As we head out of summer and business travel starts gearing up again, we conclude last week’s post from Elizabeth West, Director, Content Solutions from ProMedia.travel on getting the most out of your corporate travel program:

With the 2010 NBTA Convention behind us, it’s time to begin thinking about using all we’ve learned to better manage travel budgets as the fall business travel season begins picking up steam. Elizabeth West, Director, Content Solutions for ProMedia.travel shares advice for getting the most out of your corporate travel program:

As the economic recession slowly gives way to recovery, business travel is picking up pace. To make the most of the travel budget, travel managers must stay vigilant with demand management and data analysis, while getting innovative with new management tools and tactics.

Andrew Bartolini, Managing Partner & Chief Research Officer of Ardent Partners and Publisher of CPO Rising, shares his experience on creating his first expense report in Concur Breeze. He’s guest blogging over at Say Breeze and has some interesting insights to share.

Concur’s mission is to drive costs out of businesses through innovation. Here’s a new client case study that demonstrates how one company uses Concur to help them drive costs out of their business.

When Takeda UK, a wholly owned subsidiary of Takeda – Japan’s largest pharmaceutical company, was looking to replace its labor-intensive travel and expense claim and invoice process, it saw Concur® Travel & Expense with Concur® Invoice as the perfect solution to “reduce costs, enforce travel policy, improve efficiency and provide total visibility”, according to Bill Walker, Takeda UK’s Finance & HR Director.

Concur Travel & Expense streamlined and automated Takeda UK’s whole process. With it, they were able to imbed audit rules into their process for easier authorization, scan in receipts, link to company credit cards and handle mileage claims efficiently.

We just got back from the 2010 NBTA Convention & Tradeshow. It was a fantastic event and in reflecting back on the conference, we saw many overarching themes – one being that travel is essential to our world. Just a few months ago, we saw how volcanic eruption in Iceland stopped travel, putting economies and airlines in jeopardy. Every keynote speaker from Condoleezza Rice and Sir Richard Branson to Lance Armstrong touched on the importance of travel and how nothing can replace face-to-face interaction. Another theme was that business travel is finally back on the upswing after the economic downtown.

And, mobile technology was another theme found at NBTA, showing how vital mobile capability is for the business traveler. The conference was a platform for announcing huge leaps in mobile technology to better assist travelers while on the road. Concur announced our next generation mobile solution, which includes new travel and expense functionality, new third-party mobile applications, and support for Android phones and Apple iPads.

This week at NBTA, we heard fantastic speakers including Condoleezza Rice and Sir Richard Branson. And, on Wednesday Lance Armstrong, athlete, author and cancer survivor, wrapped-up NBTA with an inspirational speech.

Whether you’re at NBTA or keeping up from afar on happenings, one thing is for sure: there’s a fantastic panel of daily general session speakers lined up. Yesterday, attendees had the privilege of listening to Sir Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Brands.

Here are the top 10 bits of wisdom we took away from this remarkable business leader:

Sometimes it’s nice to step away from our busy work lives and spend a few minutes looking at our country and our place in the world. During Monday’s general session at NBTA in Houston, we had the chance to do just that – step back for a few minutes and listen to former Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice speak about the American dream.

Today’s news issued at NBTA makes one thing perfectly clear: mobile is top of mind for us here at Concur. Having just announced our mobile strategy, we’re extending our platform to developers and travel partners, all with the goal of providing business travelers and employees with more choices and easier access to the tools they use most.

With all the talk around mobility, we’d like to share some thoughts from Rajeev Singh, our President and COO, that were recently featured in our client newsletter regarding Concur’s thoughts around the impact of mobility.

After months of designing, planning and testing work, today we are excited to unveil a number of new enhancements to our travel booking tool, Concur Cliqbook Travel, and our flagship product, Concur Travel & Expense. We’ve made some big changes to the look, feel and performance of Concur Cliqbook Travel, and hope that travelers will enjoy using it as much as we do. The new user interface is easy to navigate, customize and in our opinion is downright good looking.

I’m one of the original architects and principal software engineers behind Concur’s market-leading travel technology. Back in the late 90’s, while at Outtask, I helped develop the original travel booking tool that eventually became Concur Cliqbook Travel. In 2005, we rewrote the user interface, and in 2006, after Concur acquired Outtask, I was thrilled to stay on and help integrate it into Concur Travel & Expense.

I’ve been involved in several iterations of this travel booking tool and am thrilled with the updates we’ve made to it; we hope you will be too. In approaching the redesign and update process, I, along with a team of engineers, designers and a small army of software testers, set out to create what we feel is the best corporate travel booking tool available today.