Coupa Waves Travel Into Integrated Platform

Coupa’s Tivona and Layman focus on:

• How journey is becoming in with the bigger procurement expertise
• Monitoring provider variety and carbon footprints
• New procurement tendencies with distant employees

Earlier this yr, enterprise spend administration platform Coupa launched its new journey reserving module. Constructed from its acquisition of journey reserving platform Pana, Coupa designed its travel platform to not promote as a standalone product however to supply as a software built-in with its cost and expense platforms. Coupa VP of product administration Valerie Layman, alongside head of Coupa Journey Devon Tivona—beforehand Pana’s CEO and cofounder—not too long ago spoke with BTN government editor Michael B. Baker about preliminary buyer response to the brand new platform in addition to future plans in influencing traveler habits and serving to purchasers with sustainability and variety wants.

[Editor’s note: After this interview was conducted, a Coupa spokesperson confirmed to BTN that Layman was departing Coupa, and her last day is Oct. 14]

Enterprise Journey Information: How has Coupa integrated journey into its bigger technique?

Valerie Layman: All the pieces that we do is round a three-wave technique: capturing all spend, optimizing processes and amplifying that worth by way of the neighborhood, the worth of all our neighborhood information. Wave one was seize, and we’re doing that by way of a seamless, great consumer expertise. If we will make this a stupendous consumer expertise, they will need to use the options, and we’ll have the ability to seize extra of the spend. Wave two is throughout optimizing the processes, breaking down the silos. Most level options, you are going to have siloed options that do not join nicely collectively, information processes that do not movement nicely, so we’re breaking down these silos. 

We not too long ago had been listed as No. 19 on Quick Firm’s [Best Workplaces for] Innovators. T&E is a shining instance, as a result of we spent the final two years constructing and innovating within the T&E area, so we will ship what we name a candy synergy of merchandise that creates a seamless expertise for the journey. We did not simply construct a reserving software. We constructed a seamless expertise between journey, expense, Journey Saver, which was formerly Yapta, funds—meaning digital playing cards in addition to worker reimbursement—and fraud detection. You convey all of this collectively, and it creates a really seamless expertise. You e-book one thing, it is robotically generated into an expense report, and you’ll pay with a digital card that you simply purchase different items and providers with as nicely. You monitor it with Journey Saver, so if a less expensive lodge room comes alongside, it’ll robotically rebook for you. As soon as the expense report is accepted, it is seamlessly paid nevertheless the worker needs to be paid: ACH, Venmo, PayPal, or nevertheless [else]. 

You are going to see us proceed to work on creating extra synergies throughout our suite of merchandise at Coupa, particularly with regards to [environmental, social and governance]. Our third wave is amplification, amplifying that worth by way of neighborhood AI. We take all of our spend throughout all of our firms and prospects and we use that info, anonymized, to assist drive higher choices in addition to benchmarking.

BTN: What particularly are you doing on the ESG aspect?

Layman: Now, we now have the dashboard view of variety and the way various the suppliers you might be interacting with are. It seems to be throughout procurement—what have you ever procured, what invoices are coming in and what have you ever expensed—and it says, “Here is the way you’re doing from a variety perspective.” It is the identical with sustainability. We simply launched our sustainability dashboard that does related issues, trying throughout all these completely different avenues of spend and provides you that view. We might be including journey into that. We aren’t there but, nevertheless it’s the following step. You will have all these initiatives in your firms happening, however how do you present that throughout your spend, particularly when you need to begin reporting on the spend and bringing all of it collectively? We simply have to take the info we’re accumulating and feed it into that dashboards.

BTN: What buyer response did you see after the reserving platform launch?

Layman: February was most likely a fairly good time to launch, as a result of journey was selecting up once more. We did evaluation on expense information not too long ago, and we have seen spend for airfare decide up about 250 % quarter over quarter. We’re seeing demand fairly scorching and heavy for T&E. The place we’re seeing essentially the most demand and success is with current Coupa prospects that already purchase our answer and perceive the worth of bringing all of this candy synergy collectively, including on journey to their current suite.

BTN: Have customers sometimes been firms that already had different journey platforms in place, or are these prospects new to journey administration?

Devon Tivona: I might guess about 50 % are switching from current managed journey options, and about 50 % are at that tipping level the place that they had an expense answer and now need to have the pre-spend management on high of that. When you possibly can apply the identical governance controls to pencils, laptops and journey all on one platform, nearly each single one in all our win experiences we get in our inboxes mentions prospects seeing the worth of getting it multi function place. 

Layman: We not too long ago launched a shopper on our [Procure to Pay] platform, and we had been speaking to this buyer about T&E. He stated, “I simply launched procurement. I would like my workers to acquire versus expense. Go to Coupa, purchase what it’s worthwhile to purchase, after which you do not have to expense it, however I am having a tough time getting my vacationers to find out about this and getting them to see the advantages.” Now we have a stupendous new T&E dashboard that mainly reveals workers how a lot they might have saved had they procured one thing as an alternative of expensing it. It is bringing all of these ideas collectively that is so highly effective for these prospects.

BTN: Are you aiming to affect traveler habits as nicely?

Layman: We’ll go down the habits path. We do not do it but. Probably the most necessary functions might be with regards to sustainability initiatives. In the present day, you possibly can go to plenty of completely different reserving websites, and so they’ll inform you the carbon emissions of this explicit flight. For a traveler to have the ability to make that tradeoff between prices and the way that impacts that sustainability at that firm, that is the place prescribing to the traveler what the fitting factor to do is might be actually necessary. 

We even have an idea we name Spend Coach. Let’s coach the customers to do the fitting factor, what’s finest for the corporate. In the event that they suppose they’ll get their flight cheaper some place else, listed below are all the explanations you get monetary savings when you e-book by way of the reserving answer. Not solely does it give us visibility and have obligation of care and scale back danger, it additionally permits the traveler to save cash. Issues like that may proceed to be constructed into the answer. That is the place the facility of our neighborhood is available in, too. Here is what everybody else locally is doing and spending, and we will begin to get very prescriptive concerning the issues that we’re going.

Tivona: That is one of many unmentioned roles of a journey supervisor, notably in an organization that is turning into managed for the primary time: the chief advertiser of why you do managed journey. We’re attempting to assist with that promoting marketing campaign. In our business, we speak about [that] end-user experiences add battle with price financial savings. That could be true in very primary phrases, in that it could be good for me to fly enterprise however that may price the corporate some huge cash. However for the broad view of spend administration and optimization, the higher end-user expertise will get extra individuals reserving in-channel, and subsequently the higher you possibly can optimize that spend and negotiate on it.

BTN: Are buyer wants altering as a result of new office realities following the pandemic?

Layman: We do plenty of evaluation on our expense information, and we now have seen a rise in what workers are procuring. It is round, “How do I construct my at-home workplace?” We’re positively seeing extra distant employees, and that relates again to, how do I collect and create that sense of neighborhood with these explicit workers who are actually distant, and bringing them again collectively. Certainly one of our areas of focus is round how we assist employers convey these small teams collectively in a extra seamless, simpler manner.

Tivona: Not solely are we seeing the pattern of rare vacationers needing to get on airplanes as a result of they’re now remotely positioned and have to get collectively, we’re additionally seeing these rare vacationers turning into procurement personas as nicely. They’ve to purchase stuff they by no means needed to earlier than. Each of these two wants collectively are one of many explanation why one our wave one technique of specializing in consumer expertise is so important, so that they have that single cost class on cellular or on desktop, the place they’ll go outfit their dwelling workplace but additionally purchase a flight for the primary time, and it isn’t a complicated interface for them. They have not gotten used to all of the nuances that we’re all conscious of in company journey and have come to be OK with. They’re simply anticipating one thing that is nearly as good or higher than their client expertise. 

On high of that, we’re not out but, however we’re specializing in investing in instruments we will construct for these small conferences organizers to make their life simpler. There’s tons of coordination that goes on once you’re sporting that unofficial hat.