The US government handed Concur a potentially $1.4 billion contract over 15 years to power the next iteration of the federal E-Gov Travel Service.
Concur, headquartered in Redmond, Washington, will adapt its Government Edition solution, acquired through its acquisition of Gelco in 2007, to power the General Services Administration's ETS2, slated to be implemented in late 2013.
Launched in 2002, ETS processes the government travel of some 90 civilian agencies amounting to about $15 billion per year in gross travel spend.
ETS has been handled until now from an online booking and expense standpoint by CWTSato Travel, HP Enterprise Services and Northrup Grumman Mission Systems, but their contracts expire on November 11, 2013, and Concur will be taking over as the sole travel and expense technology provider for ETS2.
Each government agency will be able to adapt their own version of Concur's Government Edition and they can contract with various travel management companies to fulfill their travel.
Concur gets a 15-year "performance-based, fixed-price" GSA contract, which could have the government paying a maximum $1.4 billion in aggregate over the agreement's duration. The federal government can opt out, however, after three years.
The GSA won't say which other companies bid on the ETS2 contract.
It is believed that GSA selected Concur because of its superior technology and it was the low bidder.
One important factor is that 15 years in the life of a technology product may seem like centuries, and the government wanted to select a vendor that could sleekly adapt and keep the government travel system on par with those used in business travel outside of government.
The GSA states that ETS2 will provide enhanced usability for online travel planning, and its improved transparency would enhance government agencies' leverage in negotiating supplier contracts.
Although Concur owns TripIt, the itinerary management service, there is no TripIt component to the new deal, Concur says.
However, as with any other Concur customer, users can automatically import their reservations into TripIt.
So the agreement gives TripIt a potential large base of new users.
The GSA has been under fire for excesses in travel spend by governmental agencies.
ETS, when it came into being after much delay a decade ago, consolidated more than 250 offline and often paper-driven travel booking systems.
GSA emphasizes that ETS saves the US government more than $20 million annually.