Insights from Coupa and Acquis Consulting Group on T&E Spending
T&E spend is typically the 2nd largest controllable expense
The pandemic changed everything — travel spend decreased but remained flat in many cases
Budgets were reallocated to accommodate the changing working environment
Opportunities to Reimagine and Redesign T&E Spend Management
You don’t want people to feel like people are being watched. We must work towards a trusted but verified and respectful culture.
Leverage community buying power to pre-negotiate optimum pricing.
Technology can help eliminate fraud, biases, and optimize spend.
5% of business expense is fraud. It is important to have technology on your side to make sure fraud is not happening.
Four main considerations when reevaluating your T&E program:
Create processes that don’t disrupt existing workflows
Document current spends habits into formalized expense policy
Better user experience = more adoption = better control
Spend has shifted to accommodate new working styles and changing business needs
Evaluate and consolidate new areas of spend
Spend consolidation = greater visibility = deeper insights
T&E fraud has increased overall during pandemic
Build a culture of trust and verification
Consider non-punitive audits
Unpredictability in spend isn’t a problem, it can be an asset
Just because it’s post-approved spend doesn’t mean you can’t influence it or optimize it
Make your T&E spend work for you
If you want to stay ahead of the curve, you need to shift from tactical T&E management to strategic.
Reach out to the Acquis team
Procurement used to be the department of “no.” A checkpoint before spend approval charged with enforcing compliance, checking contracts, and cutting costs. Necessary, yes. Strategic? Hardly. That model no longer holds.
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For decades, procurement and finance have been uneasy allies. One holds the purse strings. The other spends the money. In theory, they share the same goals. In reality, they often operate at cross-purposes — slowing each other down, duplicating efforts, and moving out of sync.
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Over the next decade, biopharma success will be determined not by the most ambitious science or the largest balance sheets, but by leadership — specifically, by companies that can navigate the industry's bifurcation and develop fluency in the Alliance Economy. Others will likely face acquisition or marginalization.
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Procurement used to be the department of “no.” A checkpoint before spend approval charged with enforcing compliance, checking contracts, and cutting costs. Necessary, yes. Strategic? Hardly. That model no longer holds.
Read More
For decades, procurement and finance have been uneasy allies. One holds the purse strings. The other spends the money. In theory, they share the same goals. In reality, they often operate at cross-purposes — slowing each other down, duplicating efforts, and moving out of sync.
Read More
Over the next decade, biopharma success will be determined not by the most ambitious science or the largest balance sheets, but by leadership — specifically, by companies that can navigate the industry's bifurcation and develop fluency in the Alliance Economy. Others will likely face acquisition or marginalization.
Read More
