Areka’s Analysis of the Amex GBT & SAP Concur Alliance

Areka Partner Jean-Michel Kadaner weighs in on what the Amex GBT and SAP Concur partnership means for the industry — and outlines five strategic moves for travel buyers and TMC executives following Business Travel News Europe’s article “Buyers Face ‘Decisions’ Following Amex GBT–Concur Alliance.”

The announcement of a co-developed “Complete” platform between Amex GBT and SAP Concur is less a surprise than a crystallization of long-running tensions in corporate travel: fragmentation vs. control, openness vs. speed, and ecosystem breadth vs. end-to-end accountability.

Concur’s choice to “move faster” with a preferred TMC marks a material pivot from its historical Switzerland-like posture. Even with public assurances that Concur Travel will continue to support independent TMCs and the resell model, the signaling is unambiguous: the center of gravity is shifting toward a walled-garden experience in which one TMC has privileged product influence, roadmap alignment, and potentially first-mover access to new capabilities.

From a buyer’s perspective, the promise is seductively simple: one platform to book, service, pay, and expense. Years of stitching together OBTs, agent desktops, mid-office, payment rails, and expense audit have left many programs fatigued. If Amex GBT and Concur can truly harmonize traveler UX, shrink time-to-ticket, unify data models, and collapse handoffs, buyers will understandably ask whether the marginal gains from best-of-breed stacks still outweigh the operational friction. The catch is execution. Integrating two giant organizations—at the same time Amex GBT is absorbing CWT—means governance overhead, competing priorities, and the risk that integration work cannibalizes net-new innovation. Several industry voices in the article put their finger on this: bold strategy is the easy half; sustained delivery velocity is the test.

For the broader market, the move sharpens segmentation. Progressive programs that have invested in modular, API-forward stacks (alternative OBTs, dynamic content gateways, independent data lakes, modern duty-of-care, fintech-style virtual cards) will see this as a moment of clarity rather than a dilemma. If the new alliance drifts toward tighter coupling or proprietary features, these buyers may double-down on open architectures and avoid platform lock-in. Conversely, organizations that prize standardization, compliance, and a single throat to choke—especially those with lean travel teams—will find the “Complete” narrative attractive, provided SLAs, control frameworks, and roadmap transparency are credible.

The signal to TMC partners is more fraught. Concur’s decision to sunset its Select and Elite tiers by 31 December 2025 sets a clock on commercial and technical certainty. Even if existing Alliance Agreement holders are grandfathered, the psychology shifts: partners must assume the most strategic product conversations will now run through the GBT corridor. That doesn’t immediately “break” anyone’s business, but it does change bargaining power. Independent TMCs will need to prove differentiated value—industry vertical mastery, high-touch service, proprietary analytics, local fulfillment depth, or alternative tech stacks—to offset any real or perceived moat around new Concur developments. Some will see opportunity: if the alliance narrows Concur’s aperture, rival OBTs with faster release cycles or richer NDC/ancillary handling can capitalize, and TMCs adept at swapping or orchestrating front ends will have a cleaner story to tell.

Innovation is the wild card. Advocates argue that tight co-development is the only way to tackle the chronic seams in travel+expense: inconsistent PNR/receipt reconciliation, duplicate profiles, brittle policy sync, and weak post-ticketing automation. Critics counter that consolidation slows the rate of external experimentation and concentrates influence over content, pricing, and data portability. Both can be true. In the first 12–18 months, expect a heavy lift on core plumbing—identity, policy, service workflows, integrated help, and payment/expense lineage—rather than headline-grabbing features. The risk is that buyers, promised step-change outcomes, experience incrementalism while contract cycles tick by. The prize, if the alliance lands, is a durable experience delta that forces competitors to accelerate—not just ship features but remove work.

Commercially, procurement teams should read between the lines. A privileged partnership can compress discounts available to others, tilt certification/support queues, or introduce program levels that create soft gating. None of this is inherently anti-competitive, but it does require sharper contracting: explicit commitments on feature parity timelines for non-GBT channels, transparent API access terms, data export rights, change-management obligations, and remedies tied to integration milestones. The sunset date for existing partner tiers provides a practical waypoint for renegotiation and contingency planning; buyers relying on non-GBT TMCs should seek written assurances on roadmap support windows and evaluate them against real implementation plans, not presentations.

For travelers, the near-term impact will be cultural as much as technical. A coherent end-to-end flow reduces error opportunities and support pings, but only if service models evolve with it. Embedding agents into the same context as traveler interactions (shared timeline, policy, inventory state) matters more than UI veneer. That requires organizational change inside both companies—a shift that several commentators flagged as the harder problem. If the alliance simply overlays integrations atop legacy ways of working, the experience will plateau quickly.

What should programs do now? Treat this as a strategic fork, not an emergency. Map your stack into two plausible futures: an integrated platform anchored on the GBT–Concur axis, and an open ecosystem that you orchestrate. For each, quantify switching costs, measure dependency risk (people, processes, data), and model outcomes that matter to your CFO and CHRO: policy compliance uplift, leakage reduction, servicing cost per transaction, time-to-refund, supplier attachment, and traveler satisfaction. In parallel, refresh your market scan—there is genuine momentum among alternative OBTs and expense platforms, and several TMCs have matured orchestration capabilities that were theoretical a few years ago. If you remain in the Concur world with a non-GBT TMC, push for contractual clarity on access, support, and parity; if you consider the “Complete” path, demand delivery cadences, open APIs, and exit rights that keep you in control.

For TMCs outside the alliance, clarity beats indignation. Decide if your future is Concur-centric, multi-OBT, or anchored on a different core. Build proofs that reduce buyer anxiety—live NDC handling, service automation tied to real outcomes, clean data lineage into finance systems. For some, partnering more deeply with rival OBTs or expense tools will be the right answer; for others, doubling down on sector specialization or regional strengths will win more than fighting platform politics.

In short, this is a consequential bet by two incumbents to convert distribution advantage into product velocity and experience quality. It will likely prompt a healthier stratification of the market rather than a monoculture: one lane for integrated control, another for composable flexibility. Buyers shouldn’t be rushed into picking sides, but they should absolutely use this moment to re-test assumptions, tighten contracts, and pressure all vendors—GBT, Concur, and their competitors—to turn strategy decks into working software that measurably reduces friction and cost.

Areka’s Five Strategic Recommendations

1. Conduct a Full Ecosystem Dependency Audit

Map all current integrations, dependencies, and data flows involving Concur Travel, Expense, and Payment modules.
Identify which systems (OBT, TMC mid-office, reporting, duty-of-care, payment, reconciliation) rely on Concur APIs or certification programs.

Why This Matters: By creating this internal heatmap of “critical integrations” vs. “replaceable components,” you’ll be able to quantify exposure if new Concur developments become proprietary to Amex GBT or are slower to reach other partners. This can be used to inform sourcing and contract planning.

2. Define a Platform Strategy: “Walled Garden” vs. “Open Architecture.”

Decide deliberately whether your program’s future lies in:
- A tightly integrated stack (single provider, unified data, lower complexity), or
- An open ecosystem (modular tools, API orchestration, higher flexibility).
Document trade-offs across control, innovation velocity, supplier leverage, and exit cost.

Why This Matters: By developing two scenario ROI comparisons before the 2025 sunset of Concur’s Select/Elite partner tiers, you will avoid accidental lock-in by design.

3. Strengthen Contractual Safeguards and Vendor Governance

Renegotiate or append current Concur or TMC agreements to include:
- Feature parity commitments and release-timing SLAs for non-GBT clients.
- Data portability clauses and unrestricted API access for export/reporting.
- Change-control governance aligned with your internal PMO cadence.

Why This Matters: Creating a “technology dependency risk register” within your governance dashboard, will preserve leverage as the alliance reshapes access models.

4. Accelerate Evaluation of Alternative OBT and Expense Platforms

Launch a structured market scan and pilot program with at least two next-generation tools (e.g., Spotnana, Serko, Cytric Easy, Navan, Emburse Go, Blockskye/K4B, Skylink).
Request live demos focusing on NDC content integration, mid-office automation, traveler UX, and finance reconciliation.

Why This Matters: Establish credible options in case integration or pricing under the new alliance deteriorates.

5. Invest in Data Layer Independence and Integration Competence

Future-proof the program by separating data logic from user interfaces.
Build or acquire capability to manage travel/expense data through independent middleware or internal APIs (PredictX, Snowflake, Power BI pipelines, etc.).
Upskill internal teams or secure a partner specializing in travel-payment data architecture and governance.

Why This Matters: You’ll ensure that reporting, sustainability analytics, and spend optimization remain intact regardless of front-end provider.

Glossary of Terms

Analytical & Governance Concepts

Data Portability: Ability to export or transfer data between systems freely.
Ecosystem Dependency Audit: Mapping of all integrations, dependencies, and data flows between systems.
Platform Strategy (‘Walled Garden’ vs ‘Open Architecture’): Strategic choice between a closed, end-to-end environment or a modular, interoperable tech stack.
Technology Dependency Risk Register: Governance tool tracking critical vendor or integration dependencies.

Commercial & Contractual Terms

Change-Control Governance: Formal mechanism to approve or track modifications to scope or deliverables.
Exit Cost / Lock-In: Cost or risk associated with being tied to a specific provider ecosystem.
Feature Parity: Commitment ensuring all clients (not only preferred ones) receive equivalent functionality.
PMO: Project Management Office — governance structure overseeing project delivery and compliance.
RFP / RFI: Request for Proposal / Information — standard sourcing processes in procurement.
ROI: Return on Investment — metric to compare cost vs. benefit of a strategy or platform.
SLA: Service Level Agreement — contractually defined service quality and performance commitments.