Fusion Exchange Tokyo: Charting new frontiers with Concur Labs

By: Richard Puckett, Senior Development Manager, Concur Labs and Christopher Trudeau, Senior Developer, Concur Labs

Last week we had the opportunity to join colleagues in Japan for Fusion Exchange Tokyo to showcase emerging technologies and demonstrate what Concur Labs is doing with virtual reality, machine learning and more. It was a tremendous event with roughly 2,000 attendees and 40 partners. It was an honor to be able to meet with customers and partners to learn about the innovative work taking place in Japan, one of Concur’s fastest-growing markets. The reception was incredible and attendees were excited to talk about the ROI and workstyle reform that Concur can bring to their organizations, through improved productivity, leveraging technologies like artificial intelligence, enhanced and product features, including works for e-Bunsho.

We also had the chance to join Concur Japan CEO Masamune Mimura on stage to talk about Concur Labs. Concur Labs explores what travel and expense will look like in the future, and continually researches nascent technologies. Our latest initiatives involve connected cars, conversational and voice-based interfaces, IoT integrations, machine learning, and more recently – virtual reality. Part of our approach is to collaborate with teams inside and outside of the company.

• We’re exploring how virtual reality can assist travel and security managers with fulfilling Duty of Care responsibilities 
• With the Concur Mobile team, we created a proof of concept called Project ARC: Accessible Receipt Capture. ARC helps increase usability of our mobile app among people with visual impairment. Take a look at our video!
• Earlier this year we introduced our first Concur for Slack bot to explore what bots can do for users. In Tokyo, we announced Concur for Slack now supports Japanese language.

As we learn and insights into the latest trends, we’re thinking about how to apply some of these learnings in Japan. Concur Labs and Concur Japan have been working together on new interfaces and sharing knowledge, and discovering new opportunities to exchange ideas. With that in mind, Concur Labs and Concur Japan are developing plans for the first Concur Labs Protohack in Tokyo next year.

Hackathons are a way to challenge our thinking and explore new ideas and partner integrations. We’ve hosted hackathons in the United States and across Europe and seen impressive results. This Protohack will give people a chance to design new prototypes and explore ideas they may have in mind or address problems from an entirely new point of view, with no coding required. There’s an amazing wealth of knowledge and ingenuity at Concur Japan, and we can’t wait to see what happens.

This is an exciting time for travel & expense. Significant advances in machine learning, bots and virtual reality are enabling us to do more work on behalf of our customers. Working with colleagues across the globe will drive the next generation of features and services, and help redefine how we think about travel and expense.

Event attendees try a demo of how virtual reality could assist global security managers with duty-of-care