Travel and Expense

Flexibility on the Fly – American Airlines Introduces Friction-Less Business Travel: An SAP Concur Podcast Conversation

Kathryn Kamin |

The need for organizations to shift corporate online interactions to a consumer-like digital experience exploded amidst the global pandemic. American Airlines prioritized friction-less business travel in what was (hopefully) the most complicated time to book travel of our generation’s history. Anshuman Singh, Director of Digital Product Management and Experience at American Airlines shares how they offered their business travel customers a smoother and safer online booking experience amidst the global pandemic with Jeanne Dion, Director of the Value Experience Delivery team at SAP Concur

 

This four-episode podcast series celebrates the SAP Concur Partner Award recipients. : American Airlines received one of two Partner Innovation Awards for 2020, which, amidst a global pandemic, is quite a feat. Other past recipients include American Express Global Business TravelLyndon Group, and neylux. Listen to each of these episodes on our podcast channel, SAP Concur Conversations, for best practices to implement at your own organization.

 

You can listen to this episode on Apple Amazon Spotify Listen Notes | Acast Google or your favorite place to listen to podcasts.

 

Transcript:

Jeanne Dion:

Hi, I'm Jeanne Dion, I'm the Director of the Value Experience Delivery team here at SAP Concur. My team works with our customers in order to optimize their solutions and work on challenges to business outcomes that they may be looking to improve upon. Today, I'm going to be speaking with Anshuman Singh from American Airlines, he's the director of the Digital Customer Experience. Anshuman, would you mind going ahead and introducing yourself?

Anshuman Singh:

Absolutely, morning Jeanne, and thank you for having me here today. My name is Anshuman Singh, and, like you mentioned, I am the Director of Digital Product Management and Experience at American Airlines. My role entails as I break it down into two parts. So, one of the areas that myself and my team serve are what we refer to as the booking journey for customers who come to AA.com. So, from the time customers search for an itinerary to the time they actually purchase one. And that journey within is what me and my team help serve from a retailing and a digital customer experience perspective. The second part that we help serve for the organization is our ancillary products. So, we deal with ancillary product management. Think about things like big seats, bags, other ancillaries that customers purchase ala carte post-purchasing their ticket. So, we work on creating a value proposition with other commercial and technology partners across the organization and rolling that benefit out to customers.

Jeanne Dion:

That's a lot. So the reason that we're talking to you today is because American Airlines was a winner of one of our partner innovation awards. During the pandemic, you and your team actually were able to integrate the app with our TripLink for both iOS and Android users. It's part of that whole idea of moving to frictionless travel, which I know is super important to you. And I was wondering, as we talk about this from a business challenge, I think it hits on every single one of the business outcomes that we at concur bucket. And we look at it from a compliance perspective, from a spend visibility perspective, from an employee experience perspective most definitely, and also from expansion and optimization. And when I think about that frictionless travel, can you explain to me what frictionless travel means to you and your colleagues at American Airlines?

Anshuman Singh:

Sure. That's a great question, right. I mean, frictionless travel, as you think about it might mean different things for different customers, right. And that's the true sense of trying to determine what friction this travel means for all our customer base. So, at its truest sense what we want to be doing is making ourselves available and pervasive to all our customers who want to interact with us and meet for their different needs. Now, if you think about it, when it comes from a corporate travel perspective, we've gotten feedback from our partners that when we consider managed travel, there are customers or there are their employees who potentially are coming directly to our websites, but at that point in time, not necessarily getting what's considered to be managed travel rates and so on and so forth, hence creating that friction in sense of negotiated rates and expensing and so on and so forth. If you think about it from that ground, what we were trying to solve for specifically was trying to bridge that gap.

If you think of it from a customer journey or a customer experience standpoint, you'd initially think of any customer coming to AA.com as more of a B2C interaction or direct business to customer interaction. What we try to do here, if we specifically talk about TripLink is bridge that journey where it's actually, if you consider a B2B transaction, but with an element of personalization and actually trying to think of it from an individual customer perspective within the confined guardrails as you talked about, customer experience and making sure that we're able to provide what's the customer is looking for and actually in ensuring that there are no downstream impact when it comes from an expensing impact. So it's going back to what you initially started with, its different needs for different customers and it's about trying to solve those needs for each of those individual customers segment that we typically try to focus on when we consider that friction-less customer experience.

And while I touched on specifically only the booking journey of it, we try to maintain the integrity of that frictionless experience via the web, via the app, to coming back, retrieving your reservation and finally working in collaboration with partners at the airport as well, and trying to make sure that even by the time customers onboard their plane and beyond they're experiencing that element of the journey.

Jeanne Dion:

And frictionless travel is huge because flying is really so personal, even though you're doing it for an organization, and you have rules of responsibilities around what you're doing. At the end of the day, it's a highly personal experience. So, allowing for a business traveler to be able to control some of it is actually really beneficial to not only the traveler, but to the company, correct?

Anshuman Singh:

Absolutely. I mean, as we think about it again, it's about establishing that connect, right. It's about establishing that relationship. It's about going for greater cost efficiencies. So, I mean, at the end of the day, if we can drive an optimal outcome, be it from a customer perspective, be it from an economics perspective and the sense of familiarity that we breed. If we create that personalized experience which we have greater control on when a customer direct asset, that calls for a lot, right. And it's not just about the booking experience, it's about the post purchase experience. It's about the tech experiences our online assets and we're able to present relevant offers again in the confines of what's cloud and what's not, and tailor that journey specific to that customer across any customer segment that we specifically focused on.

Jeanne Dion:

So, when you were doing all of this work and there was this significant amount of work to go into it, were there any surprises in developing this while the world was changing from a pandemic perspective or even just from a technology perspective?

Anshuman Singh:

Absolutely. I mean the world of product management, I mean, I've been in this field, if I may, for about seven plus years now and every day brings a new challenge and that's what makes it very, very exciting, right. But at the same time, if there is one code principle that we always abide by which is trying to create or rather trying to keep the customer at its core. Now specifically if we think about this specific instance, you were talking about a pandemic world, the world around has had drastically changed in the last couple of years. It's all about getting scratchy and about getting resource with the limited number of resources you have at your disposal or time that you have at your disposal.

So, the team, as they approached this problem, we try to really break it down, going back to when this whole process began, was what is it that we can try to do to serve customer need at the lowest level, what's our minimum viable product, right. What can I do to actually get something in front of the customer which improves their experience from what it is today? And it's not about like trying to solve that problem in one day, it's about an experience. It's about a journey that happens over a period of time, right. You don't achieve success overnight. So, the team, well, they thought about it. It was a big problem. It was a huge problem. We tried to break it down in chunks, right.

It started with allowing customers the ability to be able to book through AA.com on web and then subsequently at that point in time, if you think about it we've not completely eliminated that frictionless experience that we're talking about because the customer could not come back and actually change their reservation, not ideal at all, but again, it was trying to figure out how we can break it down into palatable chunks. And I think that was one of the most important, I won't say challenges, but considerations for us as the world around as have been evolving to say, how do we actually break this problem down into digestible pieces?

We did booking initially, we followed by allowing customers the ability to actually come in later and change, and as you think about the world around us is effectively very, very quickly moving towards an app-first approach, right? But the next step there for us was to make sure that we're allowing customers with the same seamless experience, the same benefits when it comes to the app, and we have seen a lot of adoption comes through from app as well. So, trying to break it down into those sequential steps and making sure that we're not trying to conquer the universe in one is I think something that the team focused on right off the bat of the onset, which allowed us to achieve the level of success that we were able to as we thought of achieving this customer benefit across the customer journey over a period of time.

Jeanne Dion:

Right. It's fascinating that you mentioned that from a technology perspective, going from phone call to online, to just having that at the end of my hand on a phone where I don't actually make calls, but I use an app to perform the tasks. That's a very short window of time that we went through that as a human race, right? It didn't take very many years to go. It was pretty quick. And when I think about that, I also think about that idea of people do things very spur-of-the-moment. Now, when they have an app in their hand, is there a big market around some of that day-of travel changes and booking, et cetera?

Anshuman Singh:

Absolutely. And you hit the nail on the head when you talk about just having the flexibility to have a device that you can just pull out of your pocket and make decisions on the go. It adds to the element of spontaneity. I would say to a lot of that decision making and if you think about the customer journey, right, holistically from the time that you book to the time that you travel, your mindset potentially may shift in terms of how you're feeling that particular day, right. You might have thought a different way when you were actually booking your trip to why the time you actually get to the airport or about to get to the airport or check in 24 hours prior, you might have just had a very, very long day or your meeting may have ended soon. So, at that point in time, customers do want that flexibility again keeping the customer need at the core of all of this and value propositions. I find that there's definitely a huge market for their travel changes.

Now that can come in many different form and shapes, like I said. You just want a bit of extra leg room to actually stretch your legs out because it's been a tiring day. Or you want to actually go ahead and upgrade yourself. You can actually go ahead and do that. Or for that matter, if you're meeting ended sooner, or it's probably going to end later, you can go find some flexible options again, literally the benefit of a phone, having in your hand on trying to change to a earlier or a later flight. So, we find that a lot of our customers with the fact that they have this flexibility avail them on the day of their travel and the very effective they're to a point the journey that we have covered, you actually have all these pop up on your phone in your app that makes it a lot more reachable if you may.

And while we obviously cater that audience, we also make sure that at different elements of the customer journey, be it when you at the airport as well, interacting with our kiosk, or even with our agents you still have that flexibility available to you. So that's definitely one element that we continue to focus on and find a huge demand for as we consider the retail aspect, or the ancillary aspect of what customers like to engage with American on post-ticket purchase.

Jeanne Dion:

And when I think about that and you're talking about the meetings ended early, I need some extra leg room. It's been a really long, a really long day I could use a little bit of extra, having that interaction or that integration with the TripLink application to allow for corporate policies to be applied as well. When you're looking at those things, I think is probably very critical to most of our travel managers and is an amazing feature. It's probably one of the reasons why you're one of our top airlines with those types of bookings, because having that integrated there directly in the app makes a world of difference for that business traveler. Their experience is elevated to an additional level that they wouldn't be able to get anywhere else.

Anshuman Singh:

Absolutely. And again, I know I sound like a broken record, but that's just me and I go back to making sure that we are keeping the customer needs at core or we're like, and when I use the customer, right, I mean that we obviously have to ensure that we're working within to me, that is part of the seamless customer experience that you defined. It is not part of the corporate policy if it's not within the duty of care elements, or if it's not within ensuring that a customer could actually go do that. Ultimately that's not the experience or the friction that we want to go create. Right. You want to make sure that from an end-to-end perspective, the journey is seeing this with the customer coming from say, either at an expensing standpoint or anything else that comes through with it. So, we've got to make sure that that experience for that customer, be it an offer or anything else that we provide to them is personalized in a way. So that for us is key and that's something that we keep to our core or any customer interaction that we're trying to focus on.

Jeanne Dion:

You're in many ways, a lot like us, where we have multiple customers in that one customer transaction, we have the organization as a whole, we have the travel management customer, we have our own internal organizations. And then we have that end user who has that phone right at the end of their hand. And so, keeping them all in mind and at top of mind is sometimes difficult, but it is the core principle of how we run our businesses and how we service our customers. So, thank you for keeping them at the top of mind. We are very appreciative of that.

Anshuman Singh:

Absolutely. And then, I mean, just building on that thought, right. I mean, if you think about it, just consider our day-to-day daily interactions, again, focused on the app, or like how we use our phone. So frequently you use it for convenience, right? At that point in time, if I'm a customer or any end consumer, right? I want the information presented to me in the simplest form in the most consumable form. I don't want to be figuring out what I can or cannot do to the nth degree of detail, right? So, you want with the simplicity of the information-so what I'm trying to tie in here is that whatever our app offers is trying to make sure that we're working within the guidelines of what the contract ensures specifically, or your universe might be wider, but it comes back to the point of saying that if we present the right information and you don't really have to go looking around for it. It just makes your interaction with the app or what you are trying to do at that point in time so much easier.

I don't want to think about, can I buy this seat or not? Can I do this or not? Or can I go ahead, change my flight or not? If that sense of smartness is already built in and you know what you have at your disposal, then the only decision that you need to make is whether you want to actually go ahead with it or not, you don't have to actually spend time thinking about other things. And I think that level of simplicity, ease of use drives greater adoption.

Jeanne Dion:

Yeah, absolutely. And that greater adoption is really critical for spend visibility and even control and compliance within our customer base. As budgets get tighter, as employees are looking to travel a little bit more now, and they may be coming from other places because they're no longer part of a headquarters' organization, but they may be in multiple areas around the country as part of that hybrid work organization. These types of things start to become even more critical than they were before. In thinking...

Anshuman Singh:

Absolutely.

Jeanne Dion:

Yeah. And thinking about that and how our world is working today, I'm just curious, what do you see as the future of that business and corporate managed travel specifically flying? What does that mean to American Airlines and where are you looking to take that?

Anshuman Singh:

Sure. So, I mean, as we were chatting earlier in the conversation, right, the last year, year and a half has been rather challenging for all of us as a society. And the world around us has shifted a lot. It's been a paradigm shift. So, as we think about it again, it was always core to us, but now more than ever is keeping in mind customer needs, customer ease, right. What can we do to actually make customers comfortable with air travel, right? And that's something that if you consider the airline industry, everyone's been trying to think about and trying to innovate on, try to create that sense of comfort. Is it about the flexibility that you introduce when it comes to travel plans because the world around us is not as defined as it was, right? You need greater flexibility. How do you adapt to scenarios like that? So, you need to pivot in your way of thinking on how you may have thought about your business historically to how you think about it today.

Right. I mean, so that's an area of business that we continue to focus on to see how can we actually make life easier for our customers in terms of our offerings and give them that greater flexibility they need-given that uncertainty that exists around us. Now that's one aspect of it. The other aspect of it is how can I actually convey that information to you in a simple manner so that you can digest it and are able to understand what you can and cannot do when we talk about the retail experience, right? And how can I actually allow you to easily transact with American Airlines at any point in time? Now, if you think about COVID, we had a speed of cancellations unimaginable. Right. I mean, on the scale that we never thought of before. People were sitting with their cancelled tickets for a long, long, long time.

And if you think about how the world operates around us, and generally speaking, all of these unused tickets, we're trying to figure out what to do with them in the future, how can I actually, as I get a little bit more comfortable post-vaccination or things around us are getting a little bit better, how do I get back into travel? We are trying to make sure that it’s easy for these customers to actually come interact with us and use these unused tickets as we call them and actually use it as a form of payment for future travel through digital assets; be it our website or our app. Again, being considerate to each different customer segment and their needs and the guardians around them, but we're providing that sense of flexibility and ease of use.

Otherwise, the only option that customers had before was to pick up the phone and get on a long, arduous call with a frontline representative, a call center employee who would actually guide them through the process. It's not beneficial to the customer when they have the long wait times. It's actually burdens on frontline as well when we have very, very long agent handling times. Right? So, we're trying to make sure how can we create that ease of use for transacting with us? Now a third element of that is again, when you think about just comfort of traveling, when you are on a plane and it's been all through the media, how we feel customers make feel safe when they're actually traveling with us, focused around hygiene, focused around the air quality, just trying to make sure that people feel a sense of comfort, then you know that you have a customer sitting probably a seat or seat and a half away from you , right?

And there's been a lot of focus on that from our friends in operations. And then even before that, when you get to the airport, there's been so much innovation as we think of touchless kiosk experiences where we are trying to help customers in a COVID-inflicted world say yes, we have reservations on not necessarily wanting to touch a device. So how can I actually make that interaction easier for you being cognizant of the surroundings around? That goes a long way in building that sense of confidence and that sense of trust as we try to welcome our customers back as we come onto the other side of what's happened to us in the past couple of years.

And I think it's about taking a lot of these series of sequential steps, thinking about our business differently, innovating. And when I talk about innovation, I'm not necessarily just talking about innovation and technology, but I'm talking about innovation in our ways of thinking, being more scratchy and more resourceful, keeping the customer at core and trying to deliver value propositions to them that make them feel safe and valued when they try to return back to travel post this pandemic era.

Jeanne Dion:

Well, as somebody who has traveled during this pandemic era I can say, I have felt very safe, and I have actually traveled on American Airlines and felt incredibly safe. The touchless experiences that you're talking about, the ability to feel safe in the air from a hygiene or cleanliness perspective has really been a comfort to me as I fly. And I'm somebody who has flown internationally a lot. And I am used to having to prove from a health perspective that I have certain credentials. Are you working on anything related to that credentialing of the end user? So, they don't have to be carrying pieces of paper or test results or anything else? Is there anything that's coming down the pipe in your apps for that as well?

Anshuman Singh:

Absolutely. And that again is a highly important, relevant and a fantastic question, right? That is again, what the pandemic has done, the ideas were there, the core processes were there, people wanted to go do a lot of this stuff, but it expedited, I would say the maturity curve or the adoption curve. And this specific instance that you're talking about is an example of that. And so, I mean, it's again thinking about what the customer wants. They don't want to be standing a lot of time in a long queue when you talk of international travel and with so many restrictions that have come through, passport verification, are you vaccinated or not? You need to manually go through each and one of your documents before you board a plane. So how can we make that experience more seamless and comforting for the customer where they still have the ability to go to the airport and sit down in the lounge and enjoy a drink before they go and board or just like walk around and feel normal and not have to go through this long, arduous process?

And to that effect, there's been a lot of focus at American to bring that sense of peace in. We've been working with partners where we allow for this exact functionality to come through where you could actually sign up with us. And then you can verify yourself in terms of providing documentation, that you've been tested, you meet certain guidelines depending upon where you're traveling. And what that allows you to do is check in online. You don't necessarily need to go see an agent. Once you go through that process, you're digitally checked in. There's no requirement for document verification. And then you're on your way to board the plane.

So that level of technology innovation, process innovation we've been continuously focused on in the last year, year and half and thinking to build on it as we look towards the future, look at these kinds of things. The world around us, like I said, has shifted. It might become the new baselines of the things that we have to consider, and we keep trying to work towards that. In similar way, things that I was talking about that got expedited, or just trying to bring ease of use is biometrics or thinking about the fact that how could customers actually just scan their image in a way, or just stand in front of something that looks like an iPad, which just takes a picture and says, okay, Jeanne, you are good to board or OK, Jeanne, you don't need to take out your passport. You don't need to take out your ticket. Anything else? Like when you actually go to the Admiral's Club, someone just takes a snapshot of your picture, boom, everything is there.

So, I mean, those are the kind of things that we are continuing to focus on from the traveler's perspective as well, especially when customers are at the airport to provide that sense of seamlessness and comfort to their travel. So that focus continues to be there. And we continue to build on it, be it from ease of checking perspective with COVID restrictions. And actually, not just that, we're trying to provide information to a customer so that they're ready for their day of travel much, much before. You could actually come to our website and get to know about specific restrictions that each country has to offer, or what do you need to be prepared for. Like go back to my earlier theme, ease of communication or presenting information to customers in a digestible format. If you already know what all you need to be prepared for, or what are the restrictions that you need to be cautious about, you'll come much more prepared. Those are the broad themes that we continue to focus on as this world around us evolves and we try to cater to specific customer needs.

Jeanne Dion:

I can see now why you are the Director of the Digital Customer Experience because everything that you just described, including those biometrics, I would like to raise my hand and live in that Jetson-style world where all I have to do is show up and show my face. And that's it. So, thank you for that.

Anshuman Singh:

I appreciate the word of confidence, but trust me it's not like, I mean, especially when we talk the world the airports, it's a common theme, right? Be it the digital customer experience, or be it the experience at the airport, it takes a village, right? It's my partners across the organization who've been pushing for, along with us, as you think of ourselves as the customer-centric organization, changes that bring that ease, right. I mean, especially for certain aspects of that, it's actually a lot of my partners, commercial colleagues across the airports and the operations team were to be thanked for trying to bring this sense of innovation in their processes and technology to bring about that ease of use for customers. We all try to do our bit so like I said, it takes a village and then ultimately, it's about piecing that experience together right from the time you start thinking about your travel, to the actual purchase, to boarding the plane, and we all try to come together and try to make sure that we can make it as easy as possible.

Jeanne Dion:

It's fascinating to me to see this small part of a larger cog and understand how much innovation is driving the change and how much our change of what our customers expect are driving the innovation. It's almost a Venn diagram of who's influencing whom in this. And I am always amazed as I open up apps and new things happen that they're listening to me without my having to say anything. The idea that you are actually anticipating this is really phenomenal. And it allows me and as a traveler to not have to think too hard in order to do the right thing. And in order to have a pleasurable experience, I just am there and you're serving to me and I'm serving to you. And it's really a wonderful experience. So, thank you.

Anshuman Singh:

Absolutely. I mean, it's just, I think at the end of it, like what it boils down to is again a theme that you probably would've heard me mention all through our conversation today. Ease of use, right?

Jeanne Dion:

Yes.

Anshuman Singh:

I mean, I want my traveler, and that's where you started. Right? The first thing that we started talking about was that frictionless customer experience, right. It just goes back to that central theme and just understanding what frictionless means. There's obviously data, right? There's a baseline for friction-less; but it means different things to different people and trying to understand that and trying to make sure that we are catering to each individual or like each customer segment's minds. And obviously that's a journey too. It's not going to happen overnight. And you start chipping away at it piece by piece. And there's so many different touch points. There are so many different journey elements. There are different customer segmentations, there are different needs, but as long as you can actually keep that focus, like I said, you get there.

And just what's happened in the last couple of years has actually, fueled need to think about it faster. It's required for us to think about our business in different ways that we necessarily didn't have to think through pre- pandemic era. And I think all of it, I always continue to look for silver linings in anything and everything that happens on a day-to-day basis or in general around us. I think if there is one, remotely one silver lining, I think as an industry, as an organization, it helped us expedite and fuel a lot of that innovation for the benefit of the customer, for their ease, which might have been otherwise probably a bit of a slow roll had this not happened. So, I'm glad that we're on the path that we are on today to make life easier for customers across their journey.

Jeanne Dion:

That's incredible and I know we've touched on a lot of things today, but is there anything that we haven't touched on that you wanted to make sure that our listeners hear or understand about your organization? The tools that you're building, the technology you're using the future thinking ideas that you have. Is there anything we haven't touched on? I'm thinking there probably isn't, but...

Anshuman Singh:

I think we touched, I mean, we scratched the surface on most things, obviously a lot of these go multiple levels deeper, right? But I think it's primarily more about like actually evaluating each one of these themes that we talked about and taking them across the finish line. I think that's one message or one theme that I try to keep true to every day. It's not just about ideating or it's not just about your truest MVP, it's about taking it one step beyond, right? Or multiple steps beyond. So, I think that's one thing or one message that I reiterate with our teams here. It's about getting that continuous feedback loop from the customer. We all ideate. We all think what's right for the customer, but it's so much better to hear from the customer what's right and what's not, right?

So, as we think of technology innovation, as we think of tooling, as we think of processes, it's about, again, a thing that I mentioned before being scratchy being resourceful, put something out there, try to get their feedback and see whether it works or not, right? And if it doesn't work, pivot and then try to come up with the next best thing. And data is a very, very powerful mechanism, customer feedback is a very, very powerful mechanism. Customer sentiment is so huge trying to capture those things as we think of each of these teams or technologies. If you think of technology-technology is an enabler at the end of the day, right? I mean, what we're trying to serve is a customer need. If a customer is going to be happy, your employees are going to be happy. The company is going to be profitable in the long run, right?

If we keep that at our focus and we continue to iterate on it in a recurring manner and not give up at the first point of failure, that's what's most important, right? And like serving that customer need is what's going to us across that finish line. And knowing that we're going to hit road bumps along the way in our process or in our quest for innovation is absolutely fine. Taking failure in our stride is what we need to do. And we need to build and learn on those failures. So, I think if there's one theme, that's one that I would like to focus on.

Jeanne Dion:

Well, I would like you to come back and talk to us again about some of those failures and learning experiences and successes that you've had in the future. This has been a really amazing conversation, and I've learned a significant amount from you. And I'm definitely looking forward to the next time that I get to fly and get to be delighted by the service that I get out of my app. I'll be going in December. So, I'll just, ahead of time, if you get anything new coming up, hit me up so that I'm ready for it, when I get there.

Anshuman Singh:

Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, it was a pleasure. Thank you for giving me this opportunity. I definitely enjoyed our conversation and I'm hopeful, next time around we do this, we're going to be doing this in person.

Jeanne Dion:

Yes. That would be wonderful. That would be terrific. But for everybody who's listening. Thank you for spending the time with us today. If you're interested in learning more about the American Airline app, please visit AmericanAirlines.com. And if you're interested in listening or learning anything more about what's happening at the SAP Concur organization, please hit us up at sap.com. Thank you again for listening and thank you Anshuman for all your time and your interesting insights. Really appreciate it.

Anshuman Singh:

Thank you so very much.

 

-------

 

Anshuman has over 8 years of experience in Product Strategy and Execution conceptualizing and driving large scale initiatives for the enterprise. Driven by a passion to serve needs of all customer segments, his focus is to use data and establish a continuous customer feedback loop to drive new features and enhancements.

To unwind, he loves to travel to any beach destination he can get to!

Follow him on LinkedIn

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jeanne Dion is the Director of the Value Experience Delivery team at SAP Concur which provides customers with data-driven insights for programmatic improvements. She’s an experienced professional specializing in Intelligent Spend Management across travel, expense, and accounts payable platforms. Driven by a passion for process improvement, Jeanne looks to bring every customer to a best practice standard while ensuring their business objectives remain the primary focus. When she’s not digging in data to identify trends and program behaviors, she loves to travel with her daughter and volunteer within her community.

Follow her on LinkedIn

 

Travel and Expense
Safety risk sustainability and control of spend are common topics at the moment As travel managers learn about and assess those and other challenges they may ask themselves a gutlevel...
Keep reading
Travel and Expense
Whether a companys travelers are taking to the skies and roads again is as they say about real estate   often a matter of location location location Many US companies are restarting...
Keep reading
Travel and Expense
Business travelers reflecting concerns about the impact on companies and careers want to return to the skies road rails and hotels to meet clients and colleagues in person Our recent ...
Keep reading