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Skift
01-08-2025
- Business
- Skift
From Concur to Spotnana: Steve Singh on How AI Could Fix Corporate Travel
Corporate travel is still a nightmare of fragmented systems, which means that rebooking canceled flights can be headache-inducing. Yet Concur co-founder Steve Singh believes new tech could bring the dawn of "the pefect trip." Steve Singh spent two decades building Concur into the dominant travel-and-expense management platform before selling it to SAP for $8.3 billion in 2014. A year ago he became CEO of Spotnana, a startup that aims to solve the industry's lingering problems. The travel technology sector has struggled for years with fragmented systems that force companies to cobble together bookings from multiple sources while maintaining adequate customer service. These back-end issues have delayed the arrival of what Singh called 'The Perfect Trip' in an interview with Skift in 2014. Now Singh argues that today's cloud-native computing and machine learning can solve problems that proved intractable when he first tackled them at Concur more than 40 years ago. 'I haven't been this excited about how tech can improve the corporate travel experience since mobile phones became widespread,' Singh said in an interview at Global Business Travel Association conference in Denver last month. Steve Singh, CEO of Spotnana, seated in white shirt at the company's recent conference. Singh works with key executives like Sarosh Waghmar at Spotnana, Naveen Singh at Center, Dennis Vilovic at Troop, and Christal Bemont at Direct Travel. Source: Spotnana Automating Services Spotnana's approach centers on automating routine travel services like rebookings and refunds. For corporate customers buying the travel, Spotnana will offer business intelligence tools and analytical services to let executives more clearly understand what their employees are spending on travel. 'Instead of a 15% cut across the board, which is indiscriminate, what if an AI agent could say, 'I'll get you the 15% savings by reducing travel spend by 40% for people that are not revenue producing while not reducing it at all for others, thanks to the intel I know on the clients they're visiting and the productivity of those employees on the road,'' Singh said. Singh claimed Spotnana could reduce travel management companies' operational costs by roughly half. The tech vendor said it doesn't accept global distribution system incentives and doesn't hide or bias content to reach supplier volume targets. Singh said Spotnana expects to deploy its AI agent capabilities within the next two to three years. He described plans for 'an AI agent that was trained on, say, your top 10% of your corporate travel agents' that could provide consistent, scalable service while understanding individual traveler preferences and company policies. 'Imagine an AI agent that not only knows me and my corporate policies and my personal preferences, but then it can also be an expert in every city I want to go for work or for leisure,' Singh said. 'That starts to deliver a client experience that is no different than the world's best executive assistant.' Singh said that AI may also help with either predicting and responding in the moments when trips are disrupted by cancellations. Automated reactions are key, he said: 'If my flight is delayed, I shouldn't have to pick up my phone and call somebody to change flights. Why can't there be a recommendation pushed right into my app, saying here are the three options within your company's travel policy, here are the three options outside your policy. Which one would you like?' Frenemies Spotnana, which has disclosed raising over $100 million in funding, faces established competitors with services that overlap. While Spotnana is not a travel management company, its technology and full-content approach are similar to travel management companies like Navan (which has raised over $1.2 billion in funding) and TravelPerk (over $700 million). Yet some industry observers remain skeptical about whether new technology can overcome the travel sector's entrenched interests and complex commercial relationships. The American Airlines' ill-fated effort to change how corporations and travel management companies book business travel suggests the challenges facing any attempt to change distribution. But Singh said cloud computing costs are 'one-tenth' of what they were 15 to 20 years ago. Key corporate travel systems are now cloud-native and use modern APIs, or data exchange methods. More importantly, suppliers, buyers, and travel management companies have greater incentives to change the status quo, he said. Spotnana offers its tech to Direct Travel, a company Singh also backs, and other travel management companies, such as Solutions Travel. It works with corporate buyers via connections with their preferred travel management companies. Yet Spotnana is also a tool for the suppliers themselves. 'We think there's multiple tiers of opportunity with our supplier partners,' Singh said. 'One is the content distribution to travel management companies. But the other is that most of our supplier partners also want us to build other services for them.' Spotnana's effort to be all things to all people could get dicey if travel management companies come to fear it as potentially siphoning off their business by competing on fees and services to woo buyers. Singh said he sees Spotnana's opportunity with suppliers as being in providing services that travel management companies typically don't, such as by giving suppliers deeper insights into their customers. A case in point: Spotnana has partnered with Marriott to power the hotel chain's small business portal, Business Access, handling both content distribution and booking management. 'We're taking advantage of the biggest transformation I've seen in travel since we moved from paper based tickets to digital,' Singh said. What am I looking at? The performance of travel tech stocks within the ST 200. The index includes companies publicly traded across global markets including both online travel booking companies and B2B travel tech companies. The Skift Travel 200 (ST200) combines the financial performance of nearly 200 travel companies worth more than a trillion dollars into a single number. See more travel tech financial sector performance. Read the full methodology behind the Skift Travel 200.
Forbes
29-04-2025
- Business
- Forbes
How Finance Leaders Can Drive Growth In Uncertain Times
According to new research from Concur, finance leaders are confident in their ability to secure buy-in for growth initiatives, with 96% rating themselves as excellent or good at cross-functional communication. By Chris Juneau, SVP, Head of Product Marketing, SAP Concur 2025 is set to be a pivotal year for finance leaders as economic pressures mount and digital transformation accelerates. New challenges require new approaches to balance risk, innovation, and long-term growth. The latest CFO Insights research from SAP Concur uncovers the evolving priorities of CFOs: The research reveals a striking disconnect in attitudes towards growth within the finance department: While 81% of CFOs believe they are the primary drivers of business growth, only 52% of finance senior vice presidents (SVPs) agree. Instead, finance SVPs are more likely to view the CFO as a supportive player in growth initiatives rather than the central force behind them. Even more telling, only 9% of CFOs think growth leadership should be shared across the C-suite, even though other executives are eager to collaborate. This isn't to say that finance leaders aren't communicating with other teams. Finance leaders are confident in their ability to secure buy-in for growth initiatives, with 96% rating themselves as excellent or good at cross-functional communication. This confidence is well placed: 89% of HR leaders and 88% of IT leaders agree that finance heads are strong communicators. However, barriers to collaboration persist, primarily in the form of conflicting departmental priorities (a top three barrier for 58% of CFOs). Departments also have differing views on the best ways to break through these barriers and foster collaboration. Finance and IT prioritize flexible budgets for joint initiatives, while HR leaders emphasize the need for shared goals and key performance indicators (KPIs), an area that only 11% of finance leaders see as a priority. This misalignment suggests that finance, IT and HR must work harder to align their strategies to maximize growth potential. CFOs are in a prime position to lead the charge. The finance function is undergoing a radical transformation, with AI and automation at the forefront. In 2025, 94% of finance leaders report that AI has already improved decision-making, while 73% credit it with reducing costs and risks. Finance teams have rapidly embraced AI for automation in the past year. General finance tasks—such as emails, transcription and document summarization—are now highly automated (57%, up from just 7% in 2024). Other areas seeing significant AI-driven efficiency include pricing model creation (22%, up from 5%) and fraud monitoring (45%, up from 28%). In 2023, just 1% of finance leaders viewed manual processes as a major challenge. However, as AI adoption has accelerated and its capabilities have become clearer, that number has surged: 38% now cite manual processes as a top concern. Finance leaders are now hyper-focused on automation and AI, seeing opportunities to streamline workflows, cut inefficiencies and optimize decision-making. Despite AI's benefits, concerns persist. Fifteen percent of finance leaders believe AI negatively impacts ESG goals, likely due to energy-intensive data storage. Data privacy (12%) and job redundancies (10%) are also concerns. But AI is also a catalyst for stronger finance-IT collaboration. While 65% of technology leaders already report strong partnerships with finance, 54% want to see deeper collaboration, particularly in driving digital transformation. As AI continues to reshape finance, CFOs have a unique opportunity to foster cross-functional strategies that fuel business growth. As cyber threats escalate, 59% of finance leaders plan to increase their cybersecurity budgets in 2025. With breaches growing in frequency and severity, many CFOs now see cyberattacks as a top organizational risk. In response, 27% have taken on cybersecurity responsibilities over the past two years. Despite this, only 20% of CFOs plan to strengthen collaboration with chief information security officers (CISOs), compared to 42% of IT leaders who want to join forces. A key hurdle is uncertainty over who should lead cybersecurity efforts, with finance leaders' opinions split on whether IT alone or IT and finance together should drive security strategy (45% vs. 50%). Large enterprises are taking a proactive approach, with 48% investing in advanced security technologies. Just 6% of small businesses are following suit, leaving them more vulnerable. The CFO's opportunity to add value goes beyond merely increasing cybersecurity budgets. Finance and technology leaders must align to ensure that cybersecurity is embedded in digital transformation initiatives from the start. CFOs and CISOs should collaborate to identify critical data assets, manage risks and develop crisis response plans. By integrating cybersecurity into financial strategy, CFOs can safeguard their assets while maintaining growth momentum. CFOs today face a challenging environment, beset by economic uncertainty and rapid technological transformation. However, there are significant opportunities for those who embrace their role as a strategic, collaborative driver of growth. The modern CFO's role continues to evolve beyond financial management, encompassing strategy, technology and risk mitigation. As AI, automation and cybersecurity take center stage, CFOs must break down silos and strengthen collaboration across the C-suite. As our research demonstrates, the CFOs who embrace this expanded role will be best positioned to navigate 2025's uncertainty and lead their organizations into the future. To learn more about the research results, download the latest CFO Insights Report. Want more inspiration and best practices to navigate uncertainty? Visit
