VISA COMMERCIAL SOLUTIONS Visa commercial card ProGram success story

Real-world ways to improve expense reporting and employee satisfaction.

Google Inc. streamlined its expense processing system by implementing a Citi Visa Commercial card program. The resultscost-and-time savings, plus greater employee satisfaction.
Company Profile
Provider of innovative search technologies

between more than 3,000 language pairs. Google is headquartered in Californias Silicon Valley, with offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia.

Challenge
Inefficient expense reporting and purchasing procedures

Google Statistics
Annual Revenue $23.6 billion Annual Card Spend $60 million Annual Card Transactions 576,000 Percentage of Travel-related Transactions 74% Percentage of Purchasing-related Transactions 26% Number of Employees 19,100 Number of Cardholders 10,800

Products and Services Used

Visa Commercial Card Visa PerformSource

Google connects millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998, the companys mission is to organize the vast amount of information available on the web. By 2000, the company offered search capabilities in 15 languages and had created the Google toolbar seen on so many sites today. Contextual search, indexed book excerpts, 3D terrain mapping, web search for mobile phones, universal search and countless other innovations quickly followed. Today Google serves more than a billion searches each day, and can translate

Google grew exponentially in the first 10 years of its existence. While this rapid growth was taking place, there was very little focus on a commercial payments strategy. Travel and entertainment (T&E) cards and later purchasing cards were offered, but both were vastly underused. In fact, less than 20% of eligible employees in the U.S. and Europe/Middle East/Africa (EMEA) regions applied for the cards offered prior to 2009. Moreover, there wasnt a single, globally defined product offering. For example, cards in the U.S. offered individual liability, while cards in the EMEA region had joint liability. The programs were informally managed with no consistent policies and procedures in place. Card usage was low and there was no enterprise-wide initiative to implement 1

procure-to-pay automation that would have required card programs. Therefore, paper-based receipt reconciliation and purchase order requisitions were still the norm. This resulted in: Data entry errors Delayed reimbursement to employees Minimal view into employee and departmental spend o visibility into total spend at the N merchant level, hampering the ability to negotiate effectively mployee frustration and inefficient E use of time trying to report expenses These process inefficiencies led to lost cost-reduction opportunities and potential lost revenue for the company.

nsure worldwide acceptance in places E where employees travel aximize card penetration among the M 95% of Google employees who are eligible

Vendor Selection
After reviewing all of the major players in the commercial card space, Google selected Citi and Visa for its commercial card program. Google cited the following reasons for selecting this partnership: itis global network of over 100 countries C uperior responsiveness to Googles S needs bility to offer a single platform for A handling multiple types of expenses nsurpassed acceptance worldwide U ositive perception of the Visa brand P by employees The Citi Visa Commercial card program implemented by Google offers the functionality of both traditional travel and entertainment and purchasing cards, eliminating the need for different cards for various functions. This met the companys overarching goal to create a single product that could handle all types of employee purchases and expenses worldwide.

Program Goals
Streamlined expense management and better control of spend

With 20,000 employees in 40 countries, Google realized it needed to implement a better expense processing system. The company hired Leonard Leung as its Global Process Manager to implement a commercial payments initiative. Leungs mission was to develop a commercial card program that would: treamline expense management by S simplifying purchase, reconciliation and reimbursement procedures rovide greater visibility into global P transactions and total spend mprove the accuracy and timeliness I of expense reporting andle both procurement and T&E H expenses on a single platform Other goals were to: tandardize operations worldwide, S including privacy policies, card application, integration of reporting data, and more

Acceptance is key. To gain adoption, we needed to introduce a product that people can actually use wherever they are.
LEONARD LEUNG
Global Process Manager, Google

Program Rollout
Phased launch tailored to Googles innovative culture

The implementation team launched a five-month pilot of the Citi Visa Commercial card programusing Googles Corporate Credit Cardin Australia, Germany and Israel. This enabled the team to gather employee input and make revisions before implementing in all regions. Googles Corporate Credit Card went live in the U.S. shortly after the pilot program, with EMEA following three months later. The Asia-Pacific and Latin American rollouts started a few months after these

first two regions had launched. The global implementation experience of Visa and Citibank, combined with the strength of the partnership helped Google achieve an accelerated rollout.
Employee Education

ramatically reduced receipt requirements D for card purchases versus purchases made via purchase orders, checks and other methods To ensure employees understood these benefits and applied for a card, Google created contests, giveaways and an amusing video on their internal broadcast medium that created a viral buzz that lasted for months. This unique approach is in line with Googles corporate culture, which opts for educating employees on how everyone benefits rather than mandating compliance with new policies and procedures.

Google employees were highly enthusiastic about Googles Corporate Credit Card as evidenced by the nearly 2,500 card applications per month in the first few months after launch. Leonard Leung feels this is because Googles Corporate Credit Card is so attractive to own with: streamlined application process A that requires just a few clicks orporate, not individual, liability C for purchases

We were pleased to partner with Google and Visa to develop a solution that streamlined Googles global expense processing system.
HUBERT JOLLY
Global Head of Commercial Card, Citi

Program Benefits
Visa conducted an analysis to show Google how the early metrics of Googles Corporate Credit Card program compared with the averages of their industry and revenue peer group (defined as Fortune 500 Software and IT). They employed the Visa PerformSource Industry Benchmark Tool, a consultative service that uses analytical tools and best practices guidelines to help organizations realize potential cost savings and greater efficiencies within their commercial card programs. The tool compares an organizations card program metrics to a set of industry and revenue benchmarks compiled exclusively for Visa by RPMG Research. The analysis showed that Google is well ahead of industry averages in its card-to-employee ratio with:

55% card penetration among eligible employees in less than one year early 80% penetration among the most likely users, including frequent travelers N

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The analysis also showed that Googles Citi Visa Commercial payment program is excelling at capturing transactions below $2,500, which reduces purchase orders and helps eliminate paperwork. Google cites the following benefits:

90% for card transactions versus purchase orders Time savings of approximately 40% versus manual processes
ost savings of approximately C
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reater employee satisfaction from a more efficient process G ncreased visibility into employee spend, offering managers greater I insight and control over budgets Faster, more accurate expense reporting 3

Future Opportunities to Improve Performance

After a successful initial rollout, Google is looking for ways to expand the program and realize more benefits. The Visa PerformSource analysis identified several opportunities, including the ability to increase their program by up to 504% by moving more procurement transactions from purchase orders to the card. Payables solutions, e-procurement integration and central travel accounts can help enable Google to achieve this growth. The company also has the opportunity to promote Googles Corporate Credit Card for more T&E spend, including capturing

spend on meetings and utilizing a central travel account to capture non-employee travel and infrequent traveler spend. Additionally, the tool uncovered an opportunity for Google to increase the average transaction size so that it meets the industry benchmark (defined as the RPMG Research Top Quartile Value). Accounts payable and ghost card programs, e-procurement integration and payables automation offer a few ways to help achieve this. These innovative payment products tend to capture transactions that are higher in average dollar size than transactions seen on traditional commercial cards.

Im so relieved not to have to use my personal card. Googles Corporate Credit Card has made a drastic impact on my comfort level with workrelated spending.
Sales Administrator, Google

For more information about Visa Corporate card program benefits, contact Frederik Pen at fpen@visa.com or 650-432-3338. You may also visit Visas Commercial Solutions website at visa.com/commercial. For more information about Citis Visa Commercial card programs, please contact Kris Stafie at 206-652-3329 or visit us at www.citimanager.com.

Findings are based on the results of a Visa PerformSource Industry Benchmark Tool analysis done for Google.

2010 Visa. All Rights Reserved. 2010 Citi, N.A. All rights reserved. Citi, and Citi and Arc Design are trademarks and service marks of Citigroup Inc. or its affiliates, used and registered throughout the world.

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