Travel and Expense Operations Team Manager

Travel and Expense Team Manager Job Purpose and Impact The Team Manager – Global Travel & Expense Operations will lead a Bengaluru-based team responsible for delivering accurate, timely and employee-focused Travel & Expense (T&E) support in a global team. The role will oversee operations, ServiceNow T&E tickets, SAP Concur queries and operational support, such as Dunning, co-ordination on Z-file errors, UCP processes, and other T&E operational work. The successful candidate will bring strong SAP Concur expertise, a sound accounting background, disciplined people leadership and a strategic mindset. The role is expected to simplify and standardize processes, reduce recurring manual work, resolve root causes, create measurable efficiencies and oversee ServiceNow enhancements that improve T&E workflows, reporting, knowledge management and the employee experience. Key Accountabilities Lead the day-to-day delivery of Global T&E operations, establishing clear priorities, ownership, service standards and escalation paths. Oversee ServiceNow tickets related to T&E, including intake, categorization, assignment, aging, resolution quality, SLA performance, backlog management and escalations. Oversee the identification, investigation and timely resolution of Z-file errors, Dunning, UCP Process, Payment queries with a focus on root-cause elimination and prevention of repeat failures. Monitor operational KPIs and SLAs, ticket volumes; use performance insights to drive corrective actions and continuous improvement. Bring a strategic and forward-looking mindset to the function, balancing immediate operational delivery with the long-term scalability of Global T&E operations. Identify repetitive, manual and non-value-added activities and lead initiatives to simplify, standardize, automate or eliminate them. Act as the T&E business lead for ServiceNow enhancements and workflow improvements that support the Global T&E team. Improve ticket routing, categorization, workflow automation, user experience, knowledge articles and self-service capabilities, and oversee the design and finalization of T&E metrics dashboards. Partner with Digital Technology, to resolve system issues and deliver sustainable improvements across Concur, ServiceNow, SAP, JDE and connected processes. Build team capability across SAP Concur, accounting, ServiceNow, problem solving, process improvement, controls and stakeholder management. Manage capacity, workload, cross-training, succession planning and business continuity for critical T&E activities. Qualifications Bachelor's degree in Accounting, Finance, Commerce, Business Administration or a related field, or equivalent practical experience. 10 or more years of relevant experience in Travel & Expense, finance operations, accounting operations, shared services or a comparable global operational environment. Demonstrated people-management experience of 6+ years , including leading, coaching and developing teams in a complex service-delivery environment. Strong hands-on and functional expertise in SAP Concur Expense, including workflows, exceptions, integrations, deployments and operational support. Experience managing or overseeing ServiceNow tickets, workflows, reporting and enhancement requirements. Strong analytical, problem-solving, communication and stakeholder-management skills, with the ability to influence across functions and levels. Experience with SAP and/or JDE and a strong understanding of ERP interfaces , migrations or decommissioning activities. Experience building and leading employee-facing support services, including phone-based support channels, case management processes, service metrics and operational governance Hands-on experience in Power BI and/or Power Apps for dashboard development, data visualization and operational metrics reporting would be an added advantage. Experience Level Mid Level