While walking around the Coupa Inspire 2018 event in San Francisco last week, I had the opportunity to speak with quite a few customers and prospects, and the feedback I received was very positive. There is definitely a buzz about Coupa and the overall direction the company is taking. One particularly positive impression from the conference that stood out to me was Coupa’s focus on the customer, or as they like to call it ‘The Community.’ On Monday I discussed how Coupa has been able to leverage intelligence from its customer base (click here to read). From my perspective, there were two other main themes that permeated throughout the event – ‘Payments Coming’ and ‘The Best UI is no UI’. I discuss both of these topics in detail below.
Payments Coming
At the conference, Coupa announced that it is developing its own payments platform, Coupa Pay, to address transactional payments, card solutions, and financing solutions. Coupa Pay represents the latest addition to the Business Spend Management suite of applications. Previously, Coupa’s approach to addressing the payment requirements of its customers was through a partnership model with third-party payments providers such as Nvoicepay. With the introduction of Coupa Pay, Coupa intends to create its own payments platform and let its users decide whether to leverage the new Coupa offering for its payment needs or leverage those of a third-party provider.
“The Best UI is No UI”
At first glance this might not make sense, but after I explain it I think you will understand. On Day One, Coupa introduced this concept on the main stage, and it was then repeated numerous times throughout conference sessions. The question ‘What is the best user interface?’ is really a trick one. What Coupa is getting at is the best interface is one you don’t need to have at all. The best interface is one that is done for you automatically and requires no action on your part. The concept here is that Coupa wants to leverage artificial intelligence, machine learning, business rules, robotics process automation, etc., as much as possible so that routine and not so routine tasks associated with the procure-to-pay (P2P) process can be automated, and require little, or no interaction at all on behalf of the user (think driver-less cars). When you think about it for a moment or two it makes sense and is really at the heart of the P2P automation discussion we have been talking about for over 20 years: how can we leverage technology to automate as much of the process as possible, and just let organizations focus on growing their business? Big Idea, we’ll see if they can deliver.
Final Thoughts
One thing that particularly impressed at the Coupa Inspire 2018 event was that the majority of the presentations centered on adding business value to customers. Coupa’s Business Spend Management vision and strategy was clearly communicated and well received by those in attendance. As evidenced by the new announcements at the conference, Coupa continues to expand the breadth and depth of its offering. We will be watching closely to see if Coupa is able to continue to deliver on all fronts, and keep its customer first focus as it continues to grow.
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