In December 2022, Thomas Bravo acquired the public company Coupa and took it private, which led to Leagh Turner becoming the new CEO of the company in November of the following year. Coupa is a supplier of spend management solutions that has been growing quickly for years, but Thomas Bravo aimed for more profitable growth. The company’s goal is to increase its annual recurring revenue from $1 billion today to $2 billion in the next three years in a more profitable manner. Turner emphasized that scale drives profitability during an industry analyst meeting before the Coupa Inspire user conference began.
Despite initially recognizing Coupa’s innovation as the creator of the business spend management software category, it took Turner several months to realize the true potential of the company’s foresight. Coupa’s BSM platform, based on a public cloud, connects buyers and suppliers, enabling businesses to streamline their procurement, invoicing, payments, and other spend management processes. The platform accesses $6 trillion worth of transactional data, demonstrating the company’s focus on community collaboration and leveraging data for the benefit of its customers.
Coupa’s chief marketing officer, Kevin Iaquinto, shared the company’s vision to increase visibility from $6 trillion in mainly indirect spending to $20 to $30 trillion across direct and indirect categories. By leveraging AI and data mining, Coupa aims to provide community-powered KPIs for optimal performance in various areas such as procurement, invoicing, expenses, payments, and ESG. The company’s data insights are expected to become the “pulse of spend” as the dataset grows to provide commodity-level alerts, anticipating potential product shortages and other supply chain disruptions.
At the Coupa Inspire event, Turner discussed the significance of mining data to benefit the community of customers and emphasized the importance of using ethically sourced data for AI solutions to provide accurate answers. She highlighted Coupa’s unique position as a company that can effectively manage suppliers through its AI capabilities. With a focus on sustainability, Donna Wilczek, EVP strategy and innovation at Coupa, stressed the importance of leveraging community data to accelerate sustainability goals and mitigate third-party risks to comply with global regulations. The message of simultaneous profitability and sustainability through better decision-making was reiterated by Jen Browne, chief procurement officer at Salesforce, during a fireside chat at the event.
Overall, Coupa aims to continue its growth trajectory by leveraging its vast data resources and AI capabilities to drive profitability while also promoting sustainability and better decision-making among its customers. The company’s focus on community collaboration and ethical data sourcing sets it apart in the enterprise software industry, positioning it as a leader in providing innovative spend management solutions for businesses worldwide.
