New Program From SAP's Concur Helps Partners Expand Into Expense, Invoice Management Services

**Editor’s Note: Click here for a list of June’s important channel-program changes you should know.**

Concur, a travel and expense company, is introducing a Solution Provider referral program to help partners expand their cloud-based offerings to include travel, expense and invoice-management services.

The tiered program creates a “clear path to success for cloud solution providers, next-generation VARs and traditional IT partners to offer more value to SMB customers, the company said.

Sachin Vora, Concur’s senior director of global business development, will lead the program. He tells Channel Partners that partners were “absolutely instrumental” in the creation of the new program, which allows solution providers to choose their level of commitment based on their own business goals and needs, he said.

“SMB is our fastest-growing customer segment and we wanted to increase our overall partner capacity and capability to address the needs of SMBs, allowing them to get trusted guidance from their local partners,” he said. “Travel and expense is the second-largest area of controllable business spend, and this challenge is especially significant to SMBs. With a partner-focused initiative like the Concur Solution Provider program, Concur can help partners expand the value they provide SMBs while driving business growth and profitability.”{ad}

The program launched Thursday in the United States and Canada, with the United Kingdom and Australia soon to follow.

An SAP company, Concur offers cloud-based services aimed at simplifying travel and expenses management. It has more than 40 million users globally, and in 2015, it processed transactions worth more than $70 billion in travel and expense spend.

“By the end of 2015, 71 percent of U.S. small businesses deployed cloud solutions, compared with only 21 percent in 2013,” said Chris Chute, research vice president of IDC’s Global SMB Cloud and Mobility Practice. “This acceleration rests with small business managers keen to discover new cloud services that can enable stronger productivity.”