CFO Meeting Takeaways

Research evidence excerpt

CFO Meeting Takeaways

Additional Notes

Well Positioned Against Diverse Competitor Set — Navan’s competitive positioning continues to

benefit against legacy incumbents such as SAP Concur (software market leader) and traditional travel

agencies such as GBTG (travel booking volume ~4x Navan). Navan aims to modernize corporate travel

and deliver measurable savings by automating travel items and greater centralization of bookings which

was previous processed off platform ("unmanged spend"). Our channel checks suggest the company

provides a better user experience compared to legacy providers, competes on better price (sometimes

50% less than legacy competitors), and provides measurable cost savings. We think these vendors

will remain share donors for Navan into the medium-term. Considering selling into smaller customers,

Navan’s differentiated model (travel management first) provides end-to-end deep supplier integrations

(hundreds of airlines, hotel, and travel partners). In contrast, newer fintech-oriented competitors such as

Ramp Rippling, and Expensify are primarily attacking the downmarket from the expense and payments

layer first and building lighter travel capabilities over time. We think this product differentiation may

narrow over time, and for customers with less complex travel needs Navan may be better served

focusing more on enterprise customers and further harnessing its growing PLG strategy.

Impressive AI Product Trajectory — Navan provided updates to its AI strategy at the company's recent

user conference (link). Against fears that AI tools will disrupt Navan, the company is already deploying

product in the field and its support agent, Ava, handles more than half of the company's customer

interactions.