>>Welcome back to the cosmopolitan in Las Vegas. Lisa Martin here at Coupa inspire 2022 with a couple thousand people here. And I got to tell you it's really great to be back in person, done a wheelchair. Join three next, the SVP of product strategy and innovation at Cooper. Donna, welcome to the program. >>Thank you so much. It is great to be here and it's great to be live, but yet >>It is great to be alive. Again. I feel like I'm exhaling for the first time in a long time. >>I know, right. It's just so wonderful. I want >>To talk a little bit about you you've been a Cooper for a long time since it was just a baby startup, a little >>Baby >>Lady that also had a lot of leadership roles, product strategy, marketing, a customer experience, professional services. I also read that you have 12 software patent. I do. I love that. >>I know it's been one of the most amazing things that Coupa, which is this ability to be creative and innovate and then get your item patented. It's wonderful. >>Talk to me about, obviously the last two years have been so interesting, shall we say dynamic challenging? And we were talking before we went live that we haven't. The key bus had been that Coupa inspire, inspire hasn't happened since 2019 and it's almost three years ago. Talk to me about the last 10 years I Cooper and the massive acceleration I'm Rob was saying this morning in the keynote 3.3 trillion under spend under management almost at a trillion a year run rate. Yeah, >>We have huge. The numbers have just started to really become a fly wheel, right? More customers more spend. And really now having this big data repository of $3.3 trillion and the ability to apply AI to that data. But it really has been a journey. Um, when I joined about 11 years ago, now we had this vision, the vision was always a data centric model where we can apply AI to that data and create intelligence. And now we're finally at a volume of data where we can, we can anonymize the data and we can create insights at a level that we just were not able to do 10 years ago. >>One of the things that we've learned, I think fairly recently is that every company has to be a data company regardless of industry. Even I, I, I think about that, like my grocery store has to be a data company. Sure. There's no more, it'd be nice. If we had a data strategy, it would be nice if we actually could glean insights from our data that's table stakes, that's business critical that's differentiating. >>Absolutely. And I think, you know, I think what's really interesting in an enterprise software is that as a SAS provider, although we may host the systems, we don't actually own our customer's data. We need to actually have permission to usage of the data. And that was one of the things that Cooper did very early on, about 10 years ago, where we started working with our customers and really building that permission to use into the contracts themselves. And that has really created now this motion of having data that we can now consume and use where a lot of businesses in enterprise software had not really thought about the notion of permission to use and having data available to them. >>That's the power of the community, right? And that's one of the things that clearly sets Cooper apart from its competition. >>Yes, indeed. We have spent so many years on creating this model of how does the community and how does community.ai help each individual customer become more efficient, save more and also do good for the planet in a way that has just never been able to do, if that company was doing it alone by themselves. >>Speaking of good for the planet, let's talk about ESG, your customer conversations. ESG is broad. >>How >>Are customers approaching the topic of it to bring it in as a strategic initiative? Okay. >>You know, I think this is a really great question. So what happened about a few years ago is our customers sat down with us and we said to ourselves, if we were going to make every dollar more sustainable, more inclusive that we're spending, what would we need to do? What would that be? The places within a spend function that you could improve the outcome of that dollar to be more sustainable and inclusive. And we broke it down into so many different features. And over the last three years, we've developed, delivered over 80 different features now available in our BSM sustainable BSM toolkit that our customers can configure Coupa to impact their ESG goals positively. >>So BSM can be a facilitator of ESG or an accelerator, or >>It's definitely an accelerator. And one of the things we're trying to do is democratize the ability to do good, right? So oftentimes the larger organizations are able to invest people into these problems. Well now smaller and smaller organizations are expected to comply with government regulations. How do these businesses do it? They can do it with technology like Kupa. >>Got it. Okay. One of the things I was looking at in my prep for the event was a recent survey that Cooper did just in February. It's just a couple of months ago, 800 decision makers, >>Um, >>Who have overview or responsibility for the supply chain and businesses with over a thousand employees. And this was global. What are some of the improvements that businesses, what did you find that they want to make with respect to ESG? >>You know, I think there was a really great survey that showed businesses, have the intent they want to do good, but the problem is the act secretion of it. How do they actually make it happen? And technology systems have largely failed them or have only looked at a part of the problem without looking at the whole problem. I can give you an example, please >>Do >>So in the scope three emissions, which is on everyone's mind right now, how are we going to comply with scope three emissions? At first on the surface, it looks like a reporting problem. Oh, I'll just create a report. But the real problem is data related the data itself that these organizations have on what they purchased and who they purchased it from is terrible. And so if your data's bad, your report to the government is going to be terrible, right? So you have to look at the problem holistically solving the data problem before you get to the reporting problem. And that's what Coupa really specializes on. >>And the things I was also looking at in the survey was from an overall theme perspective that the availability and reliability of crucial supply chain data is preventing organizations from operationalizing, their corporate purpose with respect to ESG will Kupa solves that problem. >>Absolutely. >>Talk to me about that. >>Yeah. So let's talk about things like third-party risk management. When you are working in a supply chain, you need to know who your suppliers are, not just your suppliers, but their suppliers as well, tier two, tier three, tier four, or even beyond even. Um, and this is everything from anti-bribery and anti-corruption to InfoSec and GDPR and so many different government regulations on knowing who you're doing business with. And Coupa solves that problem of collecting that data from your third parties and then continually monitoring it and passing it into the different systems within your spend processes in order to make sure that the person that is making a decision, how's the data at their fingertips. >>That's critical. And you know, one of the things we've learned in the last two years is that everybody wants things now, instantaneously in real time, it's no longer, oh, that's great to have that. No, I, as a consumer, I want that in business. I want that every company has to be a data company, but if organizations can't be able to extract insights from that data and make smart decisions on it in real time, they're going to be out of business. >>Absolutely. The ability to be able to process data at the time you're making a decision, the best data possible at that moment is critical in order for these companies, really, it's a, it's an ability for this company to thrive and even survive. >>Absolutely. Nobody's going to want one thing, I think we know nobody's going to want less data slot more slowly as time goes on. It's always going to be more data faster, faster, fastest. >>Absolutely. And that's why this model at Kupa has really been formulated over the last 12 years of how do we collect the data across our customer community? How do we pull it together, normalize it, aggregate it, anonymize it, and create insights that are so powerful. Like what we're just announcing now is our ocean freight pricing >>Index. >>So we've collected all of the data from our customers that are sourcing ocean freight and we're taking that data and we're creating a market index for the pricing of ocean freight. So now within Coupa, you can actually see what's happening the price of ocean freight, and we're going to continue to add more and more services. As more data gets processed to Hooper. >>Talk to me about the customer influence and your role. You talk with customers a lot. It used to be on the road a lot. Obviously that's changed. Hopefully that's coming back, but let's talk about one of the things I always know when I, when I come to inspire, I always know I'm going to see a lot of customer logos. I'm going to feel a lot. And on the cube here from the voice of Coupa's customer, talk to me about some of the influence that your customers have been able to have in the last two years alone. >>Absolutely. So our philosophy at Coupa's, uh, none of us is as smart as all of us. And it really is the DNA of this company, the heart of the company. So when the pandemic hit, we just really said to ourselves, okay, how do we continue that collaboration and now a digital world? And that's what we did. We just pivoted really fast into a digital world, but the same volume, the same collaboration, the same conversations were happening with our customer community. And in the last year alone, we probably had over 400 customers over 90% of the features we delivered had customer input into those features. And the model continues around our customers, collaborating with us via the digital channels and our product owners, really working with them as a co innovation team. And not as, you know, product in a ivory tower somewhere. >>I like the co-innovation kind of team part, but it's really what you're describing is that flywheel that you mentioned a few minutes ago, that's really always been there at Coupa for very, very long time. And it's just getting faster and more efficient. And I would say in a nerdy way more, data-driven >>More data, data, data. I will talk data all day long. It's just wonderful. And even this ocean freight thing, I'll tell everyone 10 years ago, this was the dream to have enough data, to be able to create these types of supply chain insights that are just unparalleled. And now as the data continues to increase the next year's insights and the year after are going to just keep improving because as the data increases, the insights get better and in different categories, different ways. >>So when you're in those customer conversations with customers who maybe prospects, I'll say who aren't yet Coupa customers who ha who say Donna, I've got a, we've got a huge data problem. Where do they start? How do you advise them to be able to overcome that? So they can use the data, glean the insights in real time and be competitive? >>You know, the first thing I always say to our customers or prospective customers is start the journey and have conversations with Coupa as a partner and not as a vendor, the more that we can work together and say, help us understand your technology architecture, help us understand your pain points. Where are the, where are the parts of your business that are critically damaged that need us to prioritize. And then let us have a discussion for you as a company that we can make recommendations you based on other customers that have been like you and have those same pain points and then lay it out from that point of view. But it's, it's hard when it's a very, you know, classic old model of we're procurement and you're a vendor and we're going to silo it because what we see is a >>Lot of, >>Well, this is how we used to do it. So we're only asking you questions around how we used to do it. And now how the rest of the, not about how the rest of the community is doing it. So my advice would really be open up the doors, have a conversation, start as a partner, and then let's figure it out from there. >>Well, one of the things that came across in Rob keynote this morning was about Cooper, about we've got to get rid of the silos. Every organization in every industry cannot operate in a silo. And even, even Barbara Corcoran's keynote when she was talking about some of the best ideas. In fact, I think I saw a tweet from her the other day that said she doesn't think she's ever had a really great idea. They've always come from basically collaborating within a group. So not in a silo. >>Absolutely collaboration is key in everything we do. We, none of us is as smart as all of us. And it truly is a key point in technology. These silos that are happening in business that prevents the risk from properly be operationalized. So for example, the risk team may be aware that there is a supplier that has now gone onto a government watch list. Okay? But the payments team is not aware. So the payments team is still issuing payments to that vendor or new orders are going to that vendor or sourcing events. Coupa brings those silos together and says, instead, we're going to employ what we call suite synergy. And we're going to stop the transactions when the risk is increased, routed to the risk team for review before the money goes out the door. >>And how does I love sweet synergy? How does that resonate? Who are you talking to within customers? Are you talking to the C-suite? How does suite synergy resonate that far up the stack? Because the concept is clear. >>Yeah. It's about the collaboration for more value and protecting the brand. The, what the people we speak to are generally the CFO, the CPO, the chief procurement officer and the CIO. Those are generally, um, who we speak to. But increasingly we see the chief sustainability officer, the chief diversity officer, and especially from a notion of how do I not just report on my data? How do I improve it? How do I impact diversity by helping the person, making a spend decisions, giving them diverse options at the time they're doing that spend decision, instead of just reporting on it, throw it, >>Grow it, act on it, take the insights and actually make smart decisions faster. >>Absolutely. And before the money goes out the door, once the money goes out the door, you cannot influence it to be going to a diverse supplier it's already done. >>Right. So I know we're only on day one here. Last question for you is what are its great turnout? All the people behind us. It's great to hear that buzz of, of a conference environment. Once again, what are some of the things that you've heard today that really excite you about the direction that Cooper's going in? >>I think for me, it all started today. And yesterday, yesterday we are a community advisory boards. We had hundreds of customers that were meeting with us and it was just the sense of co-innovation being alive and well. So many customers today, I sat next to ADM, uh, one of our customers and they're working with us on supply chain collaboration and the next generation of supply chain collaboration. And it was just so wonderful to finally meet the people that we've been working with for so long in a digital world. >>That's right. It's always nice. When you look at badges, I know you put video conferencing for two years. You're >>Taller than I thought >>Exactly. I don't get that. I don't get that. You're taller than other >>Taller. No, I'm pretty >>Sure it's been great. Having you on the program, talking about the strategy, the innovation, the direction coop is going and what you've witnessed, the evolution of it in the last 10 years, we congratulate you on your success. And we just look forward to seeing Kupa, continue to evolve and mature. >>Thank you so much. It was wonderful to sit down with you today. Excellent. >>Good. I enjoyed it too. For Donna wheelchairs. I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching the cubes coverage of Cooper inspire 22 from Las Vegas. Thanks for watching.

(upbeat music) >> Hey guys and girls. Welcome back to theCUBE's coverage of Coupa Inspire 2022, from the Cosmopolitan, in bustling Las Vegas. Lisa Martin here, and as I mentioned, day two of our coverage and fresh from the main stage, Raja Hammoud joins me, the Executive Vice President of products at Coupa. Raja, welcome back to theCUBE and happy 10th anniversary at Coupa. >> Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, and welcome back to Inspire. >> Thank you. It's so great- >> We're so happy you're here. >> It's great to be here. So you're just about coming up on your 10 anniversary with Coupa. You showed some great photos of your time there but you've seen, you've lived the evolution that is this rocket ship that's Coupa. >> Raja: It's been incredible journey. I really couldn't believe at first it's been 10. This is the longest I've ever been anywhere. And I honestly feel more refreshed and excited than even when I joined back in the day 10 years ago. And so much has changed, but also so much has not. >> Lisa: Yeah. >> The size of course. We were like 60 people when I joined, the product development team was one person in, in a product, roughly 12 engineers, and fast forward to the scale that's today, it's phenomenal difference. But what has not changed is the, the core values, how, the hustle, how people love working with each other, how we support customers, how we keep stepping up our game how we believe none of us is as smart as all of us, and the community keeps getting stronger and stronger. It's been, it's been really exciting journey. >> The theme of none of us is as smarter as all of us, I'm not sure if I got that right, but the idea is you feel that when you're talking to Coupa partners, I've had the opportunity to talk with Coupa partners and customers and Coupa folks that, that is not just a value statement, people are living that. >> Raja: Yeah. It's, it's everywhere. In the, in the company walls, outside the company walls, you often see product people in different organizations where, they start living in an ivory tower, they think they know everything, I mean, back to what we were discussing earlier about Barbara, when she talked about, get out of your doors, right? A lot of people can tend to do that. We always, from the beginning, believed in the best ideas are out there and you collaborate with each other. And I truly, truly believe that the success that we have achieved today to our community is in a large, large part, because we believed in that. So like on Monday, we hosted, I can't keep track of the number now, so, so many in-parallel Community Advisory Board meetings, and just talking to the products managers and everybody is buzzing with new ideas. And when we go back, there's so much new innovation that has just been co-created here in this conference, and this keeps going on and on and on. >> Lisa: Yeah. I like how you call it, the Community Advisory Board. I'm still used to hearing CAB as Customer Advisory Board, but what Coupa has built, especially with the launch of the Moonshot, the, the community AI, is, is just that. >> Yes. >> It's a very collaborative community. One of the things that's around here, hashtags everywhere, but #United by the Power of Spend. >> Yes. >> What does that mean to you as the EVP of products, and what do you think that means to the community? >> When I think... What we are doing, we're building this platform that is powering all these businesses out there. And the reality of it is you can only, only do so much when you try to do things alone. When we are doing things together, we are way more successful, we are more profitable, we are more sustainable, we are more efficient. And community.ai from a technology standpoint, is making that happen, because what we are doing is taking AI, applying it to all this 3.3 trillion in data, and then bringing back prescriptions that we give back to each and every customer so that everybody can see where they are, how they up their games, and we connect them with other people like them. Now, people love coming to conferences like this, but even in conferences like this, if you think about it, the people you're going to meet, it's, some people are going to do matchmaking but you are also losing an opportunities of meeting the maximum number of people who've done exactly the thing that you did. But when you have the ability to look at all of that data and you can match make people. So we did that already with, for sourcing professionals. So if you are somebody who source a certain category, we can tell somebody else has done something like this in this geography and we offer you to connect to each other. >> Lisa: Wow. >> So this is incredibly powerful way where we are really uniting the whole community by spend, making everybody truly stronger together. >> Lisa: Matchmaker in, in a sense. >> It is matchmaking. >> But it's, but it's- >> It's Spend matchmaking. >> Spend matchmaking, but it's also the opportunity to unite professionals across sourcing, procurement- >> Raja: Yes. >> ... finance, treasury. >> Raja: Yes. >> To your point, and, and Rob said this in his keynote, and he said it here on theCUBE, you know, we've got to break down these silos. >> Raja: Yes. >> People and companies functioning in silos are not going to be successful. >> Raja: Yes. This has been one of the, probably one of the things that we were talking earlier, what has changed, what hasn't. This is one of the fundamental things that has never changed since I've joined. The vision has been very clear. The execution on it, of how we drive successful business spend management program is by breaking down the silos and this idea of sweet synergy, where in product, you start building these capabilities that helps these professionals in the different organizations to actually connect on the touch points, where, where things really matter. >> Lisa: Sweet synergy, was that thing from a concept perspective, did that come from the community, in terms of Coupa going, this is actually what's happening, this synergy across the BSM suite? >> Yes. So in the very beginning, it was early idea. I would say in the first two Inspires that we did, we hadn't given it actually the name itself, and we used to call it unified capabilities, and it started with the first silos we broke down. The first silos we broke down were procurement and AP. And they didn't even used to talk in the same room or even want to care about each other. So we started building so many capabilities that brought these teams together and little by little the community started to feel that and see the value of that. And then the community started to ask us to go break down more silos. So in the beginning, I would say the, the vision before I even joined, the company was on that trajectory. And the early customers saw that and they championed it and then they drove us to do more. So they came to us and said could you please do what you did here in contract? Could you please do what you did here in sourcing? And I was in a meeting last week, a leadership meeting, and one question was asked to leaders in the services team about what are they hearing about, from the customers, about a particular area. And it was music to our ears when we heard the customers are asking for more synergy, right? So, they even have the name for it and they're asking for more and more, and we have built hundreds of these already, but the reality is there is so much opportunity. >> Lisa: Right. >> The world is siloed, no technology has attempted to do that. And I think that's what's a exciting is to go and forge new grounds and do something very special to unite everyone together. >> You guys talked about the waves. Rob talked about the waves yesterday. You talked about it again this morning. And when I think of Inspired community, as that third wave, I see it on both sides. I see the Inspired community that is the Coupa community, but also what you just talked about, that flywheel of that sort of symbiotic relationship that you guys have with your customers as Coupa in and of itself being in a community inspired by the community that it has built. >> Raja: Yes, it's, it's very, very, it's a circular effect. Like it, we inspire one another, and we strengthen one another, and it's, it's just a beautiful, beautiful thing. One of the special things that we are starting to do is we want to take the whole product experience itself, to be a complete community experience. So anywhere you are going to Coupa, when it makes sense, of course, you are not only looking at your data, you are getting connected with people for that particular thing. So we've done that already for 15 different product areas and we're constantly doing more and more and more and more. You can imagine one day we can, where we can start within the product pages themselves, where we host community experts to talk via video and connect with others. So you bring that whole community experience alive in a product in enterprise software, which has not been done. >> Kind of like creating your own influencer network. >> Yes, yes, yes. And give people their voice and, and, and it becomes exciting. It is very different when you're just working on your own and driving goals, and you have no idea how good that can pass on the world. And then when right then and there, you get to learn that some people have hit that, some people have achieved these goals, you just get excited, "I want to hit that goal too. Who are these people? Connect me with these leaders. Let's have a conversation. How did they do it?" And they start creating best practices together. We even have started places where they collaborate on actual documents and templates, and they put them in the community exchange as a way for people to share with others, even taking templates from the product putting them back into a community exchange. So it is sharing, being enabled on the platform, platform itself. >> Lisa: How did you guys function during the pandemic, the last two years when we couldn't get together? >> Raja: Yeah. >> I know that your customers are really the lifeblood of Coupa and vice versa. >> Raja: Yes. >> But talk to me about some of the things that Coupa did with its customers, you know, by video conferencing, for example, that really helped the evolution and some of the innovations that you announced this morning. >> When we first... when the pandemic first hit I think like we all didn't believe what, what is going on. And there was this, I would call it a beautiful period in a way, despite how horrific that was, and that period was where everyone rose to the occasion, everybody wanted to help one another. Across Coupa everywhere, we started having documents of how can step up and help our customers, help our communities. We started to look at how we get PPE, and get it in the hands of our customers. We have access to suppliers. We started looking at helping suppliers with digital payments to speed things up. So, so many things we started doing as a community to just help each other. And then as we got to the next level, then we started, of course, starting to do things over, over zoom. And the big surprise, was we were incredibly productive. If anything, we were worried about people feeling burnt out. >> Yeah. >> Because they were just in it, completely in it. And it created a lot of new avenues for us because often you go and do these meetings in person. Now you could have a user experience session with a customer very easily, they're available more often than they used to. >> Lisa: Right. >> So we did not miss a beat with the community. We moved into virtual caps. We had the advantage of having them recorded as well, where we could have the global development teams learn and see exactly what the, what the customers are are co-creating together. And our goal lives accelerated, because a lot of these implementations, they used to happen in person, so schedules, they actually got accelerated- >> Lisa: Right. >> ...through that. Now of course, there is nothing that matches to this. You can do it, you can do a lot, but a ton of the collaboration comes from real life dialogue and kind of conversation. So it's that balance between the two that I think will be great. >> Lisa: What are some of the things that you've heard the last few days? You mentioned the Partners Summit and, and the Community Advisory Boards on Monday, yesterday, everything kicked off today. What are some of the things that you've heard in your meetings that really inspire you on say the next 10 years at Coupa? >> Raja: By far, by far, by far, it's a validation of, that what we are doing is, we're absolutely on target with it, and that, we just can do so much more. The silos are massive and there are so so many opportunities that you hear in every different areas that we could be doing this, we could be doing this together. So we can break down more and more silos. And using community.ai is just the tip of the iceberg of what we are, what we are doing. Yes, we created tens and tens of capabilities, helping, helping the community with all of that, but data drives everything. And when you look at that, every single process in every single silo can be informed by the power of data within your own company, and then even better, data across. And, and to the point where we're talking about concepts that customers are really excited about, even thinking about this community, they're customers of each other. And when you are a customer of each other what are the different ways as a community, you can help one another more. So we're talking about community netting as new types of concepts. >> Lisa: Talk to me a little about that. You mentioned the community netting this morning but I didn't quite... Help me understand. >> Raja: It is very simple terms is if, if we are buying from each other and we have to do money movements every time I have to pay you, I have to incur fees and likewise, but since we are part of this community we can manage that relationship. So we just pay the Delta, we net it out. So it, it saves reconciliation times it saves money movement. And these are tip of the icebergs of these very cool things that we're doing together. >> Wow. That's fantastic. Last question for you, as you talk with prospects who are in the early stages, or, or still determining, do we go through like a supply chain digital transformation? I mean, I think of companies that probably haven't now or need to get on the bandwagon. >> Raja: Yeah. >> What are some of the things that you advise to those customers to be able to do what Mick Ebeling talked about this morning and that is, commit and then figure it out? >> Raja: Yes. The number one thing is just make sure you don't do the analysis paralysis. There are just so many opportunities so many opportunities start with a project, get going, and it creates incredible momentum, and then you can move on from one to another, to another, to another, instead of trying to just go for a year or two, trying to look at how the world has changed in that process. And so often you could see that projects pay for themselves within the first month of go life. You do that, you'll create another one. And it's not like you are coming in to do something so new nobody has done. Hundreds and hundreds and thousands as a matter of fact, of other community members have done that. It is proven. So get started with those and then continue. Other things I will be talking to them about is to make sure that they understand the way we work is all about partnerships spread. Often people who haven't worked with us in the enterprise software, they're used to working with vendors. We are not that. We never were that. Like the number one, if we're not going to be real partners, honest, transparent and work with each other, we don't waste each other's time. >> Lisa: Well, Raja, it's been great having you on the program. I've really enjoyed your keynote this morning. Congratulations on your 10 years at Coupa. >> Raja: Thank you. >> I'm excited to see what the next 10 years brings for you. We appreciate your insites and everything that Coupa is doing in partnership with its customers is very evident in an event like this. >> Raja: Thank you. And thank you for coming and covering us as well. We really appreciate it. >> Lisa: It's our pleasure to be here. >> Thank you. >> For Raja Hammoud, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBE's coverage, day two of Coupa Inspire 2022, from Las Vegas. (upbeat music)

(upbeat music) >> Welcome back to the CUBE's Coverage of Coupa Inspire 2022 at the Cosmopolitan in bustling Las Vegas. I'm Lisa Martin, and very pleased to be welcoming back. One of our CUBE alumni, the chairman and CEO of Coupa, the man himself Rob Bernshteyn, Rob great to have you back on the program. >> Great to be with you again. >> It's great to be in person. >> Sure. >> I applaud Coupa for taking the risk and getting all the people here. People are absolutely ready for this. And if there's a company that brings the energy it's Coupa. >> Well, thank you for saying that, we're definitely feeling it. You're right, we took a bit of a risk when we opened up registration that was before COVID, omicron hit. We didn't know what would happen, but we just had such an overwhelming onslaught of registrations and people wanted to be here. And in the last two days of interaction with folks it's just been like a huge reunion after three years of kind of being in home and away. >> Absolutely a huge reunion. One that was, I just felt so normal walking into your keynote yesterday. And of course, I always look for numbers because I know you're going to have numbers. 3.3 trillion, spend under management. You're almost at a trillion, a year run rate, that's huge. The growth of Cuopa, just up into the right. >> It is and it's really in thanks to our customer community. I mean, there are just incredible champions here. Courageous folks that are pushing for change inside their of companies. And we're honored to be the technology platform that drives a lot of that change. A more and more spend driven through the system that spend being optimized going to the right channels. Companies are saving money and it's given them more fuel to pursue their own missions and visions and everything that their companies seek to do. >> I just had a conversation with a customer about an hour ago and he was talking about everything was paper-based, manual, no visibility, and I've talked to other customers and I think I've got Jabil on this afternoon who had like 6 billion in indirect spend. They couldn't see. And with Cuopa, the blinders are off. And there's that visibility, the BSM community is really helping organization glean value, drive profitability. Talk to me about from your perspective how the BSM community has grown to be able to deliver, as you say, value as a service. >> Look what's happening is that the customers we have, we have over 2,500 customers around the world. Every one of these customers, they have their own missions. They have their own visions, they're pursuing their goals, but in order to do that, they need energy. They need gas in their tank, right? And with every dollar we save them, with every method we allow them to become more efficient in the way that they work, the way that they have visibility, the way that they collaborate one another, the way that they think about fulfillment of demand through supply chain design, or sourcing activities, contract negotiations, procurement, sourcing, treasury the way they manage that cash. It's unlocking that firepower. It's given them more gas in the tank and that's incredibly rewarding for me and my colleagues and everyone here because our mission is the amplification of all of their missions on a daily basis, really. >> Right, that amplification that acceleration the AI and Coupa. I got to see you about, about a year and a half ago. We were a few months into the pandemic but I'm just curious what some of the customer conversations are that you've had given the challenges with the supply chain that's on the lips of every politician and pretty much everybody. What are some of the things that Coopa has really helped customers to mitigate? >> Well, first of all, the simplest things were when everyone went home they couldn't do those paper based processes anymore. So they leverage our platform much more, right? I mean, they couldn't write paper checks for example and go in the office and do that. And that's just a simple example, order things or or get goods and services to their folks that are now working from home, for example. But then they're also faced with the acute issue of supply chain needs and the agility of their supply chain. So we help them figure out different ways to transport the goods and services they need, different freighting routes in real time through our AI capabilities. So, I mean, those are just some of the examples but we really think of our value proposition as almost like a Swiss army knife. And what happened during COVID is, you know we went out into the jungle and you didn't know which of those tools you would've needed but we tried to be right there with our customer to give them, you know, the knife, the match, the scissors, the, you know the fishing line, whatever was needed at that point in time to help them survive and thrive. And that's really how we see ourselves is you know, a true partner to our customers. >> Yeah, a true enabler. Well, I was looking at your FY22 numbers growth in new business in excess of 60% percent record annual revenue, 725, be up for up 34% subscription revenue up. Coupa up into the right. >> Well, it is, and what we're trying to be very thoughtful with this business. We're trying not to grow so fast that suddenly we leave our customers behind. We really try to take it one customer at a time, but the beauty of this growth, this measured and thoughtful growth is that this, we have an incredible renewal rate. I mean, our customers stay with us and they add more and more capabilities. And that drives an incredible cash flow situation for our business. And that makes us as Coupa very resilient. That's why we love being so transparent with our customers. Here's our growth, here's our margins, here's our cash flow. Here's how we're investing into R&D and innovation. Here's the M&A that we're doing to bring you a greater set of value propositions. And I love that transparency. It's one of the beauties of being a public company everything's out there and everyone can see and decide whether they want to be a customer, be an investor, be a colleague. It's a wonderful thing. >> Talk about the power of the community. Community AI launched in FY22. You showed some numbers and just the power of all of that anonymized, aggregated data to be analyzed. What is that? How has that really driven the evolution of Coupa in the last 13 years you've been at the helm? >> Well, we set our sites on doing this as far back as 13 years ago. I know you interviewed Donna recently and she was sharing with you that we set up our contracts with the customers in a way where we could take their anonymized sanitized data, aggregate it, and see if we can glean insights from it that could be used to the benefit of each individual customer. Really break the silos of traditional enterprise software. You know, where you do one deployment at a time and you live in your own little silo in your own little world. Now we're pushing, you know, a myriad of prescriptions out to each of our customers. They can see the best ways in real time to avoid supplier risk for example, make sure that the goods and services they buy they get on time at the right price points, make sure that the suppliers that they're working with support their diverse needs, their minority own supplier needs. All of the transparency that comes with seeing trillions of dollars in data in real time and gleaning insights from it. And we're just scratching the surface in this area. We're absolutely just scratch and service. We've pushed out this platform to our customers and now they're coming back to us and saying, wow, could I glean this sign insight from the community? What if we can get access to that information? And we're encoding that for them and pushing that information and those applications out to them. So this is going to be an exciting couple of months and quarters and years to take this concept of community AI to a completely different level. And I think it's not only new for Coupa, but I really see it as something completely new for the enterprise software industry where the opportunity to break silos is really upon us. >> It's critical, but a lot of communities are very transactional episodic, Coupa isn't like that. >> Well, you know that there's no shortcut to that. That has taken 13 years. And I think that begins with the O in Coupa which is the openness, the openness, the transparency the authenticity in which we, with which we engage with our customers. They understand how we work. They have access to all of our other customers. They can interface with them and interact with them within their own industry, within their own company size, whether they're the largest companies in the world, or you know, upper mid-market or mid-market customers whether they're subscribing to our treasury applications or our supply chain or procurement applications. And by having access to this community in real time and a community that's grounded in that trust and authenticity, you know, only great things happen. Only great things happen. >> The trust in a authenticity is critical. It's easy to say, you can trust us. We're authentic. It's a whole other thing to actually feel it and believe it and see it. And you get that sense here from your keynote. Barbara Corcoran was fantastic. Inspiring, I loved how she said she'd probably never had an original good idea herself that always gets them from others. And I thought that's Coupa to me, that's the spirit of community, the spirit of collaboration. All of those Cs to me embody what Coupa is. >> Exactly, exactly. None of us is as smart as all of us. That's what it is. No doubt. >> It's true that power of that community is. And I think I read in Fast Company just really recently that you described the community AI as a moonshot. And I thought, where is he going to go from here? (laughing) >> Well, it's continuing to build on this concept. It's really continuing to build on this concept of breaking these siloed data stores, aggregating them and distilling insights from them in ways that we ourselves as Coupa, as our R&D team or Raj and our product team we don't know all the different ways the customers will want to use this power of community. But we know we have a very scalable underlying platform that operates in virtually every language and virtually every currency that will be there to support their evolving needs. As we continue our, you know, what we hope to be lifelong relationship with our customers. >> I was talking to one of your customers. I think it was Jabil recently, and we're having them on the program today. And they actually said they were an SAP ERP shop. They could have gone the SAP route and chose Coupa. And one of the main reasons was because Coupa was going to be able to evolve with them, but allow them to help Coupa evolve. And I get that sense from a lot of your customers that we have the opportunity to influence the direction that the technology goes. Because we are here in the back office now moving to the front. >> Rob: That's right. >> In a day to day, really figuring out what if it did this? What if it did that? Now it does all of these things because the community gets to be that influential >> That's right. And we also, the beauty is we're able to help them. Our customers unlock the value of their investments into core ERP platforms, whether it be SAP or Oracle a host of other ERPs, we help them get strategic leverage from those applications. And we're building this company very much on the shoulders of early, you know, enterprise software companies like themselves. So it's really a beautiful, you know relationship with our customers, but also a way to, to give them more and more leverage >> That's critical. Especially as every company these days it has to be a data company, but they have to be able to see the data, glean insights act on it, make pivots. It's one of the words that we probably use so often in the last two years is pivot, but I think without these companies having a data strategy from a competitive perspective, their toast. >> I think so I think it's really tough. You know, I frame it very simply. We spent many, many years in the industrial revolution. We're worried about, you know, physical labor, moving parts. We entered into the information revolution with the advent you know, the internet and now I think we're really in what I would call the knowledge revolution it's, as you said, it's not only the data, but gleaning valuable insights from that massive growing data store and delivering them at the point of need so that people can take advantage of that insight and that knowledge. And, you know, we're proud to be on the forefront of that as a growing, you know, technology company, a cloud based what we call values as a service company. >> Value as service, right. You mentioned in your keynote, you were talking about the the struggles of being a parent during the pandemic and trying to get your kids to watch some of the classics. I know it was right there with you, Superman, Rocky, was it Planes, Trains & Automobiles, that's another one, and I thought you mentioned, you know my kids had about three minutes of attention span. I thought in the business world, people have three seconds. The real time, get me what I need in the point of time when they need it. Is critical for every business in every industry because the consumer is so, our demands are just higher and higher. >> That's right. That's right. And you know, the U in Coupa stands for user centricity and the logic there was simply, if the machine could do the majority of the work there should be less and less stress upon the end user the user themselves, as I say, deliver exactly what they need at the point of need to them on the screen or on their phone or wherever it is so that they could keep business moving forward as efficiently thoughtfully and optimally as possible. And you know we take the responsibility as a value of service company, you know very seriously try to make sure that we optimize the time spent of the sort of the man machine, woman machine interaction then less and less is on the, on the man or woman, and much much more is on the, you know the platform that we continue to develop. >> One of the things I read that you said in the press release I think it was yesterday's, chief financial officers, chief information officers, CEOs, they need to be chief transformation officers. That's a hard thing to do, especially for, I can imagine organizations like I had Casey's General Store on, this is a company that was founded in the fifties. How are you seeing that manifest into reality when you're talking with those CFOs and CEOs, are they really becoming those chief transformation officers? >> Well, they're all aspiring to it and we're, in my view proudly helping them move as quickly as possible toward that end, to have companies that are highly agile, that can respond to shift and consumer demands, consumer needs, shifting supply chain, you know, challenges, shifting financial scenarios out in the marketplace given the volatility of the stock market. So if we could offer that agility and resiliency and that additional stool of digital transformation for CEOs, CFOs and CIOs, and, you know we're doing something special out there. >> So Rob, last question for you. What does tomorrow look like for Coupa? What are we going to see and feel next year? Any crystal ball insight you can share with me? >> You know, I don't know. One of the things about us is we're not we're a little bit of a boring company. It's one quarter after the next week. >> I saw the dancing video that is not boring. (Rob laughing) >> But you know, it's been what, 52 quarters of going at it, one quarter at a time, one customer at a time one interaction at a time, one line of code at a time, you know, one QA assurance at a time, one support ticket at a time just moving forward moving forward, moving forward. And before, you know, it, you turn around, you look around and we began as you know, know a couple of handfuls of people with a desire to inspire an industry is starting to take shape. And we feel like, you know, we're not just getting started, but we're certainly in the early innings of I think creating a very special company and more importantly, a very special community around the company that we're forming. I would say a very special community. Rob, great to have you on the program, congrats on doing the event in person, getting all of these people that are so ready to see you guys and to be able to interact with Coupa and its partner ecosystem, getting us all together. One of my favorite events, we appreciate you stopping by on the CUBE. >> Thank You. Thanks for having me again. >> All right. For Rob Bernshteyn, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching the CUBE's coverage of day two Coupa Inspire 2022 from Las Vegas. Stick around. My next guest will join me shortly. (lighthearted music)

(upbeat music) >> Good afternoon from Las Vegas. Lisa Martin, at The Cosmopolitan, here on day two of theCUBE's coverage of Coupa Inspire 2022. I'm excited to be joined by one of Coupa's many successful customers, Jaime Robles joins me, the chief procurement officer at Casey's General Stores. You're going to be talking about building a technology hub with source-to-pay and interconnecting ecosystem platforms. Welcome, Jaime. >> Thank you, Lisa. It's a pleasure to be here today in this week, hearing about Coupa and all the fabulous things that we can do around technology. >> Coupa is amazing, and in terms of their innovation, I don't know if you had a chance to see the Keynote this morning, but the slides that Raja showed with just the arrow going up and to the right. Talk to us a little bit about Casey's General Stores. This is the U.S's fourth largest convenience store retailer. But just for the audience who may not know, give us a background. >> So, just a little bit about Casey's. So, Casey's is, as you said, one of the largest convenience store chains out there. We got more than 2,500 locations in 16 states in the Midwest in the U.S. And just out of curiosity, we are the fifth largest pizza company as well. >> Lisa: Is that right? >> We make a great pizza and our guests love it. So, we are in three businesses. We are in convenience store, we are in fuel, and also we are in the food business, because we got a kitchen inside every single store that we got out there. So, for us it's been a fabulous journey with procurement, because we came to the company, joined the company two years ago in the middle of pandemic, and the whole idea was to build the procurement function from the ground up. Casey's didn't have a formal procurement function. So, pretty much, all the spend was done by the functions, by themselves, but no formal process, no technology, no platforms, nothing; very old school. And we came here to build a foundation and build, as I call it, a procurement tech house. >> A procurement tech house. So, talk to me, so I know that Casey's dates back to 1959, and what you described sounds like a lot of paper-based, manual processes; technology really wasn't in the mix. Is that what attracted you to take the role going, "I want to bring technology and build this powerhouse"? >> Yes, that was amazing. So, over my career, I've been doing this for several companies, such as in the past, in Phillips, G, and recently, with Walmart. And then, what attracted me for this opportunity was, well, everything is paper. Everything is manual. There's nothing digital in this company. There's no team, there's no sourcing, no process, no policies. It's like building everything from the ground up. So, it was very attractive. It's huge opportunities for the company, and we were going through this massive transformation to digitize the company all across the operations. So, procurement wasn't the core of those strategies for the CEO of the company, and that's what the opportunity lies. He was like, "How do we move from manual transactions to all this digital world?" and where, now everything is frictionless, that we move from 80%, 85%, that it was all manual. Now we are plus 65%, everything is digital now in the company, and just within one year of moving all over. So, the savings, the cost, the, the leakage, all the waste on the processes that we have, is just amazing, after one year. >> Sounds like the company had a cloud, a digitization strategy, brought you on board to help make that a reality for procurement. So, the appetite was there at Casey's from a cultural perspective, it wasn't battling uphill to get folks to go, "Let go of the paper. Let's go to Coupa." >> Yeah, that's the truth. So, it was the whole digital transformation for the company, not only on the procurement, spend side, but all the process in the company. So, as COVID hit our stores and the whole world, right? So, we had to move into more digital ordering, into more digital transaction, into more how my guests can interact with my stores without going to the stores, how they can order from the app, how they can get their food directly to their house, and all this stuff. And procurement was right there, hand to hand, as part of those strategies from the very beginning. And we were, I will say, very lucky to be on time to make all those digital transformations for the company, so when the COVID really hit, we were ready and prepared to take over. >> That's good, being ready and prepared. Oh my gosh. But some of the few people I've talked to. Talk to me about the core technology requirements that you had for the right BSM solution, and why Coupa ticked all those boxes. >> Yeah. So for us, it was one of the most important ones is as I said, bring the digital across the whole source to pay. Another big element for us, it was, how do we bring transparency into the process? How do we bring transparency on how much we pay, how do we spend our money, Which areas, which categories? We built a model in cases that are called, it's a self-service model. And this self service model is, I put the technology in its core, which is Coupa, and I give my users and my internal stakeholders all the power to take those decisions. So, now they can see how much they spend in different categories, with different suppliers, for the preferred vendors, what type of contracts do we have? And how do we manage that spend, versus the budget, as well? They have all that ability to take those decisions, and they don't need a procurement team. As I like to call, in my couple of speaker notes during this week, we like to make procurement invisible. We are in the back, they don't see us. And they got all the power to use the technology out there to do the job for us. >> Transparent, but empowered at the same time. >> Exactly, exactly. That's what we want, moving forward for this company. And I believe that is the vision that we got in the procurement 2.0. >> Procurement 2.0. Talk to me about some of the solutions that you implemented. You talked about source-to-pay, but give us kind of an idea if you double click on that, and then we'll kind of unpack ` what you talked about on your sessions. >> Yeah, pretty much, for Coupa, we implemented the whole source to pay. So, from sourcing, procurement, invoicing and payment. So, we implement all that at the core of the Coupa. I believe in an ecosystem of procurement technologies that are interconnected with Coupa, to interact for other needs, like contract lifecycle management, tail spend management, TNE, and some others that we're going after. Like, now for us, is going after supplier data hub, which for us is very important also to get it right. And that procurement ecosystem of different technologies connected is going to give us the ability to move faster, to be more lean and to have better data and technology accessible for the team that is in charge of procurement, to operate under that environment. >> You mentioned a few minutes ago that, when the pandemic hit, Casey's was ready, from a digital perspective. I imagine that was a huge advantage, going into such unknown times that we're still kind of in. >> Well, when I say ready, it's like, we were ready to go, and we were on the fly, implementing everything, and what the pandemic did is to accelerate all this. So, as many companies did, we were already in the process of going this direction, and when the pandemic start hitting, we accelerate everything, and we made it happen. So, we went live in three, four months, and a year later, we were completely live since we joined the company, and we were start seeing all this paying coming to ours. So, 18 months later, we are pretty much hitting best in class levels in terms of transactional, operational, tactical, savings, visibility, spend, transparency, risk management. Now we're going to take it to the next level of the maturity. It's like, how do we go for ESG? How do we go for supplier diversity? How do we manage risk management? Right? And all those things. >> You had a couple of presentations here at Inspire, talk to me about those, and some of the top takeaways that the audience gleaned from you. >> Yeah, one of the most important ones yesterday was about how to build a procurement organization from the ground up, or how to go through a digital transformation in procurement. That is something that has been on the topic on the procurement community for years now. Everybody talks about procurement transformation, et cetera. And I just showed to them, my journey in the companies that I've been doing this for the last two decades, across the world, in many different countries, and the things that work and the and the things that doesn't work, really. And how they need to build, for the future of procurement, a technology procurement house on the core. And that's how you operate day to day. And for us, organization was Coupa. And then on top of that, you need to build a procurement ops model, right? How you want to operate your procurement operating model. So, it's centralized, decentralized, a hybrid model. And it all depends about the type of company, the type of industry you are, how material is your organization, et cetera. And another big, big element in all your strategy is, how you're going to serve your customers, right? What type of service model do you have in place? If you're going to be like a full service mode, or you going to be in a strategic direction, or you going to be a self-service mode. And pretty much, what we have chosen as the best way to move forward in the future is, let's put the technology in the middle. Let's give the support our users need, but let them be self-service, and let's make our job invisible in the back, where we have all these sourcing events, all these beautiful negotiations, all these great deals, contracts, et cetera. So, by the time they use the technology, they know where to buy, how to buy, what's the right level, how to make it happen, and they don't need us. They can do it by their own. >> And they've got that visibility, that before, it sounds like they didn't have it at all. >> Exactly, so now we know how much we spend, where do we spend, and where are the opportunities? Where are some gaps that we can go after, as well? And I think one of the most important aspects in these transformations that many of my colleagues are going through is, then you have a model that you can repeat year over year and evolve with the company, so it's agile and it's flexible. Because companies keep evolving. You buy business, you sell business, you acquire, you expand, you grow, and how that model is going to shape around. So, by the time you're done, it's not obsolete again. So, technology is going to keep evolving with your model, and that for me, is the key part in all this. >> Do you feel like, this is a marketing term; future-proof, and it always is one of those things that, well what does that actually really mean? Do you feel though that, what you've put in place is future-proof? That it's going to be able to grow and scale as the company changes? >> Jaime: Totally, totally. Because as I said before, we put the technology on the core. And for us, having that technology on the core, and plugging different technologies around that and sourcing around that with our amazing sourcing team, is going to evolve whatever the company needs. If we expand into different regions, we're ready. If we expand into different business types, we're ready. I believe what we need to keep evolving, as well, is, there will be new emerging technologies. There's going to be way more AI. There's going to be way more machine learning. There's going to be more predictive analytic sourcing stuff. How do we keep pulling those technologies into our platforms to keep giving us that advantage and that edge to the market? I think we have the model, and I think it's one of the most advanced procurement functions that I've seen in the industries around. >> And it sounds like you designed and deployed it really quickly, >> We did. >> especially during a global crisis. >> Yeah, we are disruptors by nature. We love change. We love speed. And that is, I will say my procurement brand. We make it happen and we make it fast. That's how we do it. We keep momentum. >> That's incredibly important. I mean, one of the things that we've learned, many things the last two years, a couple things. Access to realtime data is no longer a "nice to have." It's absolutely business critical. The patience of many people, including myself, was quite thin, the last two years. But also, every company has to be a data company. Casey's has to be a data company. If I have the ability to order from my app, or order things, I want them to know when I'm here for, what I ordered before; make my visit personalized, efficient, easy. So, that data strategy, having that data at the core, is nowadays, you have to have it. >> It is essential. We're building a data hub for the company, completely showing us all that information. As you can imagine, being in those three business, on the food industry, on the retail convenience store, and in the fuel, so data for us is our living breath every single day. And not only having the data now, it's like, what type of decisions we're taking with all this data? And how fast we are adapting to all that, in pricing, in cost, in margin and availability and inventory and logistics and transportation, and in your whole supply chain. So, that is extremely important for us. Not only having the data, but what kind of decisions we're taking with the data, and everything starts with the transparency right? Whenever you see it, you act. >> You should be able to act, but to your point, you have to have that visibility. You have to be able to see it and act on it. Talk to me about what it's like being a Coupa customer. I know how I've been to many Inspires, and I always love seeing all the customer success stories everywhere across industries. What's it like being a Coupa customer, in terms of having the ability to influence, say, the roadmap? Is that something that you're able to work on in partnership with Raj's team? >> Yeah, that's great. So, Coupa has been a great company to work with, and I know them for some years now, and not only they been able to support our vision of what we're trying to build, but at the same time they're taking many of our feedback to make Coupa better, in many of the different models. Listen, Coupa's not perfect, right? And I don't think any tool out there is going to be perfect. But being in so many different industries and with so many opportunities in different areas, they've been able to take our feedback and make those improvements for ourselves. We have so many conversations with the Coupa product development team when we were going through a transformation, asking them for things that we thought it was very valuable to have on the tool, that was in our, in our eyes, no brainer, and they were very, very fast to react and make the change. And we are, I think, one of the most lousy customers, guilty as charged about that, but we just wanted to make it better because it's a benefit of the whole community. Everything that we've been talking this week about community AI, it's amazing. All the things that we're sharing during this week, all the ideas that we are getting about things that we can do. That's amazing. That's the value. >> It's huge value. And that's that sort of flywheel of the community and the power and the insights. Last question for you. If you talk to peers, or when you talk to peers who are maybe starting their procurement digitization journey, what advice do you give them? >> Don't take a no as an answer. Make it happen. Own it. Own it. I think you need to have a vision. You need to put in strategy in place. You need to build a business case. You need to earn your seat at the table at the C-suite. But you need to own it. You cannot let the IT, function, finance community too long, and decide how you want to operate and how you want to move your function as procurement, or build how you operate. You need to own it, and you need to build a business case and you need to make it happen. You need to, yeah. To struggle with that. But if you are a hustler, as we are in cases, we are disruptors. And if you don't disrupt, it's not going to happen. >> I completely agree. Own it, make it happen. Jaime, great to have you on the program. >> Jaime: Thanks so much. >> Thanks for hearing what Casey's is doing, how you're really leading the charge, and how you owned it and made it happen. That's awesome. >> Thank you, Lisa. Thank you for being here. >> Thanks. For Jaime Robles, I'm Lisa Martin, you're watching theCUBE's coverage day two, Coupa Inspire 22, from Las Vegas. Join me with my next guest, coming up shortly. (lighthearted upbeat music)

(soft bright music) (logo swooshing) (crowd murmuring) >> Hey everyone, welcome to Las Vegas! Lisa Martin here on the ground with theCUBE about Coupa Inspire 2022. And can you hear the buzz behind me? It is so great to be in person. Nick Banich joins me, the Chief Revenue Officer and Global Partnership Manager for the Coupa Alliance at Miebach Consulting. Nick, it's great to have you on the program. >> Thanks for having me, Lisa. First time here at Inspire and it's exciting. >> Is it exciting? It's great to see this room packed. >> It is! It feels, like, the pandemic is finally- >> It does. >> Maybe behind us. >> Right, fingers crossed. (Nick chuckles) So talk to us a little bit about Miebach Consulting and a little bit about the Coupa Partnership, so the audience gets that understanding of what you guys do. >> Yeah, guess, we're kind of new to the Coupa ecosystem. You could say, we came as part of the acquisition of LLamasoft. So Miebach is a supply chain focus, advisory, consultancy, engineering firm. So we have three different business lines. Supply chain strategy, where we do things like supply chain design and the Coupa platform, planning, inventory, engineering, automation studies, and distribution centers, with the labor crunch that we're facing right now. As well as we have a digital transformation group that works on getting the decision-making as a supply chain industry into the digital realm and away from Microsoft Excel. >> Let's talk about the digitization of the supply chain. You know, one of the things that we've seen in the last couple of years is this massive acceleration to digital because businesses in every industry had no choice. But where are, what are the current trends from a digital supply chain perspective? >> You know, I think the, kind of the integration of the compression of the decision-making cycle has really gotten companies to not look at strategic decisions then operational decisions and tactical decisions in execution. That all has to be compressed now with the volatility we've all been exposed to. I mean, basically, for the past 20 years, we took the supply chain and turned it into a Swiss watch. It was very long, very well orchestrated. But with the volatility, with labor issues, with the land war in Europe, this volatility and change is requiring companies to be much more adaptive. And they've had to compress that decision cycle down and the Coupa platform, certainly, from a supply chain standpoint, absolutely helps infuse that process to shorten time from question to answer and allow you to address strategic and tactical topics in parallel to one another and not kind of waterfall down over the decision making product. >> That's important, 'cause these days, there is no time for waterfalls. So let's unpack the Coupa supply chain design platform. Talk to me about it, what it does and how it is helping that acceleration? >> Yeah, so it's incredibly powerful. And what it allows you to do is create that digital representation. We can take a three dimensional world and put it into a two dimensional linear program. And within the same platform we can optimize strategically and take a look at end to end type of supply chain decisions, nearshoring, onshoring, supplier diversification, and risk aspects. We can look at it more operationally. We're actually looking at which manufacturing plans should make what? What distribution centers should serve what customers? How do I segment my products? How do I segment my customers? Then within the same modules, you can use and go to your inventory optimization, not only optimize inventory, but also simulate it, which gives you phenomenal power in a world where there is so much uncertainty. You can apply risk in those questions of what if, so you're ready. So that way, when the thing happens, you're not that scrambling to have analysts crunch Excel files to see what do you do to normalize inventory levels or normalize your supplier base. You're able to be more proactive with the predictive and prescriptive analytics that the full suite provides for you. >> That is essential. If that's one of the lessons we've learned in the last couple of years, not if, but when. >> Nick: Yes. >> Talk to me about customers that are using the platform. What are some of the, using it well. What are some of the things that they have in common? >> You know, I think the organizations that are implementing it well, look for it. They view it as a real platform. You know, historically, supply chain design, network optimization, was seen as a tool, and companies implement it as a tool. You purchase licenses, you assign a couple of people to work on it from your analytical department and you just went with it. This is a very powerful platform to completely revolutionize how you make decisions within your supply chain. And you need to approach it the same way you approach a new warehouse management system, a new planning platform, a new labor management system, the change management aspects, the organizational aspects, the education of stakeholders on what is this, demystifying it. So it's not a black box and everybody knows what it can and should do and how best to utilize it. So those organizations that view it as more than a distribution network tool, "Hey, where do I put my new warehouse? Hey, this lease is coming up in Central Europe. It's coming up in Ohio. Do I extend the lease? Do I need to move?" That's, like, a level zero maturity on our maturity graph. The very mature companies are using it and infusing it both strategically, operational, technically, and are using it for distribution decisions, transportation decisions around mode selection, production footprint decisions. You have the capability to have a digital twin. And by having, the other thing companies struggle with is, they just build one model. >> Uh-hmm. >> I start out, I buy the product. You know, I get it built in, I move everything to the cloud and then I do a distribution solve for the U.S. And then the European group says, "Hey, that was great. That was insightful. Can we do the same thing in Europe?" And you take that model and then you add Europe into it. And then the production group says, "Hey, you know, we're thinking about changing some of our make-buy decisions. Can you model what the effect would be on total cost if we did do some nearshoring?" And all of a sudden, you turn your one model that you had built for a specific purpose into this Christmas tree where everybody's hanging their ornaments. And what you really need to do is having a modeling strategy. What type, you should have a volume, a portfolio of models you can pull from and say, "Hey, here's our strategic end to end model. Hey, here's our tactical Asian production models. Hey, here's our total landed cost for top 15% of our customers." And having that set of models, so you have right models, the right questions. >> Uh-hmm. >> That's what the companies that are really scaling this and really excelling. And you'll notice a pattern. The companies that are excelling that have the Coupa platform, typically, you'll find them on list, like, Gartner's Top 25 and things along those lines. Because it is a very powerful platform when you unlock the art of the possible with it. >> Sounds, like, those are companies that are very innovative. But where does the company, that maybe isn't there yet? How do they start? 'Cause it sounds, like, there's a tremendous wealth of potential and opportunities that the technology can deliver. Do they have to start with executive buy-in? What do you see as kind of, like, some of those early steps? >> This is a change management exercise from the very beginning. So creating that sense of urgency, creating your powerful coalition. You have to start with that. If you view this as, "Hey, we're going to have a tool, we're going to use this once, and then our supply chain's fixed for the next 10 years." I mean, I think most leaders are realizing that those days are long gone. That supply chain design has to be a continual topic at the top levels. You know, supply chain is on the lips of every politician and every (chuckles) board member right now. So this is a wonderful moment for those supply chain leaders that have wanted to infuse a greater level of digital decision-making. This is the perfect opportunity. You can get buy-in, like, you never had before. Your CFO is probably analyzing labor inflation, fuel inflation rates, disruptions on supply base, and you're probably having to deal with more pressure out of the CFO and its department than you ever had to in the past. We see it with our clients. The pressure is on with those leaders. And this allows you to very quickly be much more holistic in that decision-making. You're not relying on how good was the analyst, that made this Excel file that told you to open up this plan, move this distribution center, serve this customer base in this way. It's not based on how that data looks and how good that analyst was, you're infusing an entire practice into your organization. >> That's critical, because every company these days is a data company. If they're not, they're not going to be around. It's about the ability to have visibility extract the value from the data to make those data-driven decisions, because we don't have time. We heard a lot about that from a real-time perspective and the keynote this morning that's table stakes run any organization. >> Yeah, and with the move of the platform to the cloud, as part of the Coupa ecosystem, with the DDM, with the rapid model builder, and all those things that come along with it, it will significantly squash the amount out of time you have from question to answer. Because the first time you do this, it probably takes four months. And of that four months to ask that question, and get an answer, build your model, you know, replicate the 3D world in that 2D environment. Over half of that time is spent on cleaning data, building the baseline model, aligning with finance, they peanut butter spread certain aspects of cost onto the onto SKUs and really getting correct cost allocations for A, B, and C SKUs. You spend half your time just playing around with your data to get the model to work right now. Once you add that model, next time, question and answer infinitely quicker. But you have to have a good data strategy. You have to have the right data architecture. If you don't have that specific to supply chain, leaders really need to get on that. Because what we see a lot of times is organizations will have an enterprise data strategy. >> Uh-hmm. >> And they're going to build a data warehouse or a data lake, you know, whatever, I'm a consultant, so I'm also guilty of the buzz words. But, we kind of call it the supply chain data plan. You don't need to wait for the whole enterprise to get ready to have all of your data sorted out in a single instance, homogenize. Start collecting that supply chain data, have a data strategy around it. So that way, you can start replicating these things then you can feed it back into the enterprise data strategy. But you have to get your data right. It's the old adage garbage in garbage out. >> Right. >> It's still true to this day. No matter how powerful the analytical tools are, we're infusing machine learning, artificial intelligence into some of the solves in the platform. But if you don't have that good data, you're going to struggle. So that's a key piece to it, getting that executive buy-in and having that right data strategy will set you on a much smoother path to success than if you don't do those things. >> Right, the data strategy is critical. If not, one of the biggest competitive differentiators these days. Where is the chief data officer, the chief digital officer, the chief information officer, in these conversations that Miebach is having with customers? >> Too often, not at the forefront enough. >> Lisa: Really? >> Those clients that have that group, have that organization, and they have influencing power, those programs go much quicker, much simpler. The rate of adoption, the scalability of the program. All of a sudden, you're not thinking about, "What am I going to do with one or two analysts interacting with the product?" You're now developing apps. You have your planners interfacing with it. You have capacity managers interacting with the digital model. Those that don't have that, do have much more impetus, because it's always the adage of, "Oh, IT, what do we do? And our data's a mess. We have this data program and our IT resources are super constrained." So you have to bring those people to the table. You have to have them part of the conversation, 'cause they can be an incredible enabler if you bring them and get them bought in. >> That's a great point of those enablers. And especially, given the fact that nobody has extra time to waste here. This is a, everything is so fast moving. You mentioned supply chain being on the lips of every politician. Everybody's lips, everybody's expecting some delivery that is delayed for whatever reason. >> I mean, 12 years ago when I started with the firm, and people, "Oh, what does the firm do?" I'm like, "Oh we're a global supply chain consultancy." And they're like, "What?" >> Yeah. (laughs) >> You know, now everybody knows. And they're like, "Oh, yeah!" It's amazing that the revolution, I mean, the pandemic has been incredibly unfortunate with all the hardships and deaths and everything and still dealing with hotspots and things. I think it did bring supply chain, supply chain was struggling for a while to get a seat at the table. Organizations started having chief supply chain officers. You know, that was a new thing not that long ago. This has brought table stakes to the supply chain organization. My challenge back to us is what do we do with this now? >> Right. >> For years, as an industry, we've asked to be at the table, we're here now, spotlight's on us. It's time for us to deliver. Things like the Coupa platform are an incredible enabler of that. But you got to get it right when you roll it out. >> The spotlight's on you, but there's also a skill shortage. Talk to me about that. I just saw you do a big sigh. How can Miebach and Coupa with this platform help to mitigate some of the supply chain skills gap that organizations in every industry are facing? >> You know, it really comes down to the human element and when people talk a lot about sustainability, they talk about environmental conditions. There's a human sustainability topic we have to cover. Nobody likes being assigned to be a data analyst on a transformational project. And you're crunching Excel spreadsheets and running it sequel coding. No, no, that's not an enjoyable fulfilling task for many people. >> Lisa: No. >> There are special people that it is, and God bless (chuckles) them. So with things, like, the apps, with things, like, building out, so that way, we can take the people that you do have and have them making decisions, driving discussions around the insights the platform's giving versus just crunching numbers and building models. This is where you're going to have a much higher retainment. People are going to be excited about the job. They're going to have fun at the job because you do see a turnover of organizations that don't get the data strategy right, that people don't like being in a supply chain center of excellence in perpetuity. Again, there are certain people that are, but a lot of times, once the people get this analytical insight to how strategically the design of the company is set up, business units will grab them and give them a significant role. And then you're continually churning and replacing your COE talent. So having a talent strategy for your COE and having a strategy of how you're going to leverage, you know, we're in a world where my first grader's are learning coding, right? Like, you need to have a data strategy. So that way, that becomes your people strategy as well. And too many times, people think, "Hey, I buy the platform. I need a project strategy. What are the projects we're going to do?" And not often enough, do they talk about the people element of it to really make this work. And it absolutely has to be part of the discussion as you're setting up your center of excellence, it's people, it's processes and it's technology. >> Absolutely! >> You got to bring those three together or you real struggle a bit. >> You do. And then change management is not an easy thing to do for anybody. But one of the things you talked about, this is the pandemic as an accelerator of getting the supply chain folks to the table, being able to accelerate, getting data into the hands of people that can actually take in clean insights and make decisions based on that. So if you look into a crystal ball, what's the future of supply chain design? Where is it going? >> I believe we're going to see a lot more of movement towards applications and infusing of artificial intelligence and machine learning. It's there. It's ready to go. What a lot of companies are lacking and it goes back to what we already talked about is the data piece of it. I mean, we have been developing algorithms in a machine learning environment for three, four years now. It goes back to garbage in, and garbage out. So I think it's going to be a big element of supply chain talent, securing that, figuring out with robotic product process automation and things like that. How do you take non-value added work so you can take the talent you do have and give them more fulfilling work? I think companies are going to need to have data strategies and all that unlocks applications and things. So you can democratize, right? You have this digital twin in the cloud. How many people within the organization cross-functionally have questions about the supply chain? >> Right. >> What if this happens? What if that happens? Hey, if we do this, what does it effect upstream downstream? >> Right. >> So once you build that cloud, develop the applications that allow the entire enterprise to interface with this digital representation to play around and see what the effect is to then make better, more informed, more holistic decisions, drive more conversational, cross functionally amongst leaders, and even below the top leadership level. I think this is really where we're going to go and the companies that don't just survive, but thrive in this new normal, whatever that's going to be, is going to be the companies that get that right. >> They have to embrace that. There's no doubt. >> Nick: Have to embrace it. >> Nick, it's been great having you on the program, talking about supply chain, what's going on there, the accelerators, but also the opportunities. Thank you so much for sharing your insights. >> I appreciate the opportunity. So it's been a great conversation. I look forward to the rest of the event! >> I agree. For Nick Banich, I'm Lisa Martin on the ground in Las Vegas at Coupa Inspire 2022. Stick around, I'll be back with my next guest shortly. (bright music)

(upbeat music) >> Hey everyone. Welcome back to theCUBE's coverage of Coupa Inspire 2022. We are in Las Vegas at the beautiful Cosmopolitan hotel. I'm your host, Lisa Martin. Brian McKillips joins me next, a managing director at Accenture. Brian, it's great to have you on the program. >> Thanks for having me, I'm glad to be here. >> So you have an interesting, you lead a lot of stuff at Accenture and I want to read this off, so I get it right. You lead the intelligent platform services strategy and the industry and functions platform group. Talk to me about those responsibilities. >> Yeah, so the intelligent platform services is the place in the business where we have kind of our large software partners, SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, Workday, Salesforce and Adobe. And we kind of think of ourselves as kind of the engine that powers industry and functional solutions, right? And the way Accenture's gone to market over the last couple of years has been kind of bringing together our breadth of experience all the way from strategy, all the way through operations and these big technology transformations are at the core of that. So that's what we do in intelligent platform services. And we recently launched this what we call the industry and functions platforms group because we realized there's a lot of strategic partners that are critical for us to be have a strong practice around, COUPA being one of them, you know in the supply chain and sourcing and procurement space so that we could create a home to be able to deliver these solutions globally and at scale. So I lead both kind of the strategy across all of IPS and then the new industry and functions platform group. >> Got it. All right. So you're here to talk to me about composable technology. First of all, define that for the audience so they understand what you're talking about. >> Yeah, you bet. So, you know, at Accenture, we're talking a lot about this is the age of compressed transformation, meaning, you know, change is only going to speed up and the need to change and so our clients are really struggling with not only kind of moving fast but that pressure around having to change as dynamics around the world change. So in the age of compressed transformation, we were really talking about how our clients should be kind of reorienting the way they think about their tech stack. And because, you know, historically a lot of us grew up in kind of monolithic implementations with, you know one software provider. But today it's really about composing technology to create new industry, new ways to solve industry problems, functional processes, customer experiences, right? And so composable technology we think about it in three parts. One is a cloud foundation that is, you know, the hyperscalers are a critical part of that. Secondly, our digital core and these are the kind of the historic software packages at the center of a lot of the industry and functional business processes. So you think about SAP and Oracle and Salesforce and things like that. But then around that digital core you have composable elements to be able to plug in. And that could be things like other software packages but it's also kind of industry IP or you know, edge devices, you know think IOT, think smart appliances, think and when you put, pull all those things together you need to be able to not only configure it once but configure and reconfigure as the dynamics of the marketplace change. >> So composable technology isn't necessarily new but has the pandemic been an accelerator of some of the things that you're seeing now in terms of why it's important, what's different about it now as being a foundation for competitive differentiation? >> Yeah, for sure. And it's, you know, I, anybody who's in technology say, you know, you tell them about this idea, they're like, well this isn't new, we've had service oriented architectures for 20 years. >> Right. >> You know, we've been talking about integrating things forever, but the you know, much like we all five to seven years ago we knew that we'd be using our phones to pay for pretty much everything but the tech hadn't caught up, right. Not every restaurant or store that you went to had the point of sale set up, right. So we all kind of knew that was coming. And the same thing has kind of happened around this idea of about composable technology and the three things that are new are one is that the cloud foundation is here, right. >> Yes. >> Where, you know, you now have not only kind of hyperscale high speed compute in at the core you actually have at the edge as well. And the same thing with high speed network, you know you have Starlink, you have 5G rolling out. So you have that cloud foundation that really wasn't there before. The second thing that's happening is the posture of a lot of the ecosystem, major ecosystem players has changed, right. And this started, you know when Satya Nadella took over Microsoft where Microsoft was very much a kind of a closed environment. >> Right. >> Where Satya under his leadership has really kind of changed the posture of being able to integrate into that. And we've seen that really pretty much across the entire landscape. And then lastly, it's become, you know, cheaper and, you know, quicker to be able to integrate with platforms like MuleSoft and others where there's kind of full scale integration platforms. So those are, those are the kind of the things that are new that allows for composable technology to be here in the real world. >> So it's something that's tangible, it's real organizations need to be on this bandwagon I imagine or they're going to be left behind. Gartner had some interesting stats that your team sent over and they were talking about these stats that were very compelling in terms of a seismic shift which always, you hear seismic living in California I think earthquakes, but something substantial. And they said, this seismic shift is going to happen by 2023. And I thought, hang on, that's less than a year away. >> Yeah. >> And they talked about by 2023, organizations that have adopted an intelligent composable approach will outpace competition 80% in the speed of new feature implementation. So if an organization hasn't started on that now is it too late? >> I would say not necessarily too late but they need to look for ways to change their disposition, right. And one of the ways that we've been helping clients do this is through pre-integrated solutions, right. So you know, in the past, the motion would be we would work with a client, they would work with our kind of strategists and consultants and say, what does the the future of supply chain look like for example. And if the client liked it, they would say, okay, I love it, what do I do next? Right. Then there would be another consulting engagement, another consulting engagement and then there would be a blueprint and architecture and at some point there was an implementation and a run. We've actually said we're investing heavily with our ecosystem partners to be able to pre-integrate solutions. So when that supply chain strategist says this is what the post COVID supply chain should look like and the client says, I love it what do I do next, that strategist can turn around and say, well, we've got a pre-integrated solution with SAP at the core sitting on a Microsoft Azure stack integrated with Coupa, wrapped with AI and machine learning and we can drop that and configure it for an environment. So that's how we're working with clients who are in that position that really need to kind of change their disposition is to bring these pre-integrated solutions and drop them in. >> Where are your conversations at the C- Suite level? Because this is, I hear many things in what you just said. Part of it is change management, which is very challenging. There's, people are very resistant to that. >> Brian: Yeah. >> One of the things that we've learned in the last two years is if it's going to come it's going to come but where are your conversations within that executive suite in terms of getting buy-in and going this is the direction we have to go in. >> Brian: Yeah. >> Because our business needs to be not just survive but thrive. >> Yeah. Yeah. These are, I mean, there are certainly of course in kind of traditional channels of tech whether it's, you know, the CIO or the CTO, but increasingly we're seeing this is a CEO discussion and, you know, our CEO Julie Sweet, is very, very market pacing and is having top to top conversations talking about compressed transformation, talking about composable technology because it's no longer just a, you know, a back office function as you know, right. I mean, this is really core to how companies you know, are, change their business models, make money, right. And it's a constant evolution. And that's why we talk about that kind of configuring and reconfiguring, it's not just coming in, implementing once, run it for five years and then when it's time to upgrade, we come back. >> No. >> We really want to be the partner with our clients to basically move in and, you know, across the patch whether it's specific industry processes, specific functional processes, specific customer experiences, we want to be the partner that is constantly tuning and configuring and reconfiguring and composing these solutions from across the ecosystem. >> And helping those businesses in any industry evolve as you talked about this compressed timeline, compressed transformation, such an interesting way of describing it but it's really true, it's what we've been living the last couple of years. >> Brian: Yeah. And so I want to get into Accenture's technology vision. You touched on this a little bit but there was some stats that your team provided that I thought were really, really interesting, a survey that Accenture did, 77% of executives, and we were just talking about the C-suite, state that their tech architecture is becoming critical to the overall success of the organization. So that awareness is there for sure en masse. Another thing that, stat that was interesting was 90% of business and IT execs agree that to be agile we always talk about agility, right, be resilient, organizations need to fast forward this digital transformation at the core. There's that compressed transformation. >> Brian: Yeah. >> Those are very high numbers. >> Brian: Yeah. >> In terms of where organizations say we see where we need to be. What's the vision at Accenture to help organizations get there fast? >> Yeah. Well, I think it's, you know, the thing that came to mind as you were talking is that we have, you know, major clients that have had this had in the, you know consumer packaged goods and apparel space that have had one way that they've done business is directly through retailers, you know, for pretty much their whole existence. Suddenly they need to shift to a direct to consumer model both in terms of marketing, in terms of commerce and that's not, you know, you don't just flip a switch in the back office and, you know, call IT and say hey, hey, can you change around a few things? It's actually shifting the entire core, it touches everything, it touches point of sale, it touches the customer experience, it touches supply chain, it touches employee experience even, right. >> Yeah. >> And so that's why I think it's so important for, you know technology leaders and business leaders to continue to kind of integrate themselves more tightly. >> Yes. >> To be able to make these business model transformations not just, you know, the tech that supports things. >> It's essential. >> Yeah. >> You know, we often in so many shows, Brian, we talk about alignment of business and technology, but it's not trivial. >> Yeah, yeah. >> It's absolutely fundamental to the success of every organization. And they've got to do so and as you said, I'm going to use your, your word, the compressed transformation. >> Yeah. >> A compressed timeframe. So talk to me about some customer examples where you really feel that Accenture and Coupa have helped this organization transform its supply chain to be able to be, use composable technology. >> Brian: Yeah. >> To be a leader in its industry. >> Yeah. Well, one example of that is a major industrial client that we have that has global operations across the world. And they're on a journey to kind of upgrade their digital core ERP that they've been on for a long time. And that's a multi-year journey. But at, you know, today they have needs for sourcing and procurement solutions in specific geographies around the world like Japan, for example. So what we've been able to do and it's a relatively simple example but quickly work with the client and Coupa to identify the right Coupa solution that's born in the cloud that has a great kind of user experience and implement that quickly as well as integrated it into the digital core, right. So they're not separate things. And it becomes part of that architecture, right. It just starts to kind of show the flexibility of when you have, when you come with a kind of composable technology point of view, the way we can help our clients do that. And in some other cases it's even more, you know, more cutting edge. So think about a utilities client, for example that has IOT sensors on their wires and when the, when that wire swings too far they say something's wrong. Automatically it goes back to the digital core cuts a ticket and finds the closest worker. >> Lisa: Okay. >> To then dispatch. The worker then can put on their hollow lens, for example and climb the pole and get directions on how to solve the problem right then and there, right? That's another example of you know, multiple systems, edge devices things coming together in order to create that. And it's only going to get faster, you know, with the metaverse. >> Lisa: Right. >> You know, with web 3.0 coming, with blockchain becoming more and more mainstream, companies need to be thinking about in this age of compressed transformation how to do that composable technology that you can figure and reconfigure. >> Do you think that we're in an age of compressed transformation or is that how it's going to be going forward given the global climate the last two years? >> Yeah. It's definitely going to be that way going forward over the next, you know, probably for the large part of the, the remainder of our career. I mean, we're, our CTO, Paul Daugherty, talks about us being an mega cycle, right? There's so many things changing. And even without these externalities of, you know, political issues and pandemics, you know, the introduction of AI and machine learning, a lot of these technologies I just mentioned, it's, the change is happening in every industry, in every, you know kind of area of the marketplace and in a way that's, you know, that's really exciting, right. And we get to help our clients be able to kind of solve those things not just once, but continually >> There's a tremendous amount of opportunity that's come from compressed transformation, right. A lot of opportunity, a lot of potential. What are some of the things that you're looking forward to say in the next year, as we talked about some of those business and lines of business and IT folks understand we've got to move in this direction. What excites you about the potential that you have to help these organizations really transform? >> Yeah, well, I think, I mean, the, we just came out with our new tech vision which is about the metaverse. And I think that the things that excite me are there's brand new ways like we've lived in a world where transactions take place in a very predictable way with local currencies through a single channel. And that was, that's been sort of fixed for a long time. The fundamentals of the economy or actually in the marketplace are starting to change in terms of how do we transact with things like cryptocurrencies, things like non fungible tokens, you know, all these things that we didn't, you know, they weren't, even the metaverse these were not main line words, even six you know, months ago, 12 months ago. >> Lisa: Right, right. >> Now these things, you know, every it seems like every month there's something new that is, you know, seismic to use your word that is shifting the fundamentals of the marketplace. And I think that's what's really exciting. I mean, that's where, I mean, it's probably one of the most exciting times to be in business, be in the marketplace. It certainly has a lot of challenges. >> Lisa: Yes. >> But, you know, I think we're really about using, you know, the promise of technology to unlock human ingenuity and this is a great time to be able to unlock that human ingenuity. >> And that's such a great alignment with Coupa. I was just in the keynote and there was an Accenture video, Julie Sweet was talking to some other folks about that. Great alignment in the partnership. Brian, thank you for joining me talking about composable technology, what's new, why and the potential that organizations and every business have to use it to unlock competitive advantages. >> Brian: Yeah. >> We appreciate your insights and your time. >> You bet. Pleasure to be here. >> All right. With Brian McKillips, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBEe from Coupa Inspire 2022. (upbeat music)