(upbeat music) >> Hey, welcome back to Las Vegas. Lisa Martin here, covering Coupa Insp!re 2022. theCUBE is really happy to be here at this event. About 2,500 folks are here, which is great to see. I have two guests from Microsoft with me. Please, welcome Jonathan Allen, the director of global network modeling design and planning, and Cassie Wang, senior global network model and design engineer. Guys, thanks so much for joining me today. >> No problem. Thanks Lisa for having us. >> Thank you. >> So let's talk about what's going on at Microsoft, the Microsoft supply chain. Supply chain is a term that's on everyone's lips these days for some interesting reason, but talk to me a little bit about the Microsoft supply chain and how does it scale to meet the needs of business? >> Yeah, Lisa, it's really an interesting design at Microsoft. When you look at all the products we service, from Xbox consoles, controllers, Xbox games, Xbox Live cards, service devices for retail customers, for consumer customers and commercial customers. And then the way we go to market through distributors, retailers, and direct to consumer homes, we have to have a supply chain that actually executes across all the products and customer needs based on seasonality. When you think about our products, Xbox console heavy Christmas, heavy consumer, heavy retail commercial devices for service, heavy quarter ends, heavy periods of time back to school. So, we have to have a supply chain that effectively works across all of our products, all of our customers, and all the differences analogies that we have to manage. >> And do so globally? >> And do so globally. >> So talk to me about the transformation. That's a word that we talk a lot about digital transformation, right? >> Yes. >> Before COVID, now we've seen the acceleration of digital transformation during COVID, we've seen challenges with the supply chain. Talk to me about Microsoft supply chain journey from a digitalization perspective, what you guys have gone through. >> Yeah, absolutely. Data is the key. And I have a philosophy which is around managing a business by facts and figures. And so, when Cassie first came on about a year and a half ago, our focus was on digitizing our supply chain. So how do you take our physical supply chain, digitize it in a way that you have a digital mapping and a duplication of what's happening physically in a digital way across the supply chain. So about every single day, we're grabbing in about 500 gigabytes of data, that then allows us to understand the physical and the virtual world of our supply chain, to understand how it's moving, how it's executing and how it's delivering. As for example, we were able to, when the war began in Ukraine, to understand where our trains were, how they were moving, and if they were continuing to move versus stopping. On the second side, we're leveraging that data now to make decisions about where our supply chain is today, which is really focused in the changing environments that are real time occurring. That's driving opportunities, whether it's about reducing carbon, whether it's driving cost down or whether it's servicing the customers to make real time decisions, while at the same time planning for three to five years out based on our growth, our projections, and making sure we'll have the right infrastructure partner supply chain in place to service with those changes in growth. >> Basically you need a crystal ball? >> Basically. >> Essentially? >> Yes. >> And Cassie, it sounds like from what Jonathan just said, you joined the team during the pandemic? >> Yes. >> So, during a time of massive change? >> Fully remote, yeah. Talk to me a little bit about that and some of the opportunities that you saw in helping the supply chain modernization. >> Yeah, definitely. So when I joined Microsoft, it's great time. And it's all the risks and challenges and dynamic changing environment that's really involved. So we spent a long time, like from the time I joined Microsoft, we spent the time to set up this digital chain of our supply chain. So really to transform what is happening physically to how do we see it digitally. So just to bring the visibility of the supply chain. So the great thing is we are able to leverage the tool from Coupa, the digital transformation and also supply chain design optimization tool to help us really build the digital twin, and also the model for Microsoft device supply chain. >> Now, interesting comment. So when I met Casie, the first time I met her, was in person when I interviewed her. Second time I met her in person was here at Coupa, and I was afraid I wouldn't recognize her. (all laughing) >> Of course, challenges of last year. Talk to me about speaking of challenges, talk to me about some of the challenges that Microsoft saw and said, "We need a partner like Coupa to help us eliminate these challenges. We don't have time. Real time is no longer nice to have. We've got to be able to transform, so we have that visibility in real time." >> Absolutely. When you think about time, time and decisions, overnight, cities get locked down in China, cities get locked down in Europe. And if you wait days or wait hours, that could be the difference between product on a boat, product on a plane, or product not arriving to support your customer needs. >> Right. And then the question is knowing that with that real time, how are you making decisions real time to change, to alternate airports? Making changes on the products you're making to make sure that, I was making this but now I should make this, because I have a risk of getting product to show. >> And you've got to do all that with very limited amount of time. And of course, cause there's the consumer. I mean, we think about the Microsoft on the business side but the consumer side, you mentioned some of the consumer products you don't offend the Xbox, the service consumers. One of the things that was really in short supply during the pandemic and probably still is to some degree, is patience. >> Yes. >> The consumer experience is so critical for a brand. >> Correct. >> And as is the employee experience. >> Yes. >> Talk to me a little bit about, from a supply chain digitization perspective, what was some of the executive sponsorships? Who were some of those executive sponsors that were involved in going, "Yeah, we need to move in this direction with Coupa, and it's got to be now."? >> The real supporter behind that is, my manager, Jeff Davidson, and then his leader, which is Donna Wharton, where they are truly about what are we doing next? How are we going to leverage the tools and the capabilities that are provided by others that allow us to do our job? So let's be clear on, let's use those that are designed to do what they're supposed to do, and then build where we need to. And that was the big difference, the digitization of the data, create the data, create the information so that we could then leverage the tools to create the information, right? And that information is then about bringing the facts, the information and the data forward, to have very fact-based conversations, which is back to manage the business by facts and figures. >> Right. Well, Cassie, one of the things that we've also learned in the last couple years, is that every company is a data company. If they're not a data company they're probably not going to be around. I even think of my grocery store and all that data that they have on me to be able to surface up. What did I buy last time, and I want to buy that again? Talk to me a little bit about why was Coupa the right choice to help facilitate this data strategy so that the visibility and the supply chain and the ability to tweak things on demand is there? >> Yeah. So, the main stuff that we are leveraging from Coupa are the data group and also the supply chain group. So data group enable us to really, for the people who do not have a intensive data manipulation backgrounds, they can use data group very straightfowardly to work on the data so they can build, they can grab the data transactional level and aggregate to the leadership level to see data in different aspects, tell the trends to get the key information. So that's the power of getting the massive data on a level that's like everybody can say, "Oh, wow! This is what it means." And another is definitely leveraging the data to get into a model, which is what we just talked about, the digital twin of our physical supply chain. So, we are able to like make analysis based on very easy design, like sensitive analysis, what-if analysis, to test out what our future supply chain can be. And what is the cost benefits? What is all the impacts on the on the lead times? On the carbons? So, yeah. So that's the power of leveraging the data. >> Speaking of carbons, how is Microsoft working towards being carbon negative, zero waste? What's some of the things that are going on there from a corporate responsibility perspective? >> Yeah, that's a really important one. As known about two years ago, we came out with a pledge to be carbon neutral by 2030. >> 2030. >> And so, the company as a whole is doing massive initiatives from different groups, but specifically in supply chain, we're constantly focusing on cutting our carbon footprint, whether it's the way we're making the products and designing the products, whether it's the way that we're designing our warehouses. So for example, just recently, we launched a Carbon Neutral DC in Europe, which is all solar panel based. We're about to do that as well in one of our US operations. We're working on other things that allow us to think about alternative pallets that eliminate the weight of wood, to a much lighter pallet that has a huge carbon reduction when you think about shipping things via the air and the carbon impact there. So, everything that we work on is really around three things; service, cost and sustainability. And our biggest objective is really taking all three of those objectives and trying to bring them closer to each other so that the decisions aren't as large against each other when you make one versus the other. That's our objective. So, how do we continue to move that ball forward, challenge the paradigms of the old, that we're so accustomed to and really move forward to changing? >> How does Coupa help with that? >> Oh, I can't say that, yeah. >> Yeah, so one of the actual dimensions, Microsoft our goal is to achieve carbon neutral by 2030. So traditionally, the trade off might be between cost and service, right? >> Okay. And now, the carbon is the most important priority. So the trade off, the balance, are between cost, service, time and carbon. So one of the great thing that Coupa can help us is in the network modeling. There is actually objective for lowering the carbon emissions. So that can be the top priority that you wanted to solve through your network modeling like in parallel to cost, to service. So you can just like very straightforwardly put more weight into carbon when you're making your decisions, like that can be a higher penalty cost when you have more carbon emissions. It's like a very straightforward way to translate the carbon goal into some quantifiable goal into the modeling and data. >> Jonathan, I'm curious from a Microsoft strategic partnership perspective, how important is it from Microsoft to partner with companies that have that strong commitment to help facilitate being carbon neutral by 2030, having a strong ESG initiative? >> It's critical. Microsoft for the most part is an outsourced supply chain in which we measure partners across the network. We have our partners run our distribution and centers, we have outsource manufacturing, we have outsourced logistics. And it's important that we're working with them about what their plans are, because they're just simply an extension of the Microsoft supply chain. >> Right. >> Right. They're not not just companies we work with, they're companies we partner with, to think about how can we change the future? What are the alternatives that we can do? How do we think about alternative fuels? How do we think about alternative shipping ways? How do we think about creating density in the network? So one of the biggest things when you really think about optimization is really around creating deensity. How do I create more with less, and make sure I'm taking, for every dollar spent, for every shipment made, I maximize it to its fullest, and leave no waste behind it? That's the goal. And so, partners challenging us is probably the most important piece because they're on the front line. They actually see our shipments, they see our loads, they see the work we're doing and how it's translating to their environment. And it's important that they give us that hard feedback back that allows us know where we're not meeting the bar. >> Got it. Cassie, you guys are giving a presentation in about a couple of hours. Talk to me about some of the things that the audience, like if you had to summarize the top three takeaways that the audience is going to learn from the top, what would they be? >> I think the first is sustainability. So we want everybody to know that this is the key mission for Microsoft. That's one of the priorities for the next eight years for Microsoft to achieve. And the second is just how Coupa can help us achieve that goal. And how do we leverage the the applications, the tools, the cutting edge technologies for us to achieve a sweet balance between sustainability and technology supplychain? >> I think one of the greatest things about conferences like this, is that Coupa is great with that customer centricity, is it the opportunity to hear from the voice of the customer? What challenges you had? Why you chose Coupa? How you resolved them? And that crystal ball that you talked about in terms of where we're going from here. I think that there's so much value. I'm sure in what you're going to share today with the audience. Jonathan, last question for you, for other folks in any industry that are about to embark on, or are in the midst of a supply chain, digital transformation, what's your advice? What recommendations would you give? >> For me, it's really about two things. First and foremost is about creating data. Focus on data, not an answer, not a conversation. What is the information that you require? And then the second piece about that is then how do you make sure you stitch it together? And how you create, whether it's manufacturing data, whether it's purchase order data, whether it's sales order data, whether it's shipment data, whatever it is, making sure that you can stitch end-to-end together, because each individual decision by itself, may be right, but could be wrong, because ultimately, it's about the decision for the whole, not the decision for the one. And then making sure you focus on the cultural change, which is around, it's just not my area, it's just not my thing, it's about the end, it's about the planet, it's about Microsoft, it's about the customer, it's about the future, and making sure you're really really focused on making that change, right? Not my change. >> Right, and Rob Bernstein even alluded to that a little bit this morning in his keynote talking about one of the things that Coupa breaks is silos. >> Yes. >> Organizations that, cause to your point, something might be really good for sales or operations, but not good for marketing or logistics, for example, need to be able to have that visibility across, but also another thing that Coupa is famous for is collaboration. >> Correct. >> Being able to enable that collaboration across lines of business, across teams, across partners. >> Yep. And an important statement of that is, when you think about change, think of it like a stream, right? Streams, they create pathways with persistence. When you believe in something and you're truly behind it, just stay the path, right? There'll be a time and a place, cause sometimes the decisions just aren't now, but they will become. There's a lot of things that, for example, myself and Cassie are constantly working on, that might not be right now, but they will be right in the future. And it takes sometimes, just the right opportunity, the right situation, but the key is making ysure you understand those things so when those opportunities present themselves, you can just step in. >> Yep. Another thing we've learned, I think in the last two years, I'm losing count, is it's not a matter of if, but when. >> Correct. >> And you can apply that general statement to pretty much anything these days. >> Absolutely. >> Guys, thank you so much for joining me talking about Microsoft's transformation of the supply chain, the digital twin that you've created. Have a great time in your session. I'm sure folks are going to learn a lot from you. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you so much. >> All right, my pleasure. For Jonathan Allen and Cassie Wang, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching the the CUBE's coverage of Coupa Insp!re 2022 from Las Vegas. Stick around, be right back with my next guest. (upbeat msuic)

>>Hey guys, and gals. Welcome back to Las Vegas. Lisa Martin here at Coupa inspire 2022 with about 2,500 folks. Very excited to be back in person. I can assure you that is the vibe that is here to be. You joins me next to the managing director at KPMG Toby. It's great to have you on the program. >>Thanks. It's great to be here. >>Isn't it great to be back? I know it feels so normal. We were talking before we went live, that it feels normal. >>It does. It does. And it feels great. And after a great kickoff with, uh, with Rob >>Fantastic, Rob Bernstein has, and Barbara Corcoran, Rob has probably the highest energy of a CEO that I've ever gotten to work with. So you always know you're in for a good high energy conversation. Then Barbara Corcoran coming in, Jon Taffer with bar rescue is it's a, been a great morning so far. So you let's talk about you, you specialize in digital transformation within the procurement and the contract management spaces. Talk to me a little bit about that. >>Yeah, absolutely. You know, I, uh, I love helping folks to re-imagine their, uh, operating models to solve today's challenges. And there are so many challenges coming out in this post COVID world, um, that many of our clients are dealing with. And, and I'm never short on phone calls and, you know, uh, from, from my clients reaching out for help, um, to really figure out how to retool, um, and, and, and really help themselves to transform, to be able to address the, the, the changes to come. >>I heard a really smart description of the last two years today, compressed transformation. We've been talking about digital transformation for years, and then we've also been talking about it's acceleration during the COVID era, but the compressed transformation, I thought that's probably something that's here to stay. Nobody's going to want access to older, less data slower. >>Yep. >>They're just not >>A hundred percent. What >>Are some of the trends that you've observed in your role in the last couple of years? >>Yeah, I, I absolutely believe that folks that took advantage of that digital transformation pre pandemic have actually been able to fare much better than those that have held off on those investments. Um, for whatever reasons, you know, there are always different priorities, but those that have actually gotten that journey started, um, pre pandemic have definitely fared, uh, for, well, I think the trends that I'm seeing today, the CPO's challenge, um, and there are many challenges, um, but you know, the, you know, coming out of the, uh, post COVID era, you are now recovering and ramping up production as a result, your buying activities increasing, right. Um, and, and other ways other than increasing, um, activity. There's also the changing of requirements. So, you know, the folks in the front office are looking at new technologies to innovate new products and services, and that's going to change what the, the mix of the skills and resources that you need in the back office. >>Um, in addition to that, um, there are other requirements like ESG. And so as you're thinking about retooling and being able to, um, buy more sustainably or drive diversity, um, with the spend that you have, that's also changing the skill mix that you have. And I think on top of speak, uh, on top of that, um, the skills and the talent, we are dealing with the, a unfortunate situation that many companies are with the, uh, you know, the great resignation where the talent is, has as quickly exited the workforce. Um, and, uh, and, and with the demand increasing and changing, that puts everyone in a tough spot. And so those are really the big challenges that I've seen with the clients. Most recently, as we're coming out of COVID >>Of your customer conversations, escalated up the C-suite you talk, you mentioned the chief procurement officer. If we think of every company, these days has to be a data company to be successful. If they're not, they're probably not going to be around. Are you noticing that from a supply chain perspective within procurement and contract management, is that escalating the C-suite to be much more of a C-suite or board level initiative? >>Absolutely. Absolutely. I think what folks have realized in many of their, even the earlier digital transformation efforts, it was very geared around automating and streamlining transactions and processes, not so much putting data at the core. Yes, you would get intelligence out of that, but we hadn't architected your entire organization around data and good quality data and what is needed, um, to be able to actually translate that data to meaningful insights, to make the decisions or drive, um, visibility within to your, into your supply chain. Um, so when you think about things that are, um, such as ESG, where you really need to know, um, your tier one, tier two tier three suppliers, and all the impacts that that has, um, in order to drive to those, um, ESG objectives that you're telling your investors, you're telling your customers, and you're telling your, um, your employees about it's very important. You have to be centered around data and be able to be able to see their entire supply chain. And if you weren't, if you weren't architected to do so, doing it as an afterthought is very costly because you've already made those investments >>Very costly. And also, I mean, from a business perspective, I think, you know, we, we talk so often Toby and you probably do as well about it, business alignment. It's one of those, it's like digital transformation. It's almost a buzzword if you will, but it's critical because I'm seeing a lot of data and research from, from folks like Gardner that are showing that massive percentages of businesses believe that the technology is really the driver and the fuel of the business going forward. So no longer can it and lines of business be separated. >>Yeah, I, I totally agree. I actually think that when I mentioned about new skills, if you think about the next generation and the new operating models, um, uh, you know, the, the, the new folks coming out of college have to have that skill set because process and technology are, are, are completely linked. Um, and I think that the organizations, the future and the sick, the most successful ones will know how to actually be more human centric and be able to harness the data through the technologies. So I'll actually allow you and I to do what we do best, right, which is collaborate and negotiate deals work on our relationship versus focused on the technology or entering data into forms and all the administrative components that, uh, many of my clients are plagued with today, >>Collaboration, I think has maybe become even more important in the last two years that we've been so limited about how to collaborate. Thankfully, we have a lot of technologies to do that, but when I think of Coupa collaboration, community are two words that jump out. Talk to me a little bit about from an, a partnership perspective alignment there with the collaborative spirit at KPMG. >>Yeah, absolutely. Um, you know, for, for us, uh, I recently just presented on a very similar topic that nothing great in business is done by a single person. And it takes partners to be able to drive the innovation needed to solve the new challenges of tomorrow. And, and I see our relationship with that. You know, they offer a platform, they offer a method to get access to the data and simplify it in a way for our clients so that they can focus on the relationships and driving the collaboration with their suppliers. And, and I think that that's, that's the thought leadership, uh, in partnership with, uh, with them that we'd like to bring to the table. >>Speaking of alignment between KPMG and Qubit. Talk to me a little bit about ESG as, as sort of a new initiative within KPMG. Talk to me a little bit about that. And what's some of the high level objectives are >>Absolutely. Um, I wouldn't say that it's, it's, it's new. I think it's always been there and there's always been a focus, but I think the recent events and with the regulatory environment changing as well, and as with consumers, consumer behavior, driving and investor community driving towards, um, uh, ESG, I think that is quickly changing how companies are prioritizing that within the Mo amongst everything else that they have. And as a result, I think the CPO's role in that equation is ever so important when it comes to delivering and operationalizing ESG. >>I imagine it, the CPS role must be a lot more strategic these >>Days >>Because they really have to be kind of a transformation change agent. >>Yeah. And actually in most cases, the CPO is perfect for that because that's been their role, um, in, uh, in, in, uh, in many cases before. Um, and I think, yeah, this is just yet another dimension that they didn't have to attack and, and incorporate into the, uh, into the process of selecting the right partner or the right supplier within their, um, within the, uh, with, with who they want to onboard for, for the company. >>Got it. Okay. Let's talk about advice now for companies that are either in the early stages of the supply chain transformation really digitizing, how do they get started? Is it too late for some? >>No, I don't think it's ever too late. I don't think, I, I think, um, I don't think it's too late, you know, and especially with the very big focus on digital and tech these days, sometimes being the late, being late to the game allows folks to actually work out the kinks for, you know, the bleeding edge technologies. And so that makes it even less risky for them to adopt in, in many cases. Um, that's, that's, uh, that, that's what we've seen, but, you know, I think the advice is get educated, uh, really just understand as much as you can around what other people are doing. Are there other, um, uh, peer group, uh, companies like yours, you know, like themselves that are actually going through the transformation or have gone before and just kind of understand what were the drivers of that strategy and what were the outcomes that you can learn from them, get help from externals. >>Um, and whether they be technology partners, consultants, and actually hiring new skills and bringing in new perspectives to help you to own and drive that strategy important. This is super important and you can't outsource these things, right. This needs to come from within, especially when you think about things as purposeful and impactful as ESG. Um, those, those cannot be outsourced. Um, and I think those would be the, uh, the kind of the two key things. Um, but I always also say, um, take an outward in approach, as you're thinking about your new strategy, focus on what your employees are saying about, you know, your supply chain and how easy it is to actually understand and, and work within your supply chain. Talk to your suppliers, talk to your internal business partners, to really reflect and understand how do you make this process as easy as possible for them to comply with. >>I think one of the things I was reading, uh, in preparation for coming here is that some, some survey, a survey that that Cooper did of about 800 decision makers. And one of the things that was overwhelming as a theme is that a lot of organizations don't feel that they have the right data visibility to drive an ESG strategic initiative. So what Coupa does providing that visibility and the ability to collaborate and share across the community is, seems to be something that's going to be a business critical must have going forward. >>Yeah, a hundred percent, you know, many, uh, many of our clients operate under, you know, uh, not under like mandates or compliance, driven, um, kind of policies in the commercial world, many cases you have to influence the buying behavior. And so you can't do that without data. I'd like to think in this day and age presented with the right supplier options with them at the right point in time, you're able to influence and drive the spend to diverse candidates, sustainable options, you know, and there's, you know, not just savings, not just the lowest cost option, but there's so many other things to consider in this day and age. And I think that's where it's so important to be able to have a platform like Hoopa, to be able to gather that data acquire external sources of data, such as ESG related data and make that to, um, to, to all parties, um, and be that source of truth so that you can drive the >>Here's some truth. And also even something that was talked about this morning during the keynote is accountability. And have you heard Jon Taffer from bar rescue talking this morning, but he was talking about an 120 bar rescues. He goes, I've never met one person that has admitted from day one of the four days. They shoot that I'm responsible for the reason that my business is not successful. He goes, everybody has an excuse. There's no accountability until you really force someone to take probably that hard look in the mirror that they don't want to take, but that accountability within organizations within an overall business is critical. >>Yeah, I think, uh, I absolutely believe that went away to solve that is providing the data and making it available. And, um, and really once again, I think it goes back to driving that behavior that you want. And I think it starts with, uh, with, with leadership and I think the accountability, accountability of leadership, and to be able to drive that type of culture within your organization. Um, but absolutely you need data to be able to do that and, and be able to monitor that as well, you know, as a leader to make sure that that accountability is appropriately distributed. >>Right. But one of the things, I mean, I think patients has been in short supply the last two years have been, we've learned that. I think also that another thing we've learned is that access to real-time data is no longer, oh, then that would be great. It's you've got to have that for your business to be differentiated because the, you know, if we think about the consumer side, the consumers are so vocal on things like social media, if the experience isn't tailored, personalized and instantaneous, We have a very short Rob talked about the very short attention span that his kids have. I'm like three minutes. We don't even have that in business or on the consumer side. I don't think. >>Yeah, I, yeah, I see that in my kids and what he said today was, was spot on. Um, so, you know, when I think about my career and where I'm at, and he said the same thing, I mean, our kids are coming into the, there'll be in procurement organizations very soon, sooner than, you know, then, then I like to admit. Um, and as a result, I think that, um, we talked a bit about talent shortage and the challenge with keeping talent. And I think that what you had just expressed is very important is that that experience for the employee, but you come into a workforce and they expect you to have these quick turnarounds, but you've, you offered them tools that require spreadsheets and old archaic systems to be able to solve today's challenges. I think that you're not going to be able to retain your talent right along. Right. >>That's a great point. That's an absolutely fantastic point. Last question for you before we wrap here is so the changes that organizations need to make with respect to being prepared for ESG reporting requirements that are coming down the pike, obviously being, having a data strategy has got to be one of us. >>Yeah, absolutely. I think, um, I think we, many procurement organizations were really geared around savings and a very compliance, driven manner. And when you think about ESG, I think you gotta be very data-driven. Um, and so that should be a priority focus of how do you retool yourself to be able to acquire mass amounts of data, figuring out where you need to go, um, to get that data, whether they be third parties, whether they be directly from the supplier, um, and be able to aggregate it and provide the insight into those reporting standards that are required. Um, and then to be able to actually measure progress along those sustainability or diversity goals that it might be established at, at, at the leadership level. So I think it's coming down the pike. It's a matter of time. I think it's, I think it's, uh, you know, it's something that I've been waiting for to see. Um, and it's interesting to see how, uh, how quickly that it's, it's come down. Um, but I think with the regulatory compliance coming down, um, this is going to be moving very quick and people need to get ready. >>That's good. They need to be ready. Excellent to be thank you for joining me on the program today, talking about what you were doing at KPMG, what it's doing with Kupa and how organizations really should be thinking about and approaching supply chain, digital transformation. We appreciate your insights. >>Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much. All >>Right. For Toby, you I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching the cube in Las Vegas at Cooper inspire 2022 stick around. My next guest will join me shortly.

from London England it's the cube covering Koopa inspire 19 emia taught to you by Koopa hey welcome to the cube Lisa Martin coming to you from London I'm at Koopa inspire 19 pleased to be joined by one of Koopas spent setters hit me here is alla Williams the managing director and chief procurement officer at Barclays al welcome to the cube Thank You Lisa thanks for having me so Barclays is a three hundred plus year old Bank three hundred and thirty five years I think I also was was headquartered in London I didn't know this until he did some research Barclays is the pioneer of the ATM yes and a credit card in the UK credit card why first credit card in the UK and the pioneer in inventor of the ATM correct yes so when we think of an organization that is three hundred and thirty five years old we think how agile is that organization how transformative can it be talk to me about what it's like at Barclays from a digital perspective before we get into some of the procurement stuff which or not but tight and culture like that's a great question right could you think about a three hundred thirty-five year old Bank how innovative could it can it be right how agile can it be and the market in the the sector we work in requires us to be very agile because banking is a disrupted sector especially on the retail and consumer side expectations around technology and mobile capabilities and digital transformation are the most significant they've ever been in this sector and so for Barclays it's it's absolutely key that we deliver on those capabilities both in terms of our front office for our consumers and our corporate clients as well as for our own employees within the bank how influential is the consumer side because as consumers we are so used to being able to get anything that we want we can buy products and services we can pay bills with a click or swipe on the on the business side it's harder for businesses to transform and innovate it's a lot of other risks and security issues how influential is Barclays Barclays is your retail your consumer business in terms of your b2b work and that's a great question because I think the the experiences that shape people's expectations come from their interactions in retail and consumer when it comes to b2b and traditionally business-to-business commerce and financial transactions haven't been nearly as sophisticated streamlined or frictionless you know as you would in a consumer model so the expectations are built on the consumer side in consumer to business type models and then the business and business models been playing catch-up for the last several years as a result talk to me about now the role of finance leaders I was reading surgery that Kupa did recently have 253 uk-based financial decision makers and a big number of them I think it was 96 percent said we don't have complete visibility of all of our spent there's a big opportunity there to work with a company like Cooper but talk to me about how the role of the chief procurement officer is changing you've been doing it for quite a while you're a veteran right some of the trends that you have seen that you've really jumped on and said this is the direction we need to be going in right so I've been the chief procurement officer of Barclays for two and half years and the CEO of a large global technology company for nine years before that so I think the the the role of the chief procurement officer has changed significantly over the course of the last say 10 years five years two years we're at a point now where the chief procurement officer is seen as a source of and the organization of procurement is seen as a source of innovation it's seen as a source of capacity creation for the the the organization for the company and it's also seen as sort of a steward of the portfolio of spins for that particular organization to ensure we're maximizing the utility and value of that spend and of that supply chain so the expectations for procurement have tripled quadrupled or more fold in the last you know four or five years some of the interesting things that we're hearing from Koopa and from their customers and partners today is beyond simply initiative to simply but beyond you know dramatically improving procurement and invoicing and dispensing and leveraging the platform as one source for visibility of all that spent but it's being transformative to completely other areas like I was hearing a story of a customer who redefined procurement and is actually positively impacting corporate sustainability yes Wow so talk to me a little bit about I know one of the things that you really thrive on is competition how are you leveraging that and maybe your old American football days to build and maybe foster a sense of collaborative competition within your team to transform procurement at Barclays yes so I think that whether it's in sport or whether it's in business I think the concept of teams is key and effective teams are built on trust they're built on empowerment they they're built on collaboration open communication limited asymmetry and information as it's passed and that's all about kind of driving agility for whether you're on this on the football field American footballer or other football or on or in a business environment of business context so you know it's really and as a CEO and for all of the leaders on my team it's also about being a player coach and knowing when you need to be a player when you need to sort of roll up sleeves contribute in a particular area or particular solving a particular problem but more importantly when you need to be coached and and help those players sort of and those team members in on the team sort of step up to the challenge and coach them to be more success see Bennet Berkeley's a couple years now talk to me about your use case the purpose has with Koopa what are you guys doing together and what are some of the transformations that both internally and externally you've been able to achieve yeah so the relationship with coop has been great again I joined to make a couple of years ago one of the sort of first pillars associated with our overall transformation journey of centralizing procurement from five different procurement or six different procurement organizations really to moving to strategic locations to building out a new organization structure and operating model for for procurement I won't go into all that but one of the key pillars was around technology and we didn't have a common procure-to-pay or source to pay capability that extended or threaded throughout the bank for managing and supply chain so early on when I joined Barclays partnered partnering with Koopa working both of our teams working very effectively together to deploy sort of country by country and region by region we're now in 11 countries with the Koopa source to pay platform we're going to point to six more by the end of this calendar year and over 95% of our spend is flowing through Koopa as a multinational banks so it's been a significant component of our overall transformation journey for for Barclays and part of that transformation journey the technology piece is important that all a lot of its cultural we talked about a history of a three hundred and thirty-five year old organization but also going from five different procurement organizations down to one using a central platform that's challenging to get folks on board right being comfortable with change is your spirit of competitiveness was that a facilitator of getting adoption so that you could get them well I think so I mean I think to get the most out of teams and the most out of any organization large or small you need to galvanize around a common set of goals and objectives the the adage we ought to be pulling on the rope together to achieve achieve the end result and I think in the case of the sort of our Koopa journey both in terms of its strategy and overall deployment it was something more or less our entire procurement organization was able able to galvanize around and in feel like they were a part of and it it created an identity for us within Barclays as a procurement organization as well and kind of put his front and center with our business units and our stakeholders in a way we had we'd never been before so in terms of procurement having a seat at the board table is that something now that you have the ability to do with Barclays and be much more of a strategic driver of business yeah and look at Barclays compared to some of my other experiences it's not an it's not an issue of not having a seat at the table we might have a seat at too many tables sometimes there's a lot of attention on procurement within Barclays to help it deliver on its strategic objectives so with that seat comes a lot of responsibility so I often will coach my teams to ensure that they understand kind of that that that component of it's not just about having a seat at the table it's about what we're going to contribute what are we going to do differently when we're at that table when we're helping shape the decisions for the organization and what are the accountabilities and responsibilities that will pick up as a result and deliver on those promises that's absolutely critical one of the things that was talked about this morning is to trust Rob Bernstein talked about it they also had a guest speaker Rachel Botsman who's a trusted expert it was such an interesting conversation you know we talked about any chuck event that the cube goes to you always talk about trust got to have trust in the data you gotta have trust in your suppliers but what they were talking about here was really being an enabler of trust but cooper really working to earn the trust of its customers tell me about how has earned your trust and also allowed you to have those better discussions at the board table so that you have marked trusted relationships with your executive and your peer team yeah I mean it all starts for Barclays at the very top of the house in front office because we're in the business of trust I mean Bank a bank is in the business of trust that's what we deliver and promise to our consumers and our corporate clients and I think you know within procurement we need to make sure we're sort of delivering on that same promise around around trust and building trust with our teams and with our suppliers in the case of Kupa frankly it was about asking them to ensure they appropriately set expectations with me with my team in terms of what we could or couldn't do with the capability right don't over promise and under deliver but actually be very prudent and practical about what we're gonna be able to get done and then deliver on those promises to the best of your ability but if something and I always do if something goes so not according to plan right it's be open communicative and direct with the issue and how we're going to address it that to me is how we build trust in any team and that's how we built trust with Kupa through our transformation over the last two years that's critical mister your point no deployment probably ever goes perfectly according to plan there are always things that happen whatever it is software hardware is that we're talking about and I think for companies to address that confront it help the customer through those challenges to me that's more valuable I'm saying everything went beautifully was flawless that's not reality right I completely agree and I think that's that's what separates good from great companies to write is their ability to build that trust whether it be within their supply chain with their clients with their employees and look it's it's a journey it's not something you're one and done and you can say okay we've got the trust you can lose it as easy as you can obtain it and you have to keep a focus on on those trusting relationships should think about that we've earned this trust but we have to focus on it so we don't lose it so we grow X having the focus on that because you're right whether it's a deployment of software it's not one and it's the same thing with any sort of trusted relationship right it's maintaining that it's ensuring that there's value right being delivered on both sides that's right tell me a little bit about your ability Barclays ability as a spend setter in this program that Cooper has to influence technology directions like they talk a lot about the community all the insights that they're able to deliver to the community because of the community as Burton is able to be a strategic her gir with Cooper rather than just a customer yeah Phil we are I mean Rob and his team Raja Ravi the entire crew are very receptive and they're very collaborative in hearing from an organization like Barclays now look I'll be the first to admit Barclays and in banking and banking specifically in the UK it's a different animal than many other companies and sectors that kupo would work in so what might work for other companies doesn't always work for us and kind of flipping that around there's certain things that we need from Koopa that that we've been able to partner with them to deliver over the course of the last two years and the relationship of coop has been fantastic they hear us they listen to us they help us understand what the solution can do what it can't do or won't be able to do in the near term and then how do we augment that in the right way so we don't create cottage industries of activity with Impa cure med when we could be leveraging the capability of ghupat to deliver on those services right so you mentioned a little bit about what's next for you guys in terms of rolling out the deployment a little bit more broadly last question for you is some of the news that came out today with the expansion of Koopa pay with American Express for example and just some of the other innovations that Koopa is making what are some of your thoughts what are some of the things that excite you about the direction are going in well yes so on the Koopa pay front I'm actually going to be on stage with Ravi tomorrow talking about Koopa pay because Mark Lee card is also a key component of that capability for the first virtual card that they integrated probably I believe it was yeah and and so so I think about payments is sort of the one not the only but one of the next frontiers from a source to pay or a procurement perspective and it's about how do we innovate in the payment space to get away from having that through the old traditional methods of adding suppliers you know detailed information to our vendor masters so that we can then eventually get an invoice and then reconcile payment remittance to invoices and sort of work through there's a lot of cost in that a lot of time and very little speed we want to move the dial on speed the value we want to move the dial on efficiencies and eventually get to a point where we can offer things like early payment discounts so by having control over our our payment process and that's where Koopa pay and the Barclaycard partnership with Koopa pay is really played a key role in making that happen so in q1 we made our commitment to deploy Koopa pay in q1 after we're through some of our deployments through the rest of this year on the base of the platform and look forward to continuing that journey next year on the payment side one last thing that just popped up I was doing some research and the b2c side is transformed much faster a lot of demand from the consumers we talked about that a moment ago do you see what the direction could the pay is going in with Barclays card for example as bringing in some of the consumer implements to start facilitating the acceleration that's needed there and I think yes I think that's exactly right because again when you think about the consumer side of payments or use it we're all using our phones we're using other digital means we're using wearables we're using different ways of buying and paying especially in retail and the first question we have to ask ourselves why can't those innovations be applied in a b2b space now kupah pay is I think a start of sort of that journey and certainly not the end you know destination but certainly I think it sets us off in the right direction yeah we as consumers are quite demanding yes I'll thank you for doing you on the cube ensuring the Barclays spends that our success rate good luck tomorrow in your keynote thank you for having me thank you pleasure I'm Lisa Martin you're watching the cube from cuca inspire London 19 thanks for watching

>> Narrator: From the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, it's theCUBE, covering Coupa Inspire 2019, brought to you by Coupa. >> Welcome to theCUBE, Lisa Martin on the ground at Coupa Inspire'19 from the Cosmopolitan in Vegas. And I'm pleased to be joined by one of Coupa's spend setters from Highmark Health, Gary Foster, VP of Procurement. Gary, welcome to theCUBE. >> Thank you, it's pleasure to be here. >> So we're here with about 2,300 folks or so I think this is the eighth Coupa Inspire. Lots of energy and excitement this morning in the general session as Rob kicked that off. There is some of the interesting things that I've learned about Coupa in the last short while including this morning was that there's now $1.2 trillion of spend going through being managed by the Coupa platform. Tremendous community of data. And so imperative as the role of Chief Procurement Officer is changing, the CFO is changing. You are a veteran in the procurement industry. Before we talk about Highmark Health, give me a little bit of an overview of some of the things that you've seen change in procurement and where you think we are today in terms of that role being not only very strategic, but very influential to the top line of a business. >> Okay, it's a great question. I have spent a little over three decades in procurement. We've come a long way from back then. There was a lot of carryover from the industrialization era, and post-World War II and Korean War era, et cetera. Where really wasn't even called procurement it was purchasing. And there was a bit of the darling in the manufacturing industry, because that had such a high impact on the cost of goods sold. And as you got into other organizations, it was kind of relegated to a back office function, very transactional, very administrative, very clerical. So it really took someone with a lot of guts and a lot of vision to say we can be more than that. We can provide insights, we can deliver efficient transaction work and free up people to do more advisory type of roles. So I'm pleased to say I experimented with that early on in my procurement career. And that has been the shift that I think is continuing on. The whole buzz around digitization is another enabler to free up the talent that we have, that we can put into providing insights and predictions and becoming true strategy advisors to the business. So when the most recent, I've had for teams that I've taken over to either completely transform or build from the ground up. And this most recent one, I've sort of mashed up a lot of things that I've learned over the past three decades, to try to prepare them for where I believe that the profession is going, where I believe the function is going. Back to your original question. It's really evolved a lot from that back office transactional, just focus on price, a little bit on supply reliability, if it was in manufacturing, to slowly but surely started evolving to, what can you do to help us with some business objectives? And do we trust you with some important strategic initiatives that we need to accomplish as a company or in my business? >> Right, so it sounds like early on that you had this awareness of, there's pockets, there's silos of spend and purchasing happening there that we don't have the visibility into, 'cause we're talking a lot about that today with, that's what today's CPO and CFO really need is that visibility and control. >> Gary: Right. >> Especially as all of these forcing functions or disruptors happen, the more regulatory requirements or companies growing organically or inorganically. And suddenly, there's many, many areas within a business that are buying and spending. >> Right. >> And if they don't have that awareness and visibility into it, not only is it obviously, it's a cost issue, but one of your points to the resource utilization perspective. There's a lot of opportunities miss. So it sounds like you kind of saw that early on in your career, that there are things going on, we need to get visibility into all of this. >> Yes, yes. And it's, that's probably the, that's one of the foundational building blocks is to get a good handle on where's the money going. So the financial side of the house understands it from their journal entries and from their cost centers. But procurement, really great world class procurement, brings a different lens that the business doesn't think of. And that the financial industry, financial segment of the business doesn't think of. So that's, but you're really kind of a chicken and egg thing, you can't really provide the insights, if you don't have your hands on the information. And the information is got to be usable, right? Data versus information-- >> Absolutely. >> Quandary. That's very much the case with procurement. But you can't get bogged down and going for perfection, because then you'll just, analysis paralysis. You won't get out of that cycle and you'll never be able to provide. So you have to know, you have to have a gut feel that this is enough, this is directionally correct. Let's take this to the next level. Let's start moving with, here are the patterns that we see, here's what we think is happening, here's where we think there are issues, right? So those are, I think, are some of the foundational pieces to the spend analysis question. >> So talk to us a little bit about Highmark Health. What you're doing there and how you guys are really focused on changing America's approach to healthcare? Which I think would be welcomed by a lot of people, by the way. >> (chuckles) Yes, we have a very, very ambitious goal. We believe we can be a catalyst to change healthcare in America. >> Lisa: How so? >> Well, first of all, we think that the model was wrong. If you think about the way that the healthcare industry has grown up in the US, you went to a hospital because you were either sick or injured. You had to go to those locations. You had to follow those procedures. You had to fill out those forms. You had to, you went to where the care was, and you had to bend to your schedule to whatever was available, right? We've all experienced trying to get an appointment with a doctor, and it's four months out, right? So we're doing, this was a year and a half ago, we introduced same-day appointments. So we have both a hospital system and an insurance company. So we can see the whole value chain-- >> Lisa: Okay. >> Through the healthcare experience. And one of the fundamentals that we're doing is, we're trying to bring a retail mindset to healthcare. >> Where the wellness comes to- >> You, as opposed to you having to go somewhere to access your health or to get connected with experts that can advise you or for checkups, et cetera. You're wearing an Apple Watch, that's only one of those Fitbits, et cetera. There's a multitude of wearables that are coming. The combination of IoT, and healthcare and big data is intersecting at a rapid rate where we will be, we are already able to look at millions of records, of chart information about patterns of diagnoses. And we know that the data tells us that if we can get people to engage in their health and make small changes, and just learn more, be educated and learn more about how, we know that the long-term costs of their healthcare will go down. So we are looking to partner, obviously, can't do this all on our own. >> Right. >> So this is not a David and Goliath kind of a thing. So we're looking actively to partner with breaking company, lead companies and breaking technology companies to be partners with us on this journey of how do we bring health to people and help improve their health, lower their disease rates, provide a better quality of life, lower their cost of health care, lower all the complications, you can see the graphs, right? It all runs, as you get as you get older, if you don't take care of yourself. >> Lisa: Right. >> The complications of healthcare issues just go exponentially up. And we know we can bend that curve down if we can transform the way that health is thought of and delivered to people in the country. >> Well, I'm already signed, you got me. So talk to me, though, about from a technology perspective. If we think about all the emerging technologies, you mentioned IoT, millions and millions of devices, we are sometimes overly connected. >> Gary: Yes. >> What is the opportunity that Highmark is working on with Coupa to be able to start changing that mindset and bringing that retail model to healthcare? How are they hoping to ignite that? >> Well, it's not on a direct connection with Coupa. Coupa is our procuring platform. So it enables us to provide efficient transactions and we get data insights. Coupa is very much an enabler for us in this process. What I would say is, and this goes back to the evolution of procurement as a profession, by having Coupa and other technologies at the fingertips of my team, it frees them to immerse themselves into their clients' business as well as their categories. So if they're, if I have someone who's a category manager of digital marketing, they can immerse themselves into that, and they can work that, my folks go, they attend senior level staff meetings, they have one on ones with executive VPs, they co-locate with the client on a regular basis. We really immerse ourselves into it. What Coupa is doing is it's allowing us to spend less time on transactions and process, and more time learning the business, more time understanding the industries that they operate in, looking for innovation, and bringing those innovative partners to the business that wouldn't necessarily have happened on its own. We have this incredible network, particularly if we have people that really, really have a passion for procurement, and really have a passion for being intimate with the customer. I know it's an overused phrase, but the trusted advisor status is definitely where we should be. That's an, the Coupa org, the Coupa platform, and tools enable my team to have, to bring those insights and those opportunities to the business. And we've gotten tremendous accolades from the CEO through the entire C-suite, about the level of business partnership that the procurement organization has, with all of the various areas of the Highmark organization. >> So you have this visibility now that you didn't have before with Coupa? >> Yeah. >> This control. Sounds like your resources and different parts of the organization are much better able to use their time to be strategic on other projects and to really start bringing that retail experience out there. Coupa kind of as, you mentioned, as an enabler is really foundational to that. I know you've actually won some awards. I think, Rob Bernstein actually mentioned this on stage this morning that you took top honors at the Procurement Leaders, Inaugural America's Procurement Awards. >> Gary: Yes. >> You've also been recognized as a Procurement Leader of the Year for transforming Highmark Health. What I love about the story is that showing how procurement, not only has it transitioned tremendously to be very strategic, but you're helping to transform an industry by getting this visibility on everywhere, where there's spend there, that operationally, Highmark Health seems to have a big leg up. >> Yes, yeah. No one could be everywhere at once. And if we can earn that trust, then the people in the business who are hired to play certain roles, strategy, development, or whatever, if they're, if they will, let us help them with our expertise, they can spend, they're more effective in their role. >> Right. >> Because they're not doing procurement work. They're not talking to suppliers. They're not negotiating deals. They're not looking, then let us provide that service, that professional service to them, really, as a consultant, as an advisor, and bring companies that, the more we get in depth into understanding the industries that we're buying in, the more we're learning about emerging companies. Who are the innovators? Who are the disruptors? Bringing those organizations because we're studying that in our markets, to our business partner, and making that introduction, which sparks an idea, which sparks an opportunity for the two to work together collaboratively on something new, or to resolve an issue that has not been addressed and no one found an answer to in the past. >> Well, you've put this really strong foundation in place that not only gives you the visibility and control, but it's going to allow Highmark Health on this ambitious goal, as you mentioned, about bringing wellness to us. And of course, there's the whole, there's the human in the way. So maybe tomorrow, Deepak Chopra, who's keynoting, will be able to give you guys some insight into how to help these people. And it's all of us people, right? Really embrace mindfulness, to be able to focus more on our passions. But what you guys are doing to transform healthcare is really inspirational so Gary, thank you-- >> Thank you very much. >> For joining me on theCUBE today. >> It was a pleasure. >> Likewise. For Gary Foster, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBE from Coupa Inspire'19. Thanks for watching. (upbeat music)

>> from the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. It's the Cube covering Cooper inspired. 2019. Brought to you by Cooper. >> Welcome to the Cube. Lisa Martin on the ground at Cooper Inspire 19 at the Cosmopolitan, the chic Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas. Very pleased to be joined by my friend David Chang, the VP of business from Hello. Sign a drop box company. David, Welcome to the Cube. >> Thank you for having me on. >> Great to have you here. It is a lot of fun. You could really geek out talking technology all day >> too much. So, >> yeah, there's that >> play that you gotta gamble. It'll keep it real. >> You know, I have no skills in that whatsoever, but maybe I'll try it. I'll take your advice. Give her audience an overview of Hello. Sign. Sure. Drop box Company. What? You guys are what you do. All that good stuff. >> Great. Great. So hello. Sign is today one of the fastest growing, if not the fastest growing electronic signature company in market place today and today we host, I think, over 100,000 paying businesses that use one of our products and over 150 different countries. today we actually were acquired by Dropbox. Sure, everybody's familiar Dropbox or one of the biggest brands in the Internet industry today by the leader in consumer and business files Thinking chair. So John Box actually purchased this, you know, for a number of reasons. First of all, even amazing product and cultural fit with them. But also, Electronic Signature Day is an enormous market. It is one piece of the overall digital transformation, but Elektronik, six year alone, analysts view, is probably a $25,000,000,000 industry, which we've only barely scratched the surface. So it's a huge opportunity, absolutely, and it's that big. That's exactly the you know. That's actually what's shocking about how big it is, because if you think about almost in every business, there are not just one, but probably dozens of different use cases where you need to sign documents. So electronic signature honestly is relevant for everything from all your sales agreements to all of your HR and offer letter and on boarding agreement. It's relevant specifically for all of your procurement and buying agreements, all your vendors contracts that need to be signed, your supply agreements that needs to be signed and D A s o purchase orders. All these documents need to be signed. And today you know, only a few of these use cases have been brought into the digital arena. So there's a whole huge area to grow. And with Dropbox being a leader and content management, where you normally store your documents, >> right, it's >> a natural workflow extension two haven't signed by. Hello, son. >> Excellent. Well, one of the things that we've been talking a lot about we talk about this in every show is the effects of consumer is Asian. And we talked about this yesterday with Rob Bernstein, Cooper's CEO in a number of gas yesterday and today is that we're consumers every day, even when we're at work. Oh, I forgot. I gotta buy this when we go on Amazon, we know we could get it in a day, but now we have the same expectations whether we're buying business, you know, software or what not? And we also want to be able to do things from our mobile phone, including sign. Hey, I got this new job offer or whatever happens to be without having out. Oh my God, there's a pdf. I have to go home, get to my desktop, talk to me about PDS because I can imagine when people either fill them out manually, then they scanning back in and somebody's gotta print it out or fax it. That date is stuck in Pdf. How does hello sign work to free dot data in a Pierre? >> Sure, our design philosophy really is about, you know, make making a superior user experience both for the person who needs to get a document, a document side, but also somebody who's actually gonna be signing it. So when we designed our products, you might as easy as possible for user's to sign that and recognizing some of the difficulties with P D EFS and signing on your mobile phone. We've made our products specifically Mobley responsive, so they don't have to pension, screen, pension, pension scan and all that kind of stuff and typing data. We make it very easy walking through the data entry process to streamline the whole process. We just want to make user customer satisfaction first and foremost >> moving the friction, probably getting documents signed much faster. >> Absolutely. I mean the base, you know, benefits associated the signature. Overall you know, our honestly getting your documents signed significantly faster and more efficiently. We have customers that used to take up to two weeks to get a contract signed. And, you know, as a salesperson, that gets your real nervous, right? So we've seen those contracts now get signed in less than a day. Also, Elektronik senator provides a tonic transparency. So throughout the process, we can actually provide notifications that let the sales people know that somebody's opened up the the >> end. Lt >> looked at the document, reviewed it, signed it, completed it. And even if the document has been signed, the consent of reminders to make sure to sign it. And the third thing is, you know you can't can't emphasize this enough. The value associate with productivity increases. Come on. Everyone's gone out. Printed out the document, walked it over to the scanning machine, you know, then uploading it back in your computer, you know that that whole step, you know, should be completely digital and automated as >> much as >> possible. So we see productivity increases to some of our customers between two x three x for X right in the number in reducing the number of man hours people have to spend to get >> documents only. Is that a cost savings? But all of the you can think of all the other benefits like we're talking about, even for the procurement officers were talking about it at Kuba inspires. It's not just saving money. It's all of the other ripple effects that cost savings, resource, reallocations, speed. All enable this digital transformation, which then enables the business Thio capture new customers. Increased customer, lifetime value, shareholder value. There's a lot of upside to this, >> especially for a company like Cooper. First of all, it's an incredible fit for what we do. Procurement documents. That whole host, um, they need to be signed but by, you know, utilizing Hello, son. We really facilitate that whole experience, and we're very excited to expand our partnership today. We're Cooper Advantage partner. >> Tell me about the Cooper Advantage program benefits. Who wins your >> coop? Advantage is this very unique marketplace that Cooper's brought together. They're pulling together both their customers, some of their lead customers and their matching them with some of the suppliers selected suppliers that provide their customers. Ah, whole host of service is that they need so it could be everything from goods and office supplies. All the way to service is like travel service is, and staffing service is all the way to software key software that their customers would utilize in conjunction with their procurement business. Spend management So companies like close on. So by matchmaking it for the suppliers, they get some pre negotiated discounts that offer them immediate savings off of buying direct from retail and then from ah, supplier side. We get huge benefits because we get to meet some of the most targeted companies that we want. So Cooper effectively is one of our favorite matchmakers. >> Nice. So, yeah, there's a tremendous amount of suppliers in their program. I forget the number and I don't want to misquote it. But I can imagine Cooper customer that's using them for procurement and expenses and invoices and payments. I talked a lot about Cooper pains of new things today. Well, then have the opportunity through the Cooper Advantage program to do prick human contract Scorpios with Hello sign as the e signature. >> Exactly, really, exactly. And that that is, like I said, a great match for what their customers need and by being virtue of a coupe advantage part. Sorry. Keep advantage Supplier. We've been pre vetted by Cooper have also worked out some special pre negotiated discounts with Cooper to make sure we passed that value on to their customers. >> So some of the things that came out today regarding yesterday as well with the Amazon extension you and I talked about the consumer ization affect a few minutes ago. What opportunities is that? Open up to Hello, sign for Cooper paid to be able to enable I t folks to have this visibility for the entire software from search to management. With this consume arised approach, open up doors for Hello Sign. >> Well, I think you know, if you look at the total life cycle of any purchase right from from beginning to end from everything from identifying the products that you want to being able to, you know, negotiate and secure a price that is good for you, you know that whole process. There's always tradition, but a lot of friction there. So the same way that there's friction on the e commerce side, we'll check out and purchase right and getting lining up your payment and Internet payment information Cooper. Streamlining that whole thing for the customer so long without sod is if there's documents they're associated with that with that workflow than by using companies like Hello Sign and our products were able to continue that process of digital izing the end and purchase cycle. >> And I imagine, from an information security perspective, everything >> Come on the old >> days usedto signed >> a contract and I thought, Oh, my boss's desk, Anybody could come by and pick that up So nowadays we you know nowadays we keep it stored securely in the cloud. We have some of the highest security requirements of any signature company out there, and that really matches Cupid's philosophy as well. They go overboard on security, which we really appreciate. That mission is completely lard with each other. >> Awesome. So last few seconds here. I know that you guys are early in the acquisition with Dropbox. What's exciting You for the rest of the calendar. 19. Since all these fiscal years are different. And what's next with you guys in Cuba? Yeah, >> So first of all, with Dropbox, we're just excited to be part of an enormous community of over 500,000,000 users globally So it's It's It's the reach is insane. >> I know >> my mom. Yeah, I think everybody has a DROPBOX account on >> eso getting introduced to their segments, whether it's a consumer segment, SMB and increasingly, the business segment offers huge brand recognition and the potential for new customers with Dropbox. So there's a great synergy from a go to market perspective, and with Cooper, we're very excited about the next stage of our partnership is entering the Cooper Link program. So, uh, you know said Now Cooper customers will be able to sign and send for signature from within the Cooper clr module. Eso any of their contracts vendor agreements that are stored within Cooper without ever having to leave Cooper. You consent for signature and seek the document back. And for a company like Cooper, this is a great strategic value. A because of the benefit it brings its customers, but also with all the great features that Cooper's coming out with leading edge. They want to keep a cz much of that procurement experience from within Cooper. They want Cooper to be that system of record per se and system of transaction for all your business. Ben Management So now you don't have to leave Cooper to perform to get your contract signed. You can do it from all within one place within Cooper, and we enable that. >> That's awesome. That's that's what we want. Keep him. In the experience of that, they actually adopted. They get it done. They're more efficient and and and well, David, it's been such a pleasure to >> have you on >> the Cube. Thank you for joining me today. >> Thanks, Lisa. >> All right, we'll see you next. Time for David Chang. I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching the Cube from Cooper Inspired 19. Thanks for watching.

>> from the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. It's the Cube covering Cooper inspired 2019. Brought to You by Cooper. >> Welcome to the Q. But Lisa Martin on the ground in Las Vegas for Cooper Inspire. 19 Hot Vegas. Fresh Insight. I'm pleased to welcome Max Ground, the managing director from Deloitte to the program. Hey, Max. >> Good morning. Good afternoon. >> Good afternoon. Whatever time it is, Vegas Right here is this. It's a time warp. They don't like you see outside It's >> only place the world. The 25th hour. >> Right? So here we are. It inspired 19 kick Everything kicked off this morning with the general session. I was teasing Rob Bernstein a couple hours ago and I had him on that. I learned three things in the general session. He likes pizza, he likes kittens. And Cuba's platform now has 1.2 trillion dollars of spending data going through it. And I thought, man procurement is not what I thought. It wa ce and you have a really >> interesting story about procurement. I'd love for you to share with our audience >> because you said in your session earlier today you said people in this standing your morning session. How many of you wanted to be on procurement? Anybody that raises their hands of line tell me about the procurement of yesterday, the >> opportunities that it's given you and what it is now. >> So I think >> in the past, >> security has been something that had to happen. It was a must have not a place that people saw value. But was the rule enforcers right? So trying to do that and really adding value by discipline, where today, if you think about it, the value that they can add by driving savings authorization drops right to the bomb line. So all the savings that are out there, all >> the negotiations that are doing, it's really unique skill set >> and something that people really should move into finance folks when they're looking for a new opportunity. It's a great skill set to have. Lately I've come across a former attorneys are practicing law but now doing strategic sourcing, doing procurement, work, people from finance because the talent that you have to have is field work with people within their companies, understand their needs, negotiate with suppliers, do hard core analytics and, oh, by the way, we're talking about Cooper has helped in change and implemented technology like that. It's really fascinating. >> It's so much more than >> being a buyer or being somebody that's controlling a particular business unit's ability to buy and spend. >> One of the interesting things about Cooper is this platform that allows what started, I >> think, initially as more procurement corner invoicing is now expanded to also include payments and expenses and travel management and contingent workhorse management. So what the CPO now has the opportunity to do is get this visibility right across an entire business of all of the spending, to your point, make massive impacts to the bottom line. >> Yeah, I >> mean, data is so important, right? In the past, the vendors had all the information. Why? Because the sales people how to get commissions. They knew exactly what was being bought of that company. Today, you can reverse engineer saying, selling cells. I say it's reverse sales. I can't go in there and I tell them now I have the full picture. So if it's divided up that category by three or four different vendors, they're making assumptions about how much market share they have. I know it all. I can create a model, a pricing model on the reverse. Engineer it. It's really for sales. I'm telling them now why they should give me a great discount for the organization and >> I >> have the ability to actually enforce that and drive the savings that we have for the organization. It also helped them drive their numbers on sales. So it's a mutually beneficial relationship. They have more market share. I drive better value for the organization. It really works well, >> Well, one of the destructor is that you're kind of alluded to Is this consumer ization? You know, when you go to buy >> a car these days, you just walk in there. You have as a as a buyer of the consumer oven automobile. You have access to every piece of information possible, the whole transaction process. The sales process is different. So as consumers in our regular lives, we have so much expectation that weaken, find anything good Amazon, find anything that we want, get it delivered tomorrow and have all these information on what? Where's the best place I could get it? Who's selling it for what? How is this person that you know, more trustworthy supplier So this consumer ization element and how it's changing the role of the CPO in the CFO is >> really revolutionary. >> It really isn't so you think about it. Most of us go out to Amazon by something, and really the only control there for me, for example, is my wife has to approve it, right, so that's the only veto authority. So that's really the only difference between the two platforms. If you think about it is, there's controls in place, so you're doing the right thing. But from an end user perspective, if I go out there and find the right item and again in Amazon, I don't to go find the supplier. I don't know if that be on contract. Why don't you do that work? We shouldn't have to. I should just go out there and say, I need this And in the background, Cooper is working all those things, presenting the right products on the right contracts, driving right value and almost is important, minimizing the risk. So across all those different lenses, you see why the value of Cooper is for the end user. They're getting what they need for the organization, for the company we're reducing risk and we're increasing value, and then you have rich reporting on the back end. So it's just it's a great way of doing business. It really is taking what you used to do or what you do. It's Sunday afternoon like Rob, you say Monday at work, and I think that's really powerful thing of perspective. >> It is. And it can be so impactful if applied in the right way with an organization, whether it's a manufacturer or hospital or retailer that has a culture that is willing to embrace change, right? I mean, there's that right, Especially >> get him to get your >> perspective on when you're implementing Cooper at a large organization. Maybe have been around for many, many years versus maybe a more modern that we think might be more nimble organization. Culturally, Do you see massive differences in how they're leading procurement, and are you able to sort of level the playing field and show them doesn't matter what your culture is? Here's how your business, your body. >> So from a change perspective, I think there's a different perception. The newer, nimbler organization believes that they changed easy, but it still may have people the older organisation again still made people most people don't like to change. What I have learned is if you help them understand the value of it, how they're doing it, how their jobs are going to change and give them the tools to do it. Some people are gonna be early adopters. But finding that one person, the organization, no matter what level they are in that business unit or in that department that has that informal voice that people look to naturally, that the Nazi leader who's in a leadership position with leader from a personality perspective get them on board. And sometimes that's the hardest thing to do. They might be the most changed resistant, but was that person flips, They become your greatest greatest advocate out there. So it's a personal thing. This is hard work. That's why I talk about in our sessions, is going through. This requires a lot of work, but it's worth it. You can measure the value on the end that you got help. People understand why you're going on this journey and have have resource is there for help. >> So what were some of that? You said you did good Q and a session during your break out this afternoon. >> Tell me some of >> the things that that some of the audience said that you thought was really like they're getting it, >> Yes. So the whole point of our session was going live is not really the goal, right? That's just >> a guess, the exact right. >> And so most people focus on going live, and the answer is congratulations. You purchased the product, Kuba, and now it's working. So what? You don't have any real data? What do you do in the future? Some questions were as they're going through Supplier Neighborhood. The shift between procurement now taking a larger role in the relationships with the vendors. Well, that's great. It should be a balanced relationship. You know, there's a procurement role in that. And then there's the end. Users are the people in the organization from the business. You have to relate with those suppliers, so work together. If you were together in the past now it's a great time to do that. There's some other questions about if something is not working correctly. Post go live how quick It's not broken, but it could be optimized or you're getting complaints about. How quick should you change it? The answer is, I don't know, measuring yourself. I mean, obviously it's broken. Fix it. But it might be something around change. And maybe you have to help people understand why they're doing this new process. If people are giving feedback positive, negative, mostly native, was positive. We just go off our way. Welcome to Yelp. But if it's negative feedback, listen, don't get offended, understand that perspective and then measure it. Say, Is this something that we did is saying the platform, or is it just changed and work with it? What I tell our clients to is in Cooper, Just cause you can doesn't mean you should. I mean, that's really easy to build a field custom field, really easy to build, custom approval chance, really hard to maintain that stuff. So try to do it out of the not out of the box, but configured without as much customization as possible, and they can always improve it, understand it better. >> I think the key to adoption is the more customization that you have. I imagine the adoption funnel gets narrower and narrower. It's got >> interesting, so you customize because you think that's the way the process should go, because that's how we do it today. So if your goal is to take how you do your process today and put into Cooper, also tell clients congratulations. If you had a bad process now you're bad process that works faster. So take the time to say, Let's step back. Companies evolve, right? And so as they're evolving, if you haven't taken a really a view purposeful of you backwards and measure organization, where you're out from a charity model assessment, then you probably don't know where your gaps are. Take the opportunity when you're implying Cooper to use kind of leading practice that Cooper has start with that and said, Going back to what you're doing today, you know what a great example. That's improvers, right? So people like to have 10 approve er's because they think it reduces risk. So if I go back and look and I asked the audience, say, how many purchase order requests rejected? Very few. And how long do people actually have it open when they re prove it? So that's three seconds when they open it up and looked at it, do they really assess it from a risk perspective? Probably not. But if four people ahead of them approved it, that person's just gotta prove it, because I think it's okay because they're assuming someone else is looking at it, as opposed to in Cooper. Now I have the rich data to understand it. I could minimize risk that way instead of trying to do it. And what is a false sense of security? >> So getting people on board with bringing in automation and leveraging like I was saying in the beginning, the 1.2 trillion of spend that's going through the Cooper platform toe leverage that intelligence to not only have Cooper create the prescriptions for companies to be able to go. Okay, we don't we shouldn't your point. We shouldn't take a process that was clunky before and just do it faster. Still clunky, being able to have the automation thing. Analytics. Really, Those core enabling technologies can also be quite revolutionary. >> Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. So the coop insights now, and you're seeing that measured against others and its mass, but you see how you're doing it, So this is really powerful sitting your goals out there and seeing how you're doing. Adjusting those really question yourself is, if we're not getting is approved in the speed that we thought, How do we do it differently? Right, So and that's nice about Cuba. It is really sounds right, and they really do come out with three releases a year, which is powerful. And so it's always changing, which means you have to be nimble. Understand your organization, adopting the new technologies to come out. They're also looking at their acquisitions and seeing that fits into what you're doing. >> Exactly. Last question for you is the announcement of the expansion of their in the AWS marketplace today and thinking, Wow, the I t person is probably gonna finally all these Shadow I T units that are popping up in finance and marketing and engineering and whatnot. They now have the ability to see and manage the entire software from search to deployment and management through AWS. What advantage is that going to give Deloitte when you're working with Cooper customers on implementation? >> That's probably too soon to say on that one. All the expansions they're having really help us with another tool. Tell clients I would say that there's always measuring the benefit for that client in the risk. So even if you take Amazon, for example, just opened by for Cooper is managing that So Amazon. When they first came out with Amazon for business open by, you couldn't control the categories that were exposed to the client. Now you can, but you can't control the items. So having a process in place, having a category strategy and then maximizing it if Amazon works that client fantastic, AWS is gonna get them or visibility across their platforms to manage those better. Fantastic. I think it just gives another opportunity to bring clients back into Cooper. Have a look at the value for Cooper from an end and solution, and all these wraparound acquisitions are making our expansions with their clients, people pay and all those other pieces out there. It's just another thing for them to have a goal and understand make a decision from their business, whether they're going to use it or not. But there's there's value across the board. Every every client is different, >> Absolutely. But it's also that that consumer ization approach that if you can take a process that somebody does on their own time, whether they're buying soccer balls or pool and bring that to their business life, that consumer ization following them. You think with potential there to transform every industry, every function, every line of business. It's just infinite. So >> truly dot, >> dot dot to me. Continue. Absolutely Wish we had more time. But Max, thank you so much for joining me on the Cube today and talk doing talking to me about what's going on at Deloitte and congrats on having us standing. You're only sessions. That's good, right? Take for Max Ground like I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching the Cube from Cooper Inspire 19. Thanks for watching.

>> Announcer: From the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, it's theCUBE. Covering Coupa Inspire 2019, brought to you by Coupa. >> Welcome to theCUBE, at Coupa Inspire '19. I'm Lisa Martin on the ground, at the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas, and we're pleased to welcome to theCUBE Michael Van Keulen, Global Procurement Director of Lululemon Athletica. Michael, welcome to theCUBE. >> Thank you. >> I'm a big Lulu fan, have been for many, many years. If anybody doesn't know Lululemon, this is a three plus billion dollar designer, distributor, and retailer of really cool technical athletic apparel. You've been there for a few years now, came from a finance background. One of the things that I love about Lululemon is the inspirational messages on the bags. Anytime I'm in a grocery store and you have to bring your own bags, and I'm nearsighted and I can spot a Lululemon bag from a mile away. Talk to us about just one of the examples of this procurement transformation that you helped initiate, when you came in and found something really interesting about this iconic bag. >> Sure, yeah, so when I joined the company you start to do your basic spend cube analysis and trying to figure out where the big spend items are. And given that the bag is so visible for everybody, I figured that's really a big volume, lots of spend, very visible, and very important to our business. So I started to dig in to our shopping bag as a category. And I uncovered that it was single-sourced with one factory in Cambodia, with a nine month lead time. But nobody in the company really knew that. So when I was put in front of our senior executives to talk about where do I feel there's opportunity, there was some pushback on me digging into our shopper and there was even perspective in the senior executive teams that I didn't really understand how important our shopper is. And then when I asked the question, where does the shopper come from? Where is it made? How is it made? What's the lead time? What's the cost? There were lots of unknowns, and when I threw that on the table and said, "Well, it's single-sourced, "one factory, in Cambodia", you could immediately see a lot of people going like, "Wow, that's very interesting." And they started to realize that procurement is not just about saving money, which we also did, but it's also about de-risking our supply chain, being more nimble and more agile. >> Yes, I was going to say that what you discovered was a massive risk to the brand. I think the bag, is the number one brand asset? >> Michael: Totally. >> It's very visible. But that was really the tip of the iceberg of some of the things you came in saying, "You know, as procurement, "there is a massive, massive, many massive, "impact elements that it can have on the business." >> Michael: Right. >> So going from sort of a tactical to a strategic approach. How was the bag, as an example, able to start helping you transform the culture of Lulu to be more strategic and start looking at all of the other ways in which this business can derive value from a number of the other elements besides the bag. >> Yeah, so we started to identify, what are some of our core principles when it comes to how we source, and how we procure. Those are things to me, like fact-based decision making, analytics, knowing what you buy, how you buy, where you buy, competitive pressure, making sure the suppliers realize that we have options in the marketplace. I mean, those are some of the key components of running a competitive department that drives a competitive advantage. And that's really what we focus on at Lululemon in procurement. >> Some of the disruptors that we see in procurement and finance today are consumerization. Rob Bernstein talked about it this morning with some of the things that Coupa is now doing with the Amazon Marketplace. But as consumers, whether we're consuming Lululemon products or software, we have choice. We also have this expectation that we can go somewhere and find anybody that's selling this particular product, I can see the prices, I can see, the pricing pressures put on, I can see all the different suppliers. So the consumerization sort of disruptor, is really interesting to every industry. How are you leveraging that to, to really drive much more value. Not just saving costs, but even things like impacting shareholder value for Lulu? >> Yeah, I think table stakes today is just managing spend, right? Knowing where your money goes, and trying to make sure that we stretch the dollars as much as we can, I think is what every procurement function does. I think what distinguishes the world class from the let's say, the middle of the pack, is are you able to contribute to top-line growth? How are you able to innovate? Are you able to innovate through your suppliers? And so one example, this is how we implemented third-party gift cards at many grocers across North America. That was an idea generating from procurement, tying into gift cards that we already source and that we now have third-party gift cards at the Kroeger's and the likes. That just drive more traffic to our stores. And that's just through a really exciting, cool idea, that wouldn't necessarily come from a procurement, traditional procurement function, but one that really wants to contribute to future growth. >> One that wants to contribute to future growth, that has a strategic vision. When we look at the Coupa community, there's now $1.2 trillion of transactions going through that. There's a tremendous amount of data, and we go to so many conferences at theCUBE every year, and we hear very commonly, data is the new oil. >> Michael: Totally. >> Data is gold. It is those things if you have the right, if you have visibility and the opportunity to extract value from it and act on it immediately. Talk to me a little bit more about the third-party gift card approach, and was that something that you said we have so much more visibility, into our data, into our consumers, into our suppliers. There's an obvious low-hanging fruit opportunity here. How did that data help you make that decision? >> Yeah, no this was more an idea where you start to look at what value can procurement drive other than just managing and reducing cost? And every other big apparel retailer is already in this third-party space and Lululemon is not. And the power of our company is we are vertically integrated. You can only buy our product at Lululemon, and some select strategic partners. But opening up the doors for people to be experiencing our brand in a different way, through purchasing a gift card or being gifted a gift card, I should say, and that audience then now comes into our store. It just could potentially be a completely new guest. And that is what is super exciting. >> So let's talk about some of the business impact of that. So, I would like to be on the receiving end of the Lulu gift card, for anybody who's watching my birthday's in March. (Michael laughing) But in terms of what are some of the things that you've seen map back to top line impact from that. Increase in new customers acquired, increase in customer lifetime value, what are some of those big impacts that procurement has made with what seems like an, aha, this is a simple idea, we should be doing this too. >> I think what Lululemon does better than any retailer on the planet is our educators. Right, our educators in our stores. And so, it's my job is how do I set these guys up for success? So I think one way we're now doing and leveraging the Coupa platform, is taking away administrative complexity. So the lesser the administrative burden is on our stores and our educators, the better they are with engaging with our guests. And educating them on our product, why we make it, what it does, so that our consumers that we call guests, ultimately, not just make the transaction, but also buy the right product, they know what the product is supposed to do for them. And how it's supposed to fit and how it's supposed to help them in their daily lives. And so what procurement really does is just take away that complexity that they have today, so that they can focus on what they do best. >> So walk me through who within, so one of the things that Coupa does, is more than I think any of their competitors, is it's procurement, it's invoices, expenses, payments. Tell me about all the different ways in which Lululemon is leveraging Coupa and walk me through kind of an average user experience. This is somebody, like an individual contributor in marketing or finance. Give me a little bit of a taste of that. >> Yeah, so we use Coupa for sourcing, contracting, requisitioning, purchase orders, and then flip that PO into pay, so we use the full suite of solution. The biggest focus for us is on the downstream, as we call, Procure to Pay. So it's a lot of people placing requisitions, and that can be in marketing, it could be in the store, it could be in any part of our business, really. And the downstream is the most important element, because that's where the visibility comes. And then from a procurement standpoint, we use the Sourcing and the CLM platform. But the downstream is where the magic happens. >> So is every business unit within Lululemon on the Coupa platform? >> So we launched North America on February 4th, we're live in 18 stores as a pilot, and we're going to roll out all of North America, the entire fleet, in August. >> So just February of 2019, so just what, five months or so ago. And the impact to the business that you've seen with just these first 18 stores? >> Yeah, it's not just the 18 stores, it's inclusive of our head office and our distribution centers in North America. We just now focus on supplier enablement, more suppliers on the platform, more spend through the portal, and with the stores it's a pilot. It's going really well and if the stores are going to get it I'm pretty sure they will be very pleased. >> So, we talked about kind of the consumer, the guest experience, supplier centricity. What have you achieved with respect to supplier centricity, using Coupa, and how is that affecting everybody up to the C-suite in your organization in terms of, wow, procurement is really a business engine, here we do invest in. >> Yeah I think our, if you look at our journey when we started three years ago where we literally had no real procurement as it is described today, we're still in that journey of maximizing our supplier relationships. And through our supplier relationships, really drive innovation. I think we're not entirely there yet, I think that is one of the next iterations, is how do we take procurement to the next level. >> And if you look back at the last few years, what surprises you about coming from a finance background, now being in charge of procurement for a major global brand. What are some of the things that surprise you about this future of procurement and where Lululemon is setup to be successful? >> I think the biggest surprise is that people never intentionally do business with a company that we may or we should be doing business with. People never intentionally do that, it's just because they don't ask the right questions around ownership structure and risk and sustainability, and reputational risk and environmental risk, and just cost aside. And what I think what procurement helps to do is to actually ask all those questions. So that we end up with the right company, with the right pricing, the right quality, the right specs, the right everything. I think that's what surprised me, is that missing link that procurement brings to the table. >> So if you had to give your peers, in any industry, some advice would it be first of all, help establish a culture that is willing to ask questions. 'Cause there's that whole thing too, right? We always think, well maybe it's a dumb question. Have that culture that is, no question is a dumb question, ask, ask, ask. >> Yeah and Lulu is, fortunately enough, such a young company so I had a lot of great stakeholders, I still have them today, that are highly supportive. It's never just me or my team, it is collaboration, it's cross-functional. Everybody has to have something in it, right? So Lulu's a very young company. So if you're a very, maybe mature organization where people are set in their ways it just becomes a little. So I used to work for VF Corps, which is a slightly more mature, been around for 100 years. There it required more convincing than maybe at Lululemon where, again, people are just, the population is much younger. And we needed more structure and people recognized that. >> The appetite was there. >> The appetite was there, for sure. >> Last question for you, Michael. Some of the things that are being announced this week at Inspire, we heard this morning about, we mentioned a minute ago about the size of the Coupa community. The amount of data, the value that it's driving for customers and for suppliers. Also they talked about this Amazon Marketplace that they're expanding this relationship so that IT folks can have this full suite of visibility. What excites you most about the direction that Coupa is going in? >> I mean, it's the data, it's the native integrations with Amazon and the likes, absolutely. What excites me the most in terms of the different modules is Coupa Pay. I've been wanting to go after dynamic discounting, that's what Coupa Pay is going to enable us to do. Virtual pay is another big opportunity where we can start flowing a lot of our payments through a virtual payment system, our payment cards, that excites me. But it's the data, and it's how do we as a community start to leverage our spend, I think will be absolutely awesome. I look forward to that. >> Yes and that collaborative spirit this morning was really palpable. Well, Michael it's been a pleasure to have you on theCUBE today. >> Thank you. >> Congratulations on what you've done at Lulu, and for Lulu being a Coupa Spendsetter. >> Thank you. >> For Michael Van Keulen, I'm Lisa Martin, you're watching theCUBE from Coupa Inspire '19, thanks for watching. (upbeat techno music)

>> from the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. It's the Cube covering Cooper inspired 2019. >> Brought to You by Cooper. >> Welcome to the Cube from Cooper inspired 99 Lisa Martin in The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas. And guess who I have with me from the main stage CEO. Rob Bernstein. Welcome to the Cube. >> You so much. Thank you for having me >> exciting start today. One of Inspire really enjoyed the general session this morning. I learned three things more than three, but there's three that really stick out. One. You like pizza >> I do >> to you like kittens and kittens. And three, since 2016 there has been a five X increase and the spend going through the coop a platform with rocket ship. >> That's right. Huge momentum were well over 1.2 trillion dollars and spend that's gone through the platform. It's accelerating, and our customers are getting a lot of value and visualizing that spending, routing it to prefer contract saving money doing in smart, compliant ways. It's a really exciting time for us. >> It is, and this is across every industry manufacturing, healthcare, retail, et cetera. Every industry has the opportunity to leverage this wealth of data absolute. Cooper has to be able to get that visibility and control of all their spent. That's really revolutionary for any business. >> Well, we're really excited about it. Our community of customers is very excited about it, where building something very special here. I'll tell you one of the most exciting things. When you see that data being used in a way that drives intelligence for each individual customers, you know, we're helping them understand Where is their potential fraud with their expenses, where their suppliers maybe sending them duplicate invoices by accident? But Ari, I picks that up. So we are taking the space to a completely new level, and it's it could be more exciting. Honestly, >> well, the amount. You know, we go 1,000,000 shows a year, maybe a little bit less, But we always hear data is oil data is gold. It is. If you have access to it, you can extract insights from it really quickly and be able to act on it faster than your competition. >> Absolutely. You have to be able to normalize the data first informal, so you need a I capabilities. To do that, you have to access a massive data store you have to anonymous. The data obviously needs to be very, very secure, and then you have to draw insights out of that data. And one of things I share this morning is that we've given our customers just in 2019 more than 18,000 prescriptions of things they should consider, for example, putting some suppliers on hold if we think there's some risk with those suppliers. So absolutely, it's a I, but it's a I as the underlying element that brings out what we call community intelligence. And that's what's what's so powerful >> and the community as well, another really kind of under town that I felt and heard this morning from us. It's a community of collaboration, thes air, other businesses benefiting from what others have learned suppliers as well. So the customer centric city, the supplier central city, is there. >> Absolutely. It's all about this community concept, and we have well over 1000 companies that we've helped spend smarter, effectively and their community because these customers air sharing both in person and online, best practices, ideas for doing things differently, ideas for stretching this space beyond where it's ever been before, and that's really rewarding and every individual customers getting the benefit from that. Eso This community is developing very, very nicely, and it's serving the purposes of establishing this category, this new category of businessmen management, that world driving toward >> talk about that because that's something that's pretty innovative for Cooper. Business SPEND MANAGEMENT The role of procurement has changed. The role of finance has changed. They have the opportunity to become very strategic and really drive top line value. Talk to us about business, spend management What it means, how Coop is defining it >> absolutely well. First of all, any person I am in the world, and I've been asked this question for well over a decade. Now, do you think your company is doing a great job in managing its spending on older business needs that the company has, and you never get a resounding positive answer that, yes, we're doing a great job. And if you ask them, are you applying information technology to that problem in an effective way? The the answers or even worse? So we are attacking this full on with our customers in establishing the space, and that means everything from procurement expense reporting to invoice processing, two payments strategic sourcing, spend analytics supplier management contract lifecycle management. All of these application areas working together in concert help companies get their arms around spending and manage it in a much more smart way. And that's what this is. This is all about. >> One of the biggest challenges is you think about poor I t. Because every every line of business, whether your marketing, finance or engineering anything. Oh, engineering. I want to use lock. Start using flack. Marketing wants to use salesforce market Whatever these tools are in, suddenly this proliferation of shadowing T that's right and challenging to manage. But you can imagine how many supplier contracts are being duplicated triplicate, ID and even within the same organization, not getting the ideal price. So one of the great things big announcement today is the expansion of the relationship with Amazon in the AWS marketplace and wow, c I ose I t folks are gonna be able to do >> a lot >> through the Cupid platform. Tell us >> girls, that's right. Well, first of all, it's powered by an open by technology that we've developed, which allows you to have a very seamless experience. It's a purchasing experience that feels just like you're out on the Web, looking for any kind of item that you'd like to buy. But now you'll be able to subscribe to Service Is Cloud based. Service is through the Amazon AWS marketplace, and these Air service is that obviously would be approved by your CEO be approved by the folks involved in checking that it's secure, approved by legal and also approved by procurement So you can procure these cloud based service is very, very seamlessly right out of Cooper into AWS marketplace and back. And we think it's going to allow for obviously more volume of controlled spend, but also visibility into that spends. So it's properly matters >> that visibility is. You know, it's a word that we use in so many different applications. We don't want better visibility in our lives. In general, that is not easy to achieve. You talked about kind of these four core categories. You actually mentioned Maur that Cooper delivers its procurement, its invoices, expenses that can imagine travel management contingent workers getting an organization, whether it's a big organization like a staples or a smaller organization, that visibility is massively game changing. >> Yes, I think so. And I think one of the things that allows us to view that is we've really empowered the central hub organizations. Many the ones you described to roll out platforms to the end users all over the country, all over the world, wherever these people have employees to take control over spend. But have that Spence still routed to preferred, contractually righteous kind of spend categories that give them the results that they want. So this is a platform that is getting wide, wide adoption. And I'll tell you one of our application areas. We've seen more than a three x acceleration in the number of users over the last one year simply because of the adoption is so broadly accepted. And that has to do with our design and technology. Make it very, very usable. Our design concept of the best, you wise. No, you are right. So that's really how we're getting to where we're getting with a customer committee >> Adoptions challenging, you know. And there's if you look at the number of applications that an organization has a gonna work our list of sites, there's a lot and they're only effective if they're being utilized effectively by all of the folks that need to be doing that talk a little bit more. I love how you in your general session this morning shared with the audience. What c o u P a. Each acronym means. But and I saw that on the website best. Do I know you? I know what are some of the things that you think Cooper is doing really well that are really facilitating that adoption. That's again, that's hard to achieve. >> Well, it's in each of the letters in Cooper. So first, a comprehensive approach. That's what the C stands for. So cover every area of spend in one platform. We've never seen that before in the history of enterprise software, about a lot of siloed solutions all over the place, people trying to integrate them. We've put this all on one comprehensive platform. Secondly, doing it openly. That's what the old stands for. So being able to integrate to any ear piece system integrates a whole host of systems you mentioned slack earlier. We integrate into slack you could approve or reject spent purchased directly and slack. You have to get out to Cooper to do it, but you're doing it. The date is captured in Cooper. You is the user centrist city, so putting all the weight on the application itself and less of the weight on the employees themselves. Right now, we support guided buying with support all these capabilities, but our focus is on. You don't need any guidance in the future. Should require in the gun she should be. It should be so intuitive. The P stands for prescriptive, and this is using this community. Data we were discussing earlier to give real prescriptive advice. Teach customer, but how they should be spending or best practices, expenditures or benchmarks of how they could approve in the A stands for accelerated. It's the time of deployment. We're getting our customers live in a matter of months. They're accelerating their business process internally. I shared a stat that our customers in the last 12 months have improved the speed of their approvals by 30%. That's an aggregate. That's millions of millions, hundreds of billions of dollars in spend buying. So these five there is really differentiate us and they're really the vision areas that we focus on is a company with our with our community of customers. >> I was looking at some of the numbers from Cooper. You guys have consistently managed to grow revenues over 40% your rear in your fiscal year. 20 Q one earnings, which was just what last month or so. So revenue up 44% year over. You're crushing Wall Street's estimates by more than a 10 point gap. Lot of moment in, As you mentioned, let's talk about customers because at the end of the day, that's what you're all working towards. I know some of your proudest moments are when you get to talk with customers whose businesses have been transformed and you're giving them that the ah ha moments all the time. I love this morning how there >> was a lot >> of the voice of the customer covered there from so many different industries. The impact that you guys are making it Rolls Royce, for example, and MasterCard massive. Tell me some of your favorite stories that really articulate the breadth and depth of the value that delivers. I >> love it when the story begins in a situation where the CEO or CFO of the company don't necessarily get it, but somebody within our community steps up and shows them the business case of what we could achieve together. And then we, as a team is a collective unit delivered on achieving. Looking at was on themselves. I mean, they're processing more than $2,000,000,000 a month >> through our platform. I >> mentioned Procter Gamble. It process more than $50,000,000,000. Star Platform. Now >> these air, >> not initials. These were early adopter customers. They didn't have to go in our direction. There was some individual in that company that saw the spark of opportunity seized it, got it approved and worked with us hand in hand to drive it. And that's the stories that I love the most. And I shared so many of them this morning, but there are literally hundreds of them. All over the world in this community were cultivated. >> There are, and it's that's I think there's no bread or brand value that you can get Van it being articulated from the voice of a successful customer who it's not just normal, agile. We're saving money. It's no, we're driving shareholder value. There are significant business imperatives that are being driven because procurement is changing. We got to react to pricing pressures and forces like consumer ization. You know, we think of way have these expectations as consumers private lives, of getting anything that we want within a day when it shows up, you forgot what you ordered. It was that fast. That's right, what you guys are doing to enable the business buyers to have that same capability in their business lives. But to get that visibility, that 360 is really interesting. >> And the key also is to handle all the complexity on the back end for them. I could tell you so many companies I know that a really proud of crossing their paper based invoices very, very quickly, but they may not even know whether or not they got the goods of service is for which they're paying the invoice. So we do all of that heavy lifting on the back end on the platform itself, alleviating then users from that complexity and allowing them to have the experience that's similar to the one that that you just described >> can imagine how much money is being wasted on paper. They probably have absolutely no idea, absolutely no idea where you guys launched an Index. The Cooper Business Spend Index Just, I think, a month or two ago this is behavioral based data that you're bleeding from your community. Talk to us about the coupe of business spent index and some of the insights that you're already uncovering about the economy. >> Absolutely so. One of the things about this business spending nexus. It's something I've been thinking about frankly for over a decade. Can we collect enough data that's statistically significant enough actually be a leading indicator to future economic sentiment. You think about the data. We're looking at an aggregate. We know the average spend companies have per employee. We know how long approval cycles are, and we know the changes in those approval cycles. We know what percentage of spend is actually being rejected. Verse accepted at a moments notice aggregated those air in combination are leading in the Kidder's to the sentiment that companies have about the future of the economy. So we backwards tested this index that takes an account, these three elements that just described back to 2016 and it's proven to show pretty strong correlation with the way the economy actually played out for many of those quarters that many of those quarters. So last quarter we released our first verse, our first data set of the business spending. Next. And it showed that future economic economic sentiment for the next 3 to 4 months is actually very positive now, in some industries, more than others. But now, with three months later and clearly, the last three months have been pretty strong. So we're gonna be soon releasing our next quarterly Businessmen index. And we're gonna be doing this every quarter. Try to provide the business community with insights about where things are going. That's what everyone of business wants to know, where things are going, not where things have been. And we think we're in a unique position to share that and also, you know, sort of unfairly build awareness for brand out there so that people understand >> what we're all about. >> But that's that's critical. I'm gonna be talking to China tomorrow. You think of awareness Acquisition? Yes, Yes. Advocacy. Yes. Check, Check. Check. Old three. Those are critical last question robbery. As we look at the impact that procurement and getting this visibility of all of the distances spend can have on the business. Where is it as it relates to enabling businesses to digitally transformed >> to be competitive? Well, look, underlying all of this is the digital transformation that's happening for every company in every industry, without a doubt. But the use cases we support us so quantifiable. That's so clear not only in terms of cost savings that only in terms of compliance only in terms of visibility and getting your arms around spent actually drive revenue as well. If you do spend management effectively, you can change the way consumers experience your brand. And I shared a number of those stories. MGM resorts to Lulu Lemon to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and others. If you can get your arms around the spent and get people in the company, the goods and service is they need in record time. They're better position to express the company's vision to help them push towards an incredible iconic customer experiences. And we're just so proud to be ableto power that for this fast growing community of customers around the world, >> such an exciting time. Rob, thank you for having to queue, but inspired 19. It's been great. It's for looking forward to talking with lots more of your of your folks as well as amazing innovators and thinkers like Susie Orman and Deepak Chopra. Wow. Awesome stuff. Thank you. Well, thanks for having us. Thank you. All right. For Rob Bernstein. I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching the Cube from Cooper Inspired 19. Thanks for watching.