The phrase: “that’s just how we’ve always done it,” can be a crutch in business. While it might keep the status quo, it also acts as a blocker to growth. As your workforce, technology, and market evolve, your internal processes should do the same.
Travel and expense (T&E) management is no exception – but it can be challenging to know what needs to change and when. Manual T&E processes may have worked in the past, but they are increasingly becoming a liability—costing time, accuracy, and employee satisfaction. In fact, findings from the 2024 SAP Concur Global Business Travel Survey show that business travel has become more complex, with employees expecting greater flexibility and fairness, while companies are under pressure to reduce costs and manage disruptions efficiently.
This changing landscape is prompting Indian companies to rethink their approach to T&E. Here are four key reasons why they’re moving beyond manual systems—and what that shift means for you.
1. You struggle to keep track of travel expenses
As small and midsize companies grow, they typically add new business travellers and international clients to the mix. Suddenly, more employees are filing expenses for a longer list of destinations.
The expenses quickly pile up, ranging from petty cash spending to larger payouts for airfare, rental cars, and accommodation. A growing headcount makes costs difficult to track, document, and effectively monitor for non-compliance.
According to 2025 SAP Concur CFO Insights report, 61% of finance leaders see inaccurate forecasting as their greatest challenge when controlling costs. It becomes challenging to enforce spending controls or monitor expenses as they happen – so employees may overspend and consume travel budgets quickly.
Professional T&E management solutions provide oversight of employee spending. For example, booking policies can automatically enforce spending rules, flag instances of non-compliance, and create simple approval workflows for each trip.
2. Your employees are spending time they don’t have
Your budget is just one resource drained by inefficient T&E management. Time is another. For every hour an employee spends searching for the best deals or performing mundane T&E administration, like paper-based expense reporting, business productivity wanes.
This is time that could be spent on more strategic, higher-value tasks, such as pitch rehearsals or client research – the kind of work that ensures the trip makes a good return on investment.
Today’s professional T&E solutions offer unified, consumer-grade booking platforms that trim the administrative burden. Users can book directly with suppliers, easily capture each detail for reporting, and find policy-compliant travel options – like more sustainable routes – without scouring the internet.
3. You lack the resources to protect your employees on the road
Employee safety is paramount. But in a tense geopolitical climate, there’s a heightened risk of unforeseen travel disruption that could put your employees in danger. Meanwhile, extreme weather events or health-related challenges can threaten their well-being and safety.
If you lack oversight into timings, accommodation locations, and critical health and safety details for business travel destinations, it may be time to upgrade your T&E system.
Businesses should consider platforms that offer helpful information and communication tools. For example, some solutions provide neighbourhood health and safety scores to grade levels of pollution, police presence, or protections for women and LGBTQ+ people.
The technology can also keep users informed of travel changes and delivering timely notifications about incidents that might affect plans.
4. You are unable to measure your travel programme
In today’s competitive landscape, every rupee must justify its return – and business travel is no exception. However, if you don’t have an efficient way to track the ROI, sustainability, or vendor performance, you’re essentially managing your travel programme wrong.
According to a 2024 KPMG India study, most Indian enterprises are now prioritising ESG reporting in business travel — making sustainability tracking not just optional, but essential. As with any business activity, travel should be regularly reviewed to ensure it provides a robust return on investment. But without an accurate measure of your travel programme, you can’t know for sure what works or what doesn’t.
Modern T&E management solutions will help you assess your travel policies. Tools can automatically record expense data to assess what was budgeted against true spending. Managers can see which hotels are worth negotiating special rates, who are the top spenders and if they’re following policies, as well as report on sustainability measures like CO2 emissions with ease.
The right technology will deliver actionable insights and an accurate view of how your corporate travel programme is used – helping you spot opportunities to improve employee quality of life and business value.
Why Now?
In 2025, there’s an increased mandate for employee services that puts visibility, agility and user experience first. As business travel becomes more complex and expectations rise, manual T&E processes simply can’t keep up—draining time, limiting oversight, and hindering productivity. When you’ve outgrown your DIY approach to T&E management, it’s time to invest in a platform that makes business travel easier to manage – so it can help your organisation fly. It’s not just about simplifying admin—it’s about enabling smarter decisions, stronger governance, and travel that truly supports business growth.
Solutions like SAP Concur are purpose-built to meet these demands—automating processes, providing real-time insights, and delivering a better experience for both employees and finance teams. As Indian businesses evolve, platforms like these can help unlock greater efficiency, resilience, and value from every business trip.