Decentralized Workforces Require Specialized Spend Management Solutions

Decentralized workforces have turned spend management solutions from a “nice-to-have” into a “must-have” for businesses looking to get a handle on cash flow.

Initially driven by the pandemic, with companies hiring people in different locations and existing employees moving to remote locations, the remote workforce is now reinforced by the desire to recruit and retain employees.

“Now organizations are trying to figure out, ‘How do I manage all that?’” Emburse CEO Eric Friedrichsen told PYMNTS.

Among the challenges are figuring out how to make sure they’re in compliance, managing spend in the right way and negotiating with suppliers in the right way — all while providing a user-friendly experience for employees who are spending money on behalf of the company from their home offices.

Luckily, innovation has kept pace, enabling providers to solve those problems through substantial advancements in machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI) and data partnerships.

“There’s been a lot of innovation around both technology and around corporate cards that has just made it so that we can actually facilitate and help organizations in those kinds of environments,” Friedrichsen said.

Providing the Best User Experience With Both Physical and Virtual Cards

Emburse meets those needs with spend management solutions. The company announced April 13 its most recent addition, a virtual-card-plus spend solution called Emburse Spend.

Emburse offers both physical and virtual cards for workers. When they use a card, it sends a notification to their phones to verify whether the purchase was a business expense and processes the request automatically — no expense reporting required.

Physical cards are still often required in restaurants and hotels that don’t accept virtual cards, Friedrichsen said. Virtual cards are often being used for Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) contracts, advertising spend and similar purposes for which a user wants a virtual card for a specific purchase.

In those cases, with the virtual cards, users can get preapproved when they know who the vendor is, how much they’re going to spend and when they’ll be spending it, without having to use their personal cards or worry about getting reimbursed.

“That really provides the best user experience,” Friedrichsen said.

Supporting the ‘Hybrid Super Commuter’

Among the decentralized workforce, Emburse has seen a spike in traffic of “hybrid super commuters” who work remotely but fly to get into the office a couple of times a month for team meetings, social events and customer visits.

For these users, the company has a product — Emburse Go — that enables them to use their mobile phone to see in one place their itinerary for the trip, their carbon footprint and other information useful to the business traveler.

“How do we support that holistic experience is something that we’re super focused on,” Friedrichsen said.