Navigating T&E: How procurement can drive cost efficiency and prove ROI

Travel and expense (T&E) management is rapidly becoming one of procurement's most complex and highest-risk spend categories. While 74% of procurement leaders say cost savings are their top priority amid economic uncertainty,¹ 43% cite disconnected systems as a key barrier to efficiency and insight.² This guide shows how procurement teams can take control of T&E — closing compliance gaps, eliminating hidden spend, and turning a fragmented category into a source of measurable ROI.

Why T&E Belongs in Procurement’s Scope

T&E sits at the intersection of policy compliance, supplier management, and financial control — yet in many organizations it remains siloed from ERP systems and procurement oversight. The result is manual reconciliation, rate leakage, hidden tail spend, and compliance failures that quietly erode the savings procurement works hard to deliver. And the stakes are rising: 84% of executives say procurement insights are essential to strategic decision-making, yet only 64% believe those insights are being used effectively.

Five Ways Procurement Teams Are Taking Control of T&E

• Total spend visibility:Connecting travel and expense data across systems, teams, and geographies delivers real-time insight into where spend is happening and where it's leaking — strengthening supplier negotiations and giving leadership the data it needs to make strategic decisions.

• Policy enforcement without policing: Embedding policy rules directly into booking, approval, and reimbursement workflows drives 28% higher compliance with far less friction. Employees receive proactive guidance, and finance stops chasing retroactive violations.

• Smarter travel supplier management: Automatically tracking rate compliance, incidentals, and service-level adherence creates clear accountability with T&E providers — a capability 51% of procurement leaders say is critical to controlling costs.

• Eliminating hidden tail spend: AI-powered audit tools flag spending outside preferred categories and contract coverage, reining in rogue purchasing and containing contract leakage without adding headcount or creating enforcement bottlenecks.

• Greater strategic capacity: Automation eliminates low-value manual work. SAP Concur customers report 93% less time spent on rejected approvals and 83% less time estimating travel costs — freeing procurement to focus on supplier strategy, risk, and ESG.

SAP Concur brings travel and expense together in one connected platform, applying AI at every step — from receipt scanning and fraud detection to pre-trip approvals and policy enforcement. It is the only vendor named a Leader in all four IDC MarketScape reports for AI-enabled travel and expense applications in 2025, covering enterprise, mid-market, small business, and corporate travel booking.

Download the Guide

Learn where the biggest risks and opportunities are hiding in your T&E program, and what a connected procurement strategy looks like in practice — from spend visibility and supplier management to AI-powered compliance and proven ROI.

Source 1: Ardent Partners' AP Big Trends & Priorities, 2025

Source 2: SAP Concur US Buyer's Journey Research 2024