Customer Success Story: How NEC Reduces Time Spent on T&E Management by 40%

As one of Japan’s largest IT and network solution and service providers and the fourth-largest PC manufacturer in the world, NEC Corporation knows first-hand the importance of simple internal processes coupled with efficient, effective business operations. To help it achieve this mission internally and stay competitive in the global market, NEC created NEC Management Partner.

Serving business customers in more than 50 countries around the world, NEC employees take a combined total of roughly 1 million business trips each year. So, when NEC Management Partner figured out this was adding up to more than 70,000 hours of travel and expense administration annually, it set out to find a better way.

The answer was SAP Concur solutions.

By allowing employees to take pictures of receipts and submit them through a mobile app, travel and expense management is easier for travelers, managers, and auditors alike. In fact, since deploying SAP Concur solutions, NEC has reduced the amount of admin time for travel by roughly 40% – adding up to annual savings of ¥200 million (US$1.8 million) per year.

SAP Concur solutions are also allowing NEC to better pack travel spend. Previously, employees made travel arrangements offline. Now, thanks to integration with most travel management companies, corporate credit card providers, and global distribution systems, travelers can book flights, cars, hotels, and trains right from the app. And, once the trip is booked, they can manage details such as flight delays, cancellations, date changes, and baggage claim locations. Not only does this mean greater convenience for travelers, it provides NEC with a central source of spend data that can be used to track and analyze purchases, improve spending behaviors, and reduce travel expense cost overall.

Another key benefit of SAP Concur solutions for NEC is the e-Bunsho timestamp feature, which allows Japanese administrators to configure receipt time-stamping for groups of users. The validation process for monitoring received, pending, requested, and ineligible timestamps allows NEC administrators to maintain best-practice legal compliance without going through each individual receipt.

Cost and time savings aside, NEC is concerned with more than just the bottom line. Keeping business travelers safe is also a top priority. With powerful employee risk management and safety communication functionality, SAP Concur solutions are able to help on that front, too. In fact, when a major earthquake hit Taiwan, NEC was able to use these features to confirm every employee’s whereabouts and safety in a matter of hours – a process that normally would have taken two to three days.

By easing travel, saving time, cutting costs, and improving safety, NEC is able to deliver on its promise of "Better Products, Better Services."

Watch the video above to hear the full story of how NEC is innovating travel and expense management for itself and its customers.

To learn more about how SAP Concur solutions can simplify travel and expense management for your business, see all of our case studies.