Spendvision, a global provider of total transaction management solutions, today announced that its hosted platform is being deployed globally by leading international mining group, Rio Tinto. The solution will enable more than 20,000 employees to record, track and manage corporate expenses. The platform will be rolled out across more than 10 business units in APAC, US, Canada and EMEA over a 12 month period.

Rio Tinto selected Spendvision as its Global Expense Management Solution (GEMS) following a comprehensive evaluation of a range of market-leading solutions. Each solution was analysed across a set of standard criteria and the Spendvision platform was chosen as it scored the highest in relation to ease of use, screen layout and the time taken to complete an expense report. Another key factor in the decision was that Spendvision is a Software as a Service (SaaS) solution. This hosted application gives Rio Tinto a pay-as-you-use model that provides both greater flexibility in use of the application and reduces the costs and issues associated with software development and maintenance.

“When we started researching a new expense management system, we knew we needed a centralised solution with the flexibility to deliver benefits to our staff, our business units and our corporate head office,” said Scott Singer, Global head of Procurement at Rio Tinto. “Disparate systems, labour intensive processes and limited visibility of consolidated spend were having an impact at the local and global levels. The Spendvision solution will not only deliver enhanced reporting to suit the requirements of central management and our business units; we will now be able to analyse global data to identify ways to optimise spend and reduce costs.”

“Working with Rio Tinto to deliver a comprehensive global expense management platform is a great opportunity for us to showcase the power of our one platform solution,” said Robert Kirby, CEO of Spendvision. “Having access to accurate, timely and actionable information about total spending patterns is vital for making informed cross-country comparisons and decisions. Through just one platform, we can support everything from consolidated reporting to corporate card management as well as more complex requirements such as detailed merchant and vendor analysis. It really shows the potential that simply automating travel and expense, purchasing card and out of pocket reimbursement processes can have in terms of business efficiencies, management visibility and of course cost savings.“

About Spendvision

Spendvision is a leading innovator of transaction management solutions. Through just one technology platform Spendvision delivers more effective purchasing that increases business profitability, improves decision making and delivers greater control and compliance. All this across the broadest range of transactions from simple cash, card, online travel bookings and telecoms right through to interactive coding, requisitions and dynamically funded accounts.

Spendvision is headquartered in the UK with offices in the US, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Singapore and works with leading customers and partners around the world. The Spendvision solution is available direct to businesses and through partners across the banking, telecommunications and travel sectors that provide the solution to their customers in their own brand.

Spendvision, a global provider of total transaction management solutions, today announced that its transaction management platform has earned a Distinguished Honoree medal for the Best New Product or Service of the Year for Financial Services in the 2010 International Business Awards.

The International Business Awards are the only global, all-encompassing business awards programme honouring great performances in business. With more than 1,700 entries received from organisations and individuals in more than 40 countries, honourees were determined through two rounds of judging by professionals worldwide. Nicknamed the Stevie® for the Greek word “crowned,” the awards will be presented to honourees at a gala dinner on Monday, 27 September in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Istanbul, Turkey.

In March 2010, Spendvision enhanced its proven transaction management platform – used by Visa, De Beers, National Australia Bank and other leading corporations – with the introduction of a new Multi-Program Reporting capability that gives CFOs a single currency view of all spend across the entire organisation, regardless of the type of transaction or where it occurred. Designed primarily for multinationals, government agencies and organisations with separate business units, Multi-Program Reporting provides a true corporate level summary of spend across divisions, currencies, languages and territories.

“Spendvision’s Multi-Program Reporting meets the demands of today’s corporations that are increasingly looking to take centralised control of expenditure to minimise waste and maximise efficiencies,” said Robert Kirby, CEO of Spendvision. “Being recognised by this esteemed international awards programme not only validates our success, but is further proof of our commitment to our customers’ success, especially as we continue to establish cutting edge transaction management solutions.”

Organisations all over the world are eligible to compete in The International Business Awards, and can enter any of more than 40 categories from Multinational Company of the Year and Best New Product of the Year to Corporate Social Responsibility Program of the Year and Executive of the Year.

“Despite the harsh economic climate, entries to the International Business Awards actually grew this year, and that illustrates the increasing importance of The International Business Awards worldwide,” said Michael Gallagher, president of The Stevie Awards, presenters of the International Business Awards. “We congratulate all of the honourees, and we look forward to recognising them for their achievements at our gala awards dinner in Istanbul on 27 September.”

For further information, including a complete list of honourees, please visit www.stevieawards.com/iba.

About The Stevie Awards
Stevie Awards are conferred in four programs: The American Business Awards, The International Business Awards, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, and the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. Honoring companies of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide. Learn more about The Stevie Awards at www.stevieawards.com

Premier Sponsor of The 2010 International Business Awards is Infogroup. National Sponsors include the Korea Business Communicators Association and the Public Relations Society of India. Supporting sponsor is McCann PR Romania. Localisation Partner for the 2010 IBAs is Lionbridge.

About Spendvision
Spendvision is a leading innovator of transaction management solutions. Through just one technology platform Spendvision delivers more effective purchasing that increases business profitability, improves decision making and delivers greater control and compliance. All this across the broadest range of transactions from simple cash, card, online travel bookings and telecoms right through to interactive coding, requisitions and dynamically funded accounts.

Spendvision is headquartered in the UK with offices in the US, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Singapore and works with leading customers and partners around the world. The Spendvision solution is available direct to businesses and through partners across the banking, telecoms and travel sectors that provide the solution to their customers in their own brand. www.spendvision.com

Spendvision, a global provider of total transaction management solutions, today announced the opening of two new offices in Japan and Singapore. The offices will enable Spendvision to target new customers in the Asia-Pacific region with its pioneering transaction management platform.

Spendvision provides a single platform capable of tracking and managing corporate transactions across banking, telecoms and travel in all locations, languages and currencies – giving CFO’s greater insight into all types of transactions by making information easy to access, search and understand. The new locations will complement Spendvision’s existing offices in the UK, US, Australia and New Zealand.

Signalling Spendvision’s plans to capitalize on its growing revenues in Japan, the company signed a joint venture agreement with local entrepreneur Mr. Tatsuya Murakami – who has a long history of successful ventures and an in-depth knowledge of the Spendvision platform – to create Spendvision Japan, and open a new office centrally located in Shibuya, Tokyo.

The office in Singapore – located in the Raffles Place financial district – will support both the company’s key alliance with Visa Inc. and allow Spendvision to expand banking and telecoms partnerships in the region, helping these organizations provide cost saving and process efficiency solutions to their corporate and public sector customers.

“Our new offices will help further our dialogue with customers and partners in the Asia-Pacific region and enable us to not only better serve our customers here but also develop products to meet the specific needs and expectations of this cutting edge market,” said Robert Kirby, CEO of Spendvision. “We’re building up a network of IT consulting firms and partners in both Japan and Singapore to drive growth and engage with prospects across a broad range of industries, including our core focus on the banking, telecoms and travel sectors.”

Spendvision will develop a new eWallet solution – initially for the Asia-Pacific market – that will allow employees to upload details of purchases they make from any location using their corporate eWallet. The solution will make it easy to integrate electronic payments made using any number of devices in the office, at home or on the move into the transaction process with simple auto coding and reporting functionalities.

“Payment methods in Asia-Pacific can be significantly different to those used in other markets such as the US and Europe,” continued Kirby. “Japan in particular is a great barometer for emerging mobile trends and technologies that are fundamentally changing the way employees make corporate purchases. Sophisticated new technologies like eWallets are increasingly popular throughout Asia and it’s vital that transaction management is kept as simple as possible to ensure that companies can easily access and search the transaction information they need to make informed business decisions and optimize corporate spend.”

Spendvision will also be looking to form partnerships with businesses in Japan and Singapore that want to introduce new products and services to their customers without investing the time, resources and expenses needed to develop their own solutions in-house. By harnessing the benefits of Spendvision’s extensive experience and comprehensive technology platform , partners can rapidly introduce customized transaction management solutions that address the specific needs of their customers without detracting from their core business activities – allowing them capitalize on emerging trends and enter new markets quickly.

About Spendvision
Spendvision is a leading innovator of transaction management solutions. Through just one technology platform Spendvision delivers more effective purchasing that increases business profitability, improves decision making and delivers greater control and compliance. All this across the broadest range of transactions from simple cash, card, online travel bookings and telecoms right through to interactive coding, requisitions and dynamically funded accounts.

Spendvision is headquartered in the UK with offices in the US, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Singapore and works with leading customers and partners around the world. The Spendvision solution is available direct to businesses and through partners across the banking, telecommunications and travel sectors that provide the solution to their customers in their own brand.

Spendvision, a global provider of total transaction management solutions, today announced major enhancements to its transaction management platform, designed to give multinational or group organisations comprehensive insight into corporate spend across multiple business units, currencies, languages and territories.

Aimed at organisations with several groups or divisions – such as Government agencies – Multi-Program Reporting allows CFOs to access spend levels across their entire organisation, irrespective of where transactions occurred. They can now access both a high level perspective of overall spend as well as more detailed breakdowns across any area of the business, using reporting tools to view spend by transaction type, merchant category, account or even supplier.

In addition, CFOs can now gain a single currency view of all spend – vital for making cross-territory comparisons – while the platform also allows for customisation based on specific local spend management requirements.

Many organisations have traditionally taken a siloed approach to transaction management based around different regions or corporate groups. Now however, CFOs are increasingly being asked to look beyond local needs and provide greater global insight into all types of corporate transactions, in order to find new ways of cutting costs and optimising corporate spend, as well as ensuring compliance in an increasingly stringent regulatory environment.

With its latest enhancements, Spendvision can easily and effectively service these requirements, providing a single platform capable of tracking and managing all corporate transactions – from rich procurement processes, integrated travel and expense management to telecoms services, electronic bills and payment.

“Whether it’s a telephone call or an airfare, all transactions are essentially purchases and need managing in a similar way,” said Robert Kirby, CEO of Spendvision. “We’re taking the transaction management market a step further by enabling organisations with multiple business groups to further consolidate and report on all spend from a single tool in a single currency, offering CXOs consistency, insight and above all greater control over purchasing activity.”

The Spendvision platform makes it easy for new groups to be integrated, meaning that multinationals can expand their use of the platform at their own pace. The solution also allows each business group to maintain their own discreet Spendvision ‘instance’, meaning that in the event of groups being sold off or partnerships dissolved, each party can continue using Spendvision without creating security or compliance issues.

Additional Multi-Program Reporting features include:

• Local platform customisation – separate business units can still structure the system based on individual needs and local currency and language options
• Reporting by supplier, transaction and amount, giving organisations more flexibility in the way they manage, plan and evaluate corporate spend
• General auditing – the ability to track when company-level options and settings are changed and by whom, as well as how organisations use key modules and functions
• Access and approvals – companies are able to grant advanced management access levels for different employee types, giving users visibility of only the reports and data they need
• Filtering and searching – additional search fields have been added, including the ability to filter reports by reporting currency

“With more and more employees now able to make corporate purchases, in the office, at home and on the move, it’s vital that from the top level down transaction management is kept as simple as possible,” continued Kirby. “We’re continually refining the Spendvision platform to ensure that – at all levels of management – the transaction information needed to make effective business decisions remains easily accessible, searchable and understandable, and our latest product enhancements offers our most comprehensive level of insight yet.”

Multi-Program Reporting is available as an ‘opt-in’ upgrade to the Spendvision platform, which is delivered over the internet, meaning that companies don’t have to invest in, install or maintain any hardware or software.

About Spendvision
Spendvision is a leading innovator of transaction management solutions. Through just one technology platform Spendvision delivers more effective purchasing that increases business profitability, improves decision making and delivers greater control and compliance. All this across the broadest range of transactions from simple cash, card, online travel bookings and telecoms right through to interactive coding, requisitions and dynamically funded accounts.

Spendvision is headquartered in the UK with offices in the US, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Singapore and works with leading customers and partners around the world. The Spendvision solution is available direct to businesses and through partners across the banking, telecommunications and travel sectors that provide the solution to their customers in their own brand.