Coupa accelerates the transformation

We are living and breathing with SaaS software world which does not make exceptions for procurement. Coupa as one of the leaders in the domain becomes more and more popular. as one of the million Coupa users, it is fairly to say Coupa is great overall.Coupa helps your company accelerating the transformation but not the one and only factor dictates the success of transformation. Coupa makes the life easier and brings end to end procurement experience comparing the traditional ERP material management. Since Coupa is highly configurable (not customizable), it gives the organization discover what is the leading benchmark and best practice out there. However, the technology is an enablement that powers your procurement not to replace your team. The success of the transformation does not only depend what tool you choose but depends how you intelligently use the tool to maximize the benefits to fit your roadmaps. Based my knowledge, I would like to highlight some factors that makes your Coupa to be successful

Know type of procurement

Not every organization has same type of procurement and needs. Typically, we have direct spend for manufacture and EPC and indirectly spend for majority companies. Coupa works well on large users who required better guided buying experience. By knowing your type of procurement helps estimating what modules you need from Coupa ,the amount of user licenses and cloud storage.

Understand the end to end

Procurement is an art based on the processes. Coupa builds its modules link the end to end processes. It has CLM, Sourcing, P2P, expense, risk and inventory etc. For example, as user journey, you need soliciting the potential supplier to attend the sourcing. The supplier needs to be on board and pass on the risk assessment before moving to award. Then, contract authorizing happens right after with CLM. When your internal users want to purchase, the P2P comes to the picture. It is a simple journey with complex processes involved. Coupa makes it happens all in one platform. It has to be balance on the user experience, compliance and effectiveness for all his consumers. It has unlimited combination and capabilities. I am learning everything new every day. As users, it is critical that we understand the end-to-end impacts and reason why. Coupa provides the great customer support but cannot give you answer on what you want. Long story short, understand end to end process before you implement any changes

Be agile to manage Coupa

Coupa is not a conventional tool which is traditional built-in house based on we want. Coupa is a cloud-based tool to build the solution based what you need. Unlike the traditional internal IT engagement model, Coupa takes heavy lifting for programming and system maintenances. It has annual releases which enhance the user capabilities based on the industry benchmark. The team who running the Coupa platform has to agile to responds the changes. The successful team does not require tech savvy but has to be customer focus with great knowledge on business process with Coupa capabilities. I really like this approach simply because it makes me focus on what I am passionate about without worrying about IT.

I am not able to list every single aspect with Coupa with my limited knowledge. Everyone passionate procurement professional is always a kid who is in grade one but dreams to be grade ten. The technology does not change the world, we who use the technology makes the world to be best place.