2013 Executive Excellence Awards (CEOs): Steve Singh

We dont have a right to win in the marketplace, says STEVE SINGH.

As CEO of travel expense reporting pioneer Concur Technologies, Singh believes market dominance comes with delivering what customers want, even before they know it themselves. And in the rapidly evolving world of technology, its not just having a vision of what Singh calls the perfect trip, but revising that ideal continuously.

Under Singhs longtime leadership, Concur has shifted its product from the desktop computer to the corporate network and again to the internets cloud. As recently as three years ago, Concur had no developers of mobile software. Today, applications for smartphones and tablets are now at the heart of the company. This Software as a Service (SaaS) approach has made possible Concurs aim to integrate booking for air travel, auto rental and lodging into a seamless business travel experience and reduce the cost of expense management.

Singhs strategy has worked: More than 15,000 companies around the world pay subscription fees to obtain Concurs expense reporting services, and the company is valued at $3.8 billion. To fuel growth, Singh has driven a series of strategic acquisitions and forged partnerships that have helped spread Concurs technology.

There should be no limitations on what we can deliver, Singh says. We must imagine what the world should look like independent of us and try to solve for that problem.

To do this, Singh says, You have to be willing to completely reinvent everything.