Are you Taking a Global Approach to Capturing Spend Across the Enterprise?
According to IMF’s recent World Economic Outlook Update, the certainty of global expansion is under threat due to international trade pressures and a plateau in global growth that began more than two years ago. So whether your business is further expanding to new markets or maintaining work with suppliers overseas, it has become increasingly important you continue to ensure your organization can operate successfully on a global scale. And if you are still managing your spend with outdated technology, seeing what’s happening globally is especially challenging.
In our four-part series, we have discussed the shortcomings of travel and spend management with technology that is less than ideal. From today’s trends impacting spend, to how it impacts fraud and compliance and managing spend strategically. In our final installment, we take a look at travel and spend management challenges that can affect your ability to globally scale, improve, and adapt to these market changes and how to overcome them.
Challenges to new market entry or maintaining a winning global approach
Whether you’re beginning your adventure into new markets or have been doing so for years, your task is the same: navigate compliance, foreign taxes and currencies, intricate regulatory structures, and the increased complexity of managing travel and spend policies, all while supporting employees. Effectively accomplishing this task is not without challenges, some of the most common being:
- Managing multiple complex travel policies and capturing all travel data, which is difficult to track in outdated or disparate systems.
- Supporting multiple languages and currencies with different banking institutions, various financial regulations and unique (often manual) processes.
- Reclaiming Value Added Taxes (VAT) that are typically left unclaimed or partially claimed especially for US-based companies sending travelers across borders.
- Staying in compliance with international laws and regulations, including the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).
- The need for connected global financial systems that supply the right data at the right time to drive informed decision-making.
Overcoming obstacles to global growth
Prevailing over these challenges in order to break into new markets requires connectivity between processes, people, and systems. So when employee spend data is dispersed, falls outside of formal programs, and is hard to track due to inadequate technology, you’ve got a greater hill to climb.
Adopting travel and spend management technology that is driven by accurate data helps you to evaluate risks, inform your business decisions, and prime your organization for growth and global ambitions, making the uphill climb that much easier. Plus, a global solution helps you scale now and into the future.
In order to set your expansion up for success, effective data and technology helps you:
- Understand and comply with global regulations
- Identify and assess financial risks
- Manage complexities around tax and compliance
- Build an effective risk mitigation program
- Utilize resources and workflows for growth and scale
- Provide support across the globe
- Respond to supply chain disruptions
- Make payments overseas and format receipts across the globe
- Strategize global business travel and duty of care obligations
- Improve user experience across your employees
- Align spend management across different ERP systems
For companies both large and small, it’s a lot to manage. The good news is you don’t have to go it alone. SAP Concur travel and spend management solutions, along with our system integrations and solutions from our partners, make growing a smooth journey.
Download our tip sheet to learn more about managing growth with confidence with SAP Concur. Or visit us online to dive deeper into minimizing risk by connecting all your employee spend.
