>> 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 Koopa Inspired 19 from Las Vegas. Very excited to welcome one of Cooper's spend centers from the USO acquaintance, senior director of procurement and contract management. Hey, welcome. >> Thank you. I'm glad to be here. >> Yeah, so this is one of the things that I really appreciate it with. All of the tech conference is that we go to on the Q, which is many, Many a year is when vendors like Cooper really share their success is through the voices and the stories of their successful customers. You got called out yesterday during general session today. There's a big cardboard cutout of you behind us there. But one of the things also that I find intriguing is looking at older organizations, and USO is 77 years young. We think of older organizations challenging Thio maneuver that in this digital era and really be able to transform the business so that you could d'oh, what the mission of the U. S. It was, which is to help men and women in our U. S. Armed forces from the time that they enter to the time that they transition back to civilian life. Talked a little bit about us. So what your role is in for cumin and then we'll talk about how you're achieving these great things. >> Well, I've been with us for four years, almost four years. When I first interviewed for this position with my boss, the VP controller, I asked her if they had a secure to pay solution. She said No again when I was hired for this position, My, you know, my goal was to get the organization automated. They were processing everything by paper. All the requisitioning was being processed by paper. It would take for seven seven 10 days. It's for a requisition to be approved because it would literally be something printed out and move from desk to desk, desk on approvals and on the back end for invoicing would occur the same filling out a cover sheet. Everything was printed out, processed manually, so that was kind of my first project when I started and my position was new, procurement had been under the director of canning operation. So, um came. It was just a small piece of it. So they made a decision After he left to create my position on DSO I. Again. That was my goal initially when I started. So So it was going through an R P process, looking, looking our requirements and then selecting vendor gets the best value to the USO, which was Coop up. And Cooper is what I think we all love about. It is it's so customizable, and the USO has a lot of, ah, a lot of different requirements in our barbecue elements. From, you know, we've entertainment tours to our programs, care packages we send out to the military. Our operations are USO Center's construction projects, our development campaigns for on line and direct mail. So there are a lot of different requirements. I really work with each department and kind of setting up those requirements, and Cooper was able to do that for us. We were able to customize a lot of it, But for us, the innovation part is really thinking outside the box because >> tough to do 77 year old organization, right, especially one that has paper everywhere. You guys air now 90.4% paper. Yes, with Cooper, that's a massive Yes, it's cultural change. It's a >> huge and it took again. Another thing. When I interviewed Waas, I interviewed with the CFO as well and I said If you don't support me, I will not be successful. So they have been very supportive. My supervisor, the CFO, the entire organization CEO. It's been extreme. He loves Cooper, so loves the app in improving a breathing invoices requisitions. So it was really that that communication, the socialization training because it was a huge cultural shift and some were embraced it. It was a little tougher for others moving. But eventually you move in line because that is, you know, that's the new process for us as an organization. So it's it's become very successful. We're moving towards new modules contracts, Clm expends sourcing. So we're really expanding the group A picture at us. Oh, >> so what would you say before you came on board when there was so much paper floating around everywhere? You can imagine the security risk of all these, you know, personal information or what have you lying around on someone's desk? What waas The percent, if you could guess visibility into where the U. S. I was spending money prior to bringing on Cooper versus what is it today? >> Uh, extremely small percentage would have been a very small. I mean, we just had a you know, we operate on our European system. Is Great Plains pretty clunky? Not, You know, it's It's hard to see the visibility. Now. It's 100% visibility. We see all of all of the requisitioning occurring overseas. You know, we have centers all over the world, and they all have access to Cooper now because they have to submit requisitions through Cooper. And so we now have 100% visibility. And for our reporting, you know, able to pull all that information and we've got controls in place gave us the ability to put some controls in place and our approval work flows and making sure that contracts were reviewed before budgets air approved, etcetera. A lot of those things were able to set those controls in place in >> that control. Word that you bring up is spot on. We've been talking about that for the last couple of days, and it's the same when we were talking with Suzie Orman earlier, who was one of the key nodes. And when she talks about personal finance, it's sort of the same thing. We all as individuals, whether we're consumers, you know, in our personal lives, buying whenever we want from anything dot com to being buyers or managers of even lines of business. Within whatever company we work for. We need to have that picture that control and control is really that kind of accountability and that awareness. Are we managing everything appropriately? Are there other parts of the business that are doing the same thing that there may be getting the same service is at a better price, and we're we should know that right, but without having that visibility will be able to control of this process is it's an inhibitor to any business being able to transform digitally and be competitive and right to really get back to your core >> mission. Exactly. And that's what's helping you know us with the control way are a 501 c three. So we need tohave that visibility on dhe. Make sure that our donor dollars are being spent wisely, and this enabled enables us to do that enables toe have that that total visibility and making sure those controls are in place. >> Actually, speaking of donor dollars, has this actually been a facilitator of actually being able to increase donations? Because the donors now have this much easier transaction process that can imagine that would be a positive impact there. >> Well, I mean that this is more for our procurements. Mean, Coop is kind of more for our actual procurement. What it does do is it does create process savings and avoidance savings, which we can reinvest in, you know, in our program. Right. So that's where we're seeing it. That's where Steve always seeing it. We've communicated that to him, and then we're also able to provide arse CFO with reporting tools. So we create. We pull all this information from Cooper through reports, and there were able to create a spreadsheet, and he can see how we spend is an organization. You know how we spend in commodities, How where are unbudgeted, you know, kind of get a total of much I budgeted we have for for a specific period of time. So we're able to see all this kind of information. He conceal this in kind of information on one spreadsheet that we created through all the reports that way >> in Crete. >> So I want to get your perspectives on the changing role of the chief procurement officer and the chief financial officer. You know, now they have the opportunity to leverage technology, emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning to be able to get that visibility and that control, but also be former strategic and really drive top line bought online for their business. Your perspective on this the last few years alone and how were you able to help a 77 year old organization like us so embraced the opportunities that these emerging technologies can deliver? >> Well, I think one key is as because our our organization is all over the world. And then there are centers that could be, you know, roll. And they, you know, they it's the whole vendor presence and the amount of vendors that we as an organization, do bring on. And some of them it's totally understandable where some of them they do need to bring on based on, you know, their availability. But what I'm trying to do, what Cooper has helped me try to do with Cooper advantages to try to leverage our volume organizational volume that was not occurring previously. I think people were just, you know, when the new defender they brought it on because we have a lot of events, you know, supplies for the centers, et cetera. So really trying to, strategically, as an organization to be able to work with the region's on where can we find synergies to kind of consolidating leverage our values for Henderson with Cooper work, we've been able to do that. We can see the span where it's occurring, kind of all the duplications that are occurring. So that's where I'm seeing a bit opportunity and trying to work. >> One of the coolest things about what you guys are doing in procurement with Cooper is this is affecting human lives. Give us a little bit of an overview of what you guys were able to facilitate with Hurricane hearty. Wish struck Houston just about two years ago. I loved that story that >> those kind of those spur of the moment emergency type requisitions that we get and were able to those get processed a lot quicker when when we have group as opposed to previously the way they had processed. It was very labor intensive manually, verbally instead of being able to see it in. You know what's great about the requisitioning piece of it is the comments kind of audit that people can see in all the conversations. So those types of requests that are considered emergencies, they can go a lot sooner on so we can get those service's or the goods out to to that particular project. So that's what we're able to do with that. That particular one is well, being able to support the National Guard and during the Hurricane Harvey >> and accelerate things that really based on the data that you can see, I really need to have acceleration on all the action. >> I mean distant just to our programs team. They support the care packages that we send to the military. Now that we have coop in place, we use 1/3 party fulfillment center. When they receive the product, the receipts are automatically fed into Cooper and applied against the purchase orders, and then they're approved a lot quicker, So then they can receive kicked, tip the product and ship it out overseas because we get. These are based on requests. The military bases have requested to have this particular product being sent over. So this turns the process is cut in half to get the care packages out to the millet. >> That's awesome. Getting care packages to the troops 50% Bastard is outstanding. Last question for you, Rick. Some of the things that Cooper has announced in the last day and 1/2 what excites you about the direction that this company is going in >> for me? The constant changing, I mean, and I was not in the military, so I'm way moved around a lot. I was when I was growing up. I adopt to change a very quickly, but understands some people don't write quickly, but it's bettering themselves, finding the operative, listening to the customer and really making those enhancements based on customer feedback. And I think it helps with the community intelligence that we talk with, you know, with the communities and find out. What are you doing? How how are you doing this? Because a lot of companies will say, Well, I have specific requirements and a lot of them are pretty similar. If people talk, you know, community talks. So that's kind of that's I like getting together and again meeting other, you know, people, customers. And so it's Yeah, it's pretty exciting. >> I like what? How tender this morning, you know, showed the word community and said, Really, it's communication and unity, and you just articulated that beautifully. Listen to the customers. Get the synergies from them. That's why we should. Any software business should be developing right soccer. So thank you so much for joining me on the Cube today, sharing the big impact that you guys are making at the USO charity. Near and dear to my heart. We appreciate your time. >> Thank you very much >> for your acquaintance. I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching the Cube from Cooper inspired 19. Thanks for watching.