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Machine intelligence is a widespread reality today – with everything from personalised shopping to automated utility bill payments requiring minimal human intervention.
India has been among the frontrunners in this race for digitisation, and organisations and consumers have alike taken to the shift like fish to water – why then is it that at a majority of enterprises, internal processes and operations still remain in a state of disrepair and neglect? What has made us complacent post a partial digitisation of sorts, with a handful of core and client-facing processes automated, and the rest relegated as not important enough to warrant the same upgrade?
At Happay, we wanted to find out the reasons for this strange anti-climax – particularly in the area of T&E management, the second largest operational expense following payroll. What we ended up with is a melting pot of invaluable insights depicting the state of Indian enterprise travel and expense management as it stands today – including drivers, trends, challenges and the way ahead.
The report, the first of its kind in India, is based on an independent study that we conducted on 200+ enterprise CFOs and finance heads across verticals. Leading magazine CFO India partnered with us to undertake this exhaustive research, which revealed that Indian companies are highly prone to significant loss of revenue dues to fraudulent claims facilitated by outdated manual claims processes.
Key insights from the report
In the digital age that we’re currently living in, automation is no longer an option – it’s a fundamental necessity to ensure agile, accurate and secure processes. Yet, in a country as technologically advanced as ours, we’re struggling to shift from obsolete, error and fraud-prone manual processes to more manipulation-resistant automated processes.
The Happay study found that most organisations still follow archaic systems for expense filing. In fact, an alarming 82% of companies were found to be either partially or entirely lacking in automated T&E processes, and 48% companies lacked the systems to detect frauds due to a manual mapping of T&E expenses. Unlike companies in the west, 65% of Indians companies record employee expenses manually – a startling 75% of the respondents said that expense claims still had to be filed by manually attaching bills to paper vouchers.
However, it was heartening to note that 50% of the CFOs interviewed have understood the urgent need for change and intend to switch to an automated expense management system within the next six months. For further insights, download our full report from the link below.
National media coverage
The Happay report, due to its comprehensive and granularly insightful nature, has thus far received widespread news coverage, with national and regional publications alike reporting highlights. Coverage has extended across the country via both online and print media.
Some of the online publications that have covered our report are Business Standard, Times of India, The Economic Times, The Hindu, Business Today, CIOL, The Hindu Business Line, BW CIO World, Silicon India, Var India, CEO Insights and Outlook among others.
View full press coverage here.
What lies ahead
It’s plainly visible that T&E expense management in India is ripe for disruption. In the age of IoT and data floods, what’s needed is processes that don’t add to the noise – processes that declutter and simplify operations and improve quality of life for already overworked professionals. As we as a country move rapidly along the journey of digitisation, we need to make sure that we affect wholesome changes. Gone are the times when we made do with half-baked methods and means. In an era focussed on generating value, there’s no longer any scope to deal with inefficiencies and delays.
At Happay, our efforts have always been directed towards bridging this gap – towards helping enterprises transform their T&E management operations to achieve enhanced productivity, compliance and efficiency via end-to-end automation. As we continue to grow in this space, our vision remains the same – that of forging fully digital T&E environments in Indian enterprises, providing them with unprecedented control over a significant and previously largely out-of-control overhead, simultaneously freeing them up to focus on core operations.
Looking to make the leap at your organisation but unsure about how to go about it or whether it would work in your setup? We’d be more than happy to walk you through your concerns. Drop us an e-mail at info@happay.in or call us at 080-61776177.
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