Coupa Software is a global SaaS platform & ecosystem centered around Business Spend Management (BSM). The company helps large enterprises gain visibility into, and control over, the money and resources spent within their organizations. It was founded in 2006 from ex-Oracle employees who worked on procurement apps, and CEO joined in 2009 as a rookie (previously was SVP at SaaS provider Successfactors, later acq by SAP). It is based in Silicon Valley, with offices across Europe, Latin America, and AsiaPac. It went public Oct 2016.

Investor Presentation 3/16/20

  • 1300+ current custs
  • 5M+ suppliers
  • >$1.6T cumulative spend so far on the platform
  • FY20 had 48% YoY revenue growth
  • Gross Margin 73%

Let's take a stroll through what their platform provides, and the inter-connective ecosystem it has created between enterprise customers, suppliers, and partners.

Coupa Overview

Coupa stands for...

  • Comprehensive
  • Open
  • User-centric
  • Prescriptive
  • Accelerated

https://www.coupa.com/blog/c-o-u-p-a-our-vision

Comprehensive:

  • core covering all aspects of spending (procurement, invoicing, expenses, payments)
  • then extends outward to power more-specific apps (sourcing, contract mgmt, supplier mgmt, analytics)
  • help every company ensure that they are as operationally efficient as can be
  • [so comprehensive, they like to bolt on additional features in order to expand features and new product lines...]

Open:

  • maintain openness, transparency, and authenticity across entire spend ecosystem
  • formulates entire Coupa Community across partners, suppliers, customers

User-Centric:

  • "the best UI is no UI”
  • have the tech do as much of the work as possible
  • users only get involved when it adds meaningful value to a given process

Prescriptive:

  • provide prescriptive advice and insights to customers
  • AI/ML to provide "Coupa Community Intelligence", analyzing anonymized transactions over entire customer base

Accelerated:

  • provide real, measurable value for all customers every year
  • fast, results-oriented, and highly agile approach

Platform Overview

Business Spend Management (BSM) Platform: https://www.coupa.com/platform/

  • "Everything You Need to Manage Your Spend in One Place"
  • comprehensive, cloud-based platform
  • connects 100s of orgs with 3M+ suppliers globally
  • greater viz and control over spend
  • built-in compliance
  • custs get real measurable value/savings
  • huge partner network of suppliers
  • "network effect" - suppliers want to come to where the buyers are; and buyers want to come to where suppliers are known, reviewed, and easily accessible
  • prescriptive intelligence features over all cumulative spend data via AI/ML ("Community Intelligence")
  • fraud detection via AI/ML ("Spend Guard")
  • pre-negotiated savings from trusted suppliers ("Coupa Advantage")
  • group sourcing - collaborative buying for bulk savings ("Source Together")
  • rich partner ecosystem of systems integrators, implementation partners, resellers and tech partners

Platform layers

Platform core

Procure:

  • e-procurement system
  • streamlines purchase requisition and PO process
  • manage spend policies & approval rules
  • e-commerce platform ("Open Buy") for supplier goods & services, via Amazon Business
  • auto-sends to supplier for fulfillment & invoicing
  • real-time budget mgmt

Invoice:

  • electronic invoicing & automation
  • manage supplier invoices via dashboards & work queues
  • prioritize early pay discounts
  • configurable approval workflow
  • assure compliance w/ govt regulations
  • eliminate paper & processing costs
  • reduce payment fraud risk

Expense:

  • travel & expense mgmt
  • control & visibility over employee expenses
  • mobile app for empl expense tracking
  • GPS/geo-location capabilities for easy mgmt of travel expenses
  • assure compliance w/ govt regulations
  • import charges from CC providers

Pay: [newest addition, expanding core focuses to 4]

  • centralized hub for payments
  • automate invoice payments & reconciliations
  • global e-payment tracking
  • maximize rebates & discounts
  • streamline empl reimbursements
  • growing ecosystem of payment partners https://www.coupa.com/pay-partners/

Modules

Spend Analysis (procure):

  • built-in reports and dashboards for mgmt to see spend activity, workflow, bottlenecks, grouping of tx detail
  • classification AI
  • 100+ reports
  • integrate external APIs for holistic view

Strategic Sourcing (invoice):

  • find best suppliers based on input constraints
  • complex sourcing of raw materials
  • collaboration for bid review, w/ feedback and scoring

Contract Mgmt (invoice+expense):

  • manage contracts for purchasing
  • enforce compliance and negotiated rates
  • real-time enforcement and spend visibility
  • alerts at expiration or renewal dates

Contingent Workforce (expense+pay):

  • manage & visibility over temp labor & outside services;
  • optimize labor spend
  • reduce compliance risk
  • source new talent & manage onboarding

Supplier Mgmt (procure+pay):

  • manage and pay suppliers
  • custom web forms for supplier entry for procurement and invoicing
  • real-time dashboard with complete visibility over suppliers
  • monitor & reduce supplier risk
  • access supplier reviews based on collective Community data, credit ratings & public data
  • source new suppliers & manage onboarding

Inventory Mgmt (procure): [no longer in the Product menu or the platform layer image, but webpage is still directly accessible]

  • manage inventory movement
  • predict shortages
  • manage goods and licenses

Ecosystem

Coupa Open Business Network:

  • supplier-buyer interaction platform w/ notifications
  • reduces paper trail & costs
  • improves operating efficiencies
  • can integrate w/ supplier 3rd party systems (Oracle, SAP, others)
  • no fees (free) for suppliers

Source Together:

  • community-powered group savings
  • bundle purchases for max discounting
  • manage group sourcing collaborators

Coupa Advantage:

  • leverages the collective buying power of customers
  • pre-negotiated savings from trusted suppliers
  • benchmarking and insights from Community Intelligence

Community Intelligence:

  • ML/AI insights over collective BSM data in platform
  • supplier insights to reduce risk
  • operational insights
  • compare metrics against other customers

Open Buy:

  • integrated partnership with Amazon Business
  • seamless shopping within Procurement search
  • competitive pricing from Amazon platfrom

Landscape

Competition

  • Oracle - procurement, expense mgmt
  • SAP/Ariba - procurement & supply chain
  • SAP/Concur - travel expense mgmt

Accolades

-muji