Press Release

For Immediate Release
23 August 2007

Advancing the Industry Awarded to Ivan Surjadi at the ACTE Asia-Pacific Education Conference in Singapore

Singapore -- The Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE) honored one of their colleagues with the Advancing the Industry Award at the ACTE Asia-Pacific Education Conference in Singapore. ACTE President Richard Crum presented the award to Ivan Surjadi of BASF. ACTE's Advancing the Industry Award signifies a shared contribution in innovative travel management, process development, or a major conceptual exchange between components of the travel management profession.

"ACTE takes pride in being the leading international educational association for business travel industry leaders. Yet even among this select group there are those who distinguish themselves through service to their colleagues and to the industry, and Ivan Surjadi is one of those dedicated individuals," said ACTE President Richard Crum, President and CEO of AirPlus International.

This past year Ivan and his team rolled out an automated Expense Management System powered by Conur Technologies. Prior to this rollout, BASF offices had various systems and manual processes in place, which required a significant number of resources to support these systems across different countries. The initial rollout had an aggresive timeline of six months which was met; the system is now used by over 8,000 employees in 14 countries in Asia-Pacific. All employees now have access to this on-demand tool, with the shared service center supporting the needs of 48 individual companies that comprise BASF in Asia-Pacific.

Due to the advancements that Ivan and his team have made BASF has been a dramatic reduction in the time taken for expense report preparation and approval. At the same time, automating that processes has reduced errors and increased the quality of data. Importantly, Concur's solutions have helped BASF increase control and compliance to their corporate policies. The shared service center is now abled to easily manage the expense processes for all offices in the region, and customize to local market needs as well. Due to this success, Ivan has recently been promoted, and has recently relocated to Singapore, where he will head the eSolutions team in Asia-Pacific.


For more information, contact:
Debbie Flynn
CEO
Brighter Group
The Pod, London's Vertical Gateway
Bridges Wharf, Battersea
London SW11 3BE England
T: 020 7326 9880
F: 020 7326 9890
E: [email protected]
W: www.brightergroup.com