com. "Partners such as Concur, are leveraging the power of the Salesforce Platform to provide customers with the right tools to accelerate their success in the cloud."

Concurforce is built on the Salesforce Platform, the world's leading cloud platform for social and mobile business apps, and leverages the market-leading travel and expense management services of the Concur T&E Cloud. The application delivers a simple and familiar experience for Salesforce users, saving them time and improving productivity. Concurforce allows users to:

• Collaborate on business trip details in Salesforce Chatter, the leading enterprise social network;
• Use itineraries from TripIt, a leading mobile trip organizer, to create and submit accurate, in-policy expense reports from within Sales Cloud;
• Review and approve expense reports right from their Android, BlackBerry, iPad and iPhone or from the Web; and
• Gain real-time visibility into T&E spend and instant insight into costs associated with sales opportunities and service engagements, helping them improve margins and manage the cost of sales.

Additional notable features of Concurforce include:

• Travel and TripIt Pro integration – Book corporate travel and give users the freedom and flexibility to turn reservations from any travel vendor into a single organized itinerary that can automatically be turned into an expense report. Concurforce matches itinerary details from Concur® Travel or TripIt Pro with auto-imported credit card charges to create a "one click" expense report.
• Salesforce Chatter integration –TripIt Pro itineraries and Concurforce notifications are automatically posted to Salesforce Chatter, increasing collaboration on business trips, agendas and content to save time and help employees work more efficiently with colleagues.

Dreamforce 2012 is the industry's largest cloud computing and enterprise technology event, welcoming more than 70,000 registered attendees to experience the power of the social revolution. With more than 750 sessions and 350 cloud companies in the expo, attendees can participate in interactive sessions, hands-on training with cutting-edge technology, thousands of live demos and unparalleled networking. In addition, Dreamforce welcomes special guests Sir Richard Branson, Founder of Virgin Group; Jeff Immelt, CEO of General Electric; Gen. Colin Powell, former Secretary of State; Tony Robbins, Entrepreneur, Author & Peak Performance Strategist; and The Red Hot Chili Peppers. Dreamforce 2012 offers attendees everything they need to connect with customers, partners and employees in entirely new ways, under one roof.

About the Salesforce Platform and the AppExchange
The Salesforce Platform is the world's most trusted and comprehensive cloud platform for building social and mobile cloud apps. It powers Salesforce CRM, more than 2.3 million custom apps built by customers and more than 1,600 apps developed by partners in its ecosystem. Social apps for business built on the Salesforce Platform can be easily distributed and marketed through salesforce.com's AppExchange.

Salesforce, Dreamforce, AppExchange and others are trademarks of salesforce.com, inc.

About Concur

Concur is a leading provider of integrated travel and expense management solutions. Concur's easy-to-use Web-based and mobile solutions help companies and their employees control costs and save time. Concur Connect is the platform that enables the entire travel and expense ecosystem of customers, suppliers, and developers to access and extend Concur's T&E cloud. Concur's systems adapt to individual employee preferences and scale to meet the needs of companies from small to large. Learn more at www.concur.com.

SOURCE Concur