SAP Concur Reviews

Cons

Needs to grow the engineering delivery process. We also need to better understand priorities. Some of our chaos tends to cause churn.

Cons

Tons of turnover, Inexperienced Management, They tell 40+ employees that they can all advance after 1 year while also hiring externally

Cons

The Market Development team has gone through a roller coaster of management in the past 2-3 years. The current regime has caused a severe downturn in morale, productivity, and trust in the process, and unfortunately Concur as a whole.

The rest of the managers have a lot of potential, but are forced to abide by upper management's leadership style. The major issue that I ran into was that I constantly was being talked to like a child rather than a working professional. An awesome pro of working for Concur was their benefits including 25 days PTO, however if you take a vacation, and do not hit your goal (which is astronomically high, while only increasing) you will be chastised. In fact, some were asked "do you really think you should take that PTO over Christmas with how your month is going?"

The job itself is difficult enough, cold calling is difficult enough. The job of leadership is to be selfless, to be a part of the grind, and to MOTIVATE people, rather than showing up late, leaving early, taking constant PTO, but then belittling their employees when they want the same (or similar) freedoms.

You will also need to be in seat for a minimum of 1 year, while attaining the high quota consistently to be eligible for a promotion. Elsewhere in the organization it is based on merit and production for a promotion, however in Market Dev the leadership (primarily directors) were more worried about hitting their own numbers, and how much you can help pad their pockets than your career development. They will do whatever they can to keep the top performers on their team to help themselves, rather than helping you progress in your career within Concur.

One final con: At Concur, and now SAP Concur you are a part of an incredible organization that strives to change businesses and lives of their employees as well as yours as an employee of SAP Concur. In Market Development, you are told NOT to attend the all hands meetings, the team celebration lunches, etc. because that time is better suited with you on the phone. This completely secludes the MDR teams from the bigger picture, and thus makes you feel like nothing but a number

Cons

Salary and titles are never discussed openly. It’s hard to understand what is expected at every level and how to achieve next level. Sometimes it feels that your efforts are gone unnoticed.

Cons

SMN Marketing has struggled with poor leadership and high turnover for years, and unfortunately the trend is still going strong. The leadership lacks basic marketing principles and will challenge your morals and lie to achieve the results they want. More than two dozen employees have come and gone from that team in a matter of a few years and you will be next if you decide to join the ranks.

Cons

Recruiting has been known to lie - There are countless examples of people who were lied to about their title/level and their next move in company. Backwards titles complicates this further. This coupled with much of my other feedback lead to great employees either leaving the company, or leaving and coming back (which the CEO, SVPs, and many other leaders have done). When it comes to hiring your own team, people managers have to do the majority of searching for candidates (provided they want to assure they get the best person for the role).
Most mid-level leaders are afraid of and/or avoid confrontation - Bad to mediocre employees aren't disciplined, and over-achievers aren't reward commensurate of their impact. I'm not sure anyone has ever been put on an action plan (let alone fired) at the company, which makes those that are (below) average at their job think that they just have to wait to be promoted. Leaders try to contain over-achievers by promising a bright future if they just wait, then offer you everything you want(ed) when it's too late. Senior leaders lift up concerns about employees, so do said manager's people, and yet no material corrective action is taken resulting in their great employees moving on. Wrong or right, this gives the perception that managers are more concerned with being everyone's friend and are happy with where they are, so they state that "everyone here is great" to make things easier vs having tough conversations or potentially ruffling feathers by having some on a faster track than their peers.
Top down management style - A lot of mid-level to senior leaders don't take constructive criticism well from their employees. They get the majority of their direction from senior executives, then generally tailor to what their plan was, which delays or fractures career promises (moving targets). They no doubt mean well, but don't seem to realize that if they are authentic 98% of the time, employees are still left guessing when the other 2% is occurring (and if they can truly rely on them for their best interests). Additionally, when you ask them why overall company projections or a product launch deadline were missed, you tend to get boilerplate excuses.
Seniority can breed complacence - The most people I've ever seen in a company that have been there for the majority of their career. That's generally a good thing, but many of these people don't have a competitive background for their position that one would expect from an SAP/leader in technology. Diversity (including in professional experiences) is a good thing. A lot of the leaders that have been with the company for the majority of their career likely wouldn't be at the same level at any other comparable company, and many didn't go to school for what they are doing. Perhaps they realize this, so they never leave, and are fine with mediocre employees on their team as it won't challenge their position in company. Because many haven't worked at other major companies, they don't know any better, generally given false positive reviews on their managers and for Concur as a best place to work. Little to no value is given for having advanced degrees (nor do leaders encourage their employees to pursue them) as the company seems to think consulting companies and annual conferences are the only thing needed to help with on-going education efforts.

Cons

*** FACT: The Market Development department has had over 100% turnover in 2017. I think that number speaks for itself. ***

>> Excluding direct management, the directors within Market Development run their department with a "Hero to Zero" mentality if you are not the top performer that month you aren't even worth making eye contact with (when they even make an appearance on the floor which is maybe once every other week to once a month).
Directors run their meetings like camp counselors, playing loud music, cheering while you walk into the meetings until they drop bombs on the MDRs discussing new processes that make your job more difficult and rolling out unattainable goals to make it impossible to hit your quota.
At first, this "Camp Counselor" leadership style and over the top unauthentic speech is appealing you eventually realize they are constantly speaking to you like children and have no true respect for you as a career professional.
Don't ever believe you have a chance to move into a leadership role within the Market Development department. Directors lead MDRs on; whom are more than overqualified, been with the company for multiple years and proven themselves worthy of leadership roles; to think that they have a chance at the roles opening up within the MDR department and then hire externally or in different departments because again, they have no respect for MDRs as career professionals, with one exception, a 23year old that they gave a manager position too because one of the directors had a personal relationship with that MDR.
** Note: Management just handed that MDR the management position without considering any other prospects or making it available to any applicants**
- - It's also been discussed that employees applying for internal roles outside of the department have been sabotaged by directors approaching the hiring department telling them not to hire that MDR because they are a top performer and want them to sit in the department and make them more money till they're burned out and leave - -
:: Also, there's a "rule" that you have to sit in seat in the Market Development department for at least 1 year before being eligible to move throughout the company. No this is not in your job contract or discussed throughout the interview process you find this out after you're hired and are stuck. ::

>> Now to discuss the job itself... You are a telemarketer that can be replaced and rotated out. There is no strategy, you do not create relationships with your Sales Execs because you have 25-40 that you support. You used to strategically work with 4 Sales Execs and support their specific territories going after top accounts and helping them bring in quality customers. They changed this process because of the massive turnover they're seeing in the department and now the sales pipeline won't skip a beat with MDRs constantly leaving.
You have call center metrics you have to meet every day and if you don't meet them you are interrogated on the reasons why you didn't meet them that day. The micromanaging is absolutely out of control, there's no faith in you that you are a professional that can do your job and run your business properly. This job requires no relationship building just endlessly calling prospects to see if they have 10min to learn about Concur and passing off anyone who says yes to the Sales Exec assigned too the account then getting back on the phones to find another prospect to say yes.

::: Warning: DO NOT TAKE A SMALL BUSINESS POSITION although the direct manager seems great and doing what he can to make the most of that segment, the goals are wildly unattainable compared to the Inbound, MidMarket and National segments. With the consistent failure, the directors put pressure on this segment and constantly question the failure to meet quota when the quotas are near impossible to hit. :::

>> Unfortunately, because of the way that the directors have built this department and treat their employees you see valuable workers losing belief and confidence in themselves and their abilities. It also is quite obvious that this has spread to other departments so moving internally throughout Concur is becoming more an more difficult. It's heartbreaking to see these quality and overqualified employees being so discouraged and leaving this company after buying into the "Concur dream" because there truly is value in this company, just not in the Market Development department. There are people that have taken massive pay cuts and steps down in their career to buy into this dream and leave lost, beaten down and regretful they ever left their previous job to become part of this department.

Cons

Some opportunities to learn are only offered once and sometimes you are too busy to attend them.

Cons

A recent Leadership change has caused a mass exit of marketers on this team. MQL targets that were unreasonable and lacking ability to track due to broken systems were all that mattered even if burned the team out and poor customer experience. We worked crazy hours and constantly blamed and bullied in team settings. Unless you are on the Dream Team brought in externally expectation was to keep your mouth shut and do what are told. This was not the Concur I knew, we always supported each other, valued advice and input.

Cons

Not many to speak of. Must be open to change since it's inevitable.