The Covid-19 pandemic fundamentally shifted the way in which people work, disrupting business as usual and forever altering the employee experience. Research out of global consultancy McKinsey & Company found that addressing employee experience management is critical, especially when it comes to engagement and work effectiveness. And as the world slowly returns to work, companies have an opportunity to use technology, data, and analytics to meaningfully support their staff.

Gulf Business Machines (GBM), a leading end-to-end digital solutions power brand with one of the largest portfolios of infrastructure, security, and server solutions across the Middle East, has not only nurtured partnerships with the world’s leading technology companies, but they’ve also invested in a talented workforce.

As part of their digital transformation journey to more than 1,500 employees across seven offices, GBM reviewed all their legacy systems and one of the important areas for improvement was their invoice and expense management system.

“With over 30 years of experience, GBM required a partner that could help enhance the overall employee experience, and who could provide cloud capabilities and real-time analytics to empower us to become more cost-effective,” says Feras Al Majed, VP Human Resources and Communications at GBM.

According to a Gartner survey, only 13% of employees are satisfied when it comes to experience – most companies are falling short, leaving their workforce disengaged and as a result, less productive. However, those organisations who take the time to invest in their employee experience see positive results which is why GBM found that SAP Concur was the perfect solution to support a positive company culture.

“We believe a positive employee experience guarantees greater productivity, higher morale and a favourable work environment,” adds Majed. “The morale of our people has really been improved because they no longer have to spend large amounts of hours having to submit their monthly claims. An invoice and expense management system touches all of our employees on a month-to-month basis.”

GBM integrated two SAP Concur solutions as part of their digital transformation journey: Concur Expense, which increases productivity while improving compliance and mitigating risk, and Concur Invoice, a way to easily automate AP management to be more efficient, increase profitability and get more visibility into spend.

“It has set us on the right track to further automate our processes. SAP Concur was the beacon that started our transformational journey and a quick win that we achieved within the organisation,” says Majed.

“Allowing the flexibility of employees and managers to access the system anywhere and everywhere, at any time in the world – this is a major advantage. From reporting to forecasting and budgets, allowing this flexibility is excellence,” adds Ahmed EL-Khashab, GBM’s Head of Procurement.

GBM found that when SAP Concur was in place, staff quickly adapted. Because SAP Concur is mobile-friendly and available in real-time, it also allowed for quicker and more accurate decision-making processes.

“SAP Concur understood our pain points. A lot of cloud-based solutions don’t offer flexibility – they offer a product that’s uniform,” explains Al Majed. With flexible solutions, SAP Concur recognised GBM’s goals and adapted to their needs, ultimately helping the company to enhance their people experience and enable their management and procurement teams to better serve the organization.

“Today’s world has changed,” says EL-Khashab. “Businesses are looking for whatever advantage they can get and having an expense management tool like SAP Concur that ticks all the boxes for your organisation, reduces compliance risk, and increases your cost savings helps with business continuity.”

To learn more about how SAP Concur solutions can help your organisation visit www.concur.ae. Or to watch the GBM customer success video, click here, or follow Concur on Twitter @SAPConcur.

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