Allgeier taps BCD expertise to boost end-to-end savings

BCD Travel’s knowledge of SAP Concur helps German firm simplify the travel process.

German information technology services provider Allgeier Enterprise Services worked with BCD Travel to choose and implement SAP Concur Travel & Expense for booking and managing business trip expenses. The tool cuts travel costs, and it enables self-service options and end-to-end processes that simplify trips for the company’s rapidly growing workforce. Plus, the tool can scale as the company grows.

It’s a success story rooted in BCD’s more than 15-year partnership with and in-depth knowledge of SAP Concur. The BCD-Concur partnership has improved corporate travel for hundreds of clients—including Kellogg Company, Springer Nature and others. Here’s how BCD’s Concur expertise benefitted Allgeier.

Challenge

When Allgeier Enterprise Services was founded in 2016, its travel-related processes were manageable. About 20 employees booked their own flights, hotels and rental cars and invoiced their own expenses. By early 2018, the Bremen-based company had 540 employees—and rising. Around 480 employees traveled frequently. The associated costs were high, as was the organizational effort for booking and accounting.

The company needed travel management strategies to lower its expenses. Reducing costs by just a few percentage points—through simplified processes, more beneficial supplier agreements and improved traveler compliance—would have a significant impact on the company’s bottom line. But which solutions did Allgeier need? Which tools could be scaled easily to enable further growth? How could new travel management processes be implemented without tying up employee resources for an extended time? The company turned to its travel management company, BCD, for help.

Approach

Allgeier and BCD determined that Concur Travel & Expense’s system for booking trips and managing travel expenses could cut costs, enable more traveler self-service and simplify the end-to-end trip process. They mapped out an ambitious plan to implement Concur in just three months, from kickoff to going live. A project team of six Allgeier employees, six BCD experts and two specialists from Concur got to work.

They tested technology and processes and then introduced Concur Travel & Expense to employees in two training sessions. Employees also received access to always-available tutorial videos, updated regularly.

“BCD Travel and Allgeier set up a project team and involved the relevant departments. We coordinated and exchanged ideas on a weekly basis and worked consistently through the items defined by the project management,” explained Stephanie Jakubik, who oversees corporate travel management for Allgeier. “The project went really well, and we went live in exactly three months.”

Results

Concur Travel & Expense was implemented on time and within budget. Employees responded extremely well to the intuitive technology and streamlined travel processes. Allgeier now has a tool that supports traveler self-service; simplifies booking and expense management; and saves time and money. The trip cycle—from booking to expense reimbursement—is more transparent and easier to manage. What’s more, Concur Travel & Expense scales to accommodate growth.

Since the implementation, Allgeier has achieved:

  • Employee online booking adoption higher than 90%
  • More—and more timely—visibility into travel costs
  • Simpler travel processes and workflows
  • Travel program savings

“Our adoption rates were over 90% within a very short time. This shows us that employees accept the tools and are happy to use them,” said Carl-Philipp Müller, who’s responsible for Allgeier’s cloud-based business innovations. “We chose Concur and BCD Travel because they made this end-to-end process possible for us.”

Motivated by the successful implementation, Allgeier is now partnering with BCD to add more innovations into its travel program.

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