As corporate travel giants work to refine and improve their technology stacks, travel managers and travelers alike will be empowered with new tools and suggestions.
It's one thing to buy a competitor, and another to successfully integrate its systems. American Express Global Business Travel has had to do it twice in recent years, and the company says the new tools have been a big boost.
Ebix has made a generous takeover bid for Yatra, a corporate travel services provider and online travel agency, to create one of India’s largest end-to-end travel services businesses. Ebix's shrewd CEO Robin Raina is cornering the rare travel segments in India that aren't facing fierce price wars, namely, corporate travel services and currency exchange.
The future isn't here yet, but at least big travel management companies like CWT have come to realize the importance of improving the experience of actual travelers instead of focusing on travel managers alone.
The combined Certify and Chrome River still pales in scope when compared to global behemoth SAP Concur. The approach of offering a variety of different services instead of a single platform, though, has potential in a fragmented global market for expense software services.
Companies spend a lot of money on meetings, and relative upstarts are emerging to challenge the status quo by providing a different type of experience for those who organize them.