SAP America Inc., a subsidiary of German multinational company SAP SE, is going to acquire Concur Technologies Inc. in a deal worth $8.3 billion U.S., helping the software maker get into the corporate travel space.
On Friday, SAP announced it has entered an agreement with Concur, which provides travel and expense management software to businesses that send their employees on corporate trips. Concur serves more than 23,000 customers, employs about 4,200 people, and touts 25 million users in more than 150 countries around the world.
By acquiring Concur, SAP hopes to get a chunk of the corporate travel industry, which is worth $1.2 trillion, the software giant says. It will also be able to tap into Concur’s open platform, which connects airlines, hotels, and car rental companies to simplify their customers’ travel and accommodation planning.
Beyond entering the corporate travel industry, SAP’s acquisition of Concur will give it a total of more than 50 million cloud users, making it one of the biggest enterprise cloud players out there. There’ll also be the chance for SAP to expand its customer base, introducing its platform to Concur customers, and Concur’s solutions for small to mid-size businesses will fit with SAP’s Business One Cloud solution, also aimed at smaller organizations.
“The acquisition of Concur is consistent with our relentless focus on the business network,” said Bill McDermott, CEO of SAP, in a statement. “Concur shares SAP’s vision to help our customers ‘Run simple.’ Concur cloud solutions are network-based and enable context-aware applications for travelers to use on any mobile device.”
“We are redefining how businesses conduct commerce across goods and services, contingent workforces, travel and entertainment. With the SAP HANA platform, the possibilities to innovate new business models around Concur and the network are limitless.”
The deal is expected to close by the end of this year, or in the first quarter of 2015.