If you are travelling for business, your company has a "duty of care" to ensure your safety.
But if you have booked the flight or hotel room yourself rather than through a corporate travel manager, it can often prove difficult for the company to keep track of your whereabouts.
"Right now I don't think most companies know where their employees are most of the time, but I think they are required to do so," said Murray Warner, the business development director of Concur Technologies Asia Pacific, which is owned by software giant SAP.
Enter TripIt. The popular Concur software, often used by leisure travellers to keep their itineraries straight and for updates on flight delays, is being used by big companies to help keep track of their staff.
Mr Warner said Concur realised it wouldn't capture every corporate travel booking through its own booking software due to the propensity of many travellers to book themselves on websites like Booking.com, Expedia or directly with airlines or hotel chains.
But those outside booking confirmations received by email would appear on a business traveller's TripIt software automatically, allowing the company insight into the itinerary without notification from the traveller.
Mr Warner said the program was also helpful for small and medium enterprises that did not use a travel management company like Flight Centre's FCm Travel Solutions, Corporate Travel Management or American Express Global Business Travel because it would allow them to keep track of employee bookings in a centralised way.
"They have the ability to do that now through systems like Concur," he said.
In the Australian market, Concur is a rival to New Zealand-based Serko, which has announced plans for an ASX listing later this year.
Mr Warner said Concur differed from Serko in that it tended to sign direct contracts with companies rather than with travel agencies to ensure that its software remained in place even if a company changed travel agents.
Serko chief executive Darrin Grafton last week said his company would look to do more direct contracts with businesses, as well as increase its reach into the small and medium enterprise market.
Mr Warner said smaller businesses tended to be more profitable for Concur as clients than larger corporations. The company provides booking services and itinerary tracking as well as expenses management and accounts payable solutions.
