How Coupa Helps CFOs Adopt AI

Hello, everyone. We're back, Techstrong TV. I'm Colleen Call at Coupa Inspire, and our next guest is Bill.

Bill is the senior vice president and GM of Coupa, and he's going to tell more about what he does, mainly in finance operations, and how AI adoption plays into it. So Bill, welcome, and thanks for joining us today. Thank you, Colleen.

Thanks for having me. So tell us a little bit... Well, first I want to ask, is this your first Coupa Inspire or- No, this is actually my third Coupa Inspire.

Oh, wow. Yeah. Okay, three.

Yeah. Okay. I've been at the company two years, and I got lucky the first year.

I joined a month before, so- That's awesome ... I've got the opportunity to come to three of these. It's a great event, great opportunity to meet with customers, partners.

Our internal teams put on a great show. That's wonderful. And then beginning of this morning, the keynotes, do you have any insights that you want to share with us?

Things that resonated with you about what's next, what's coming, and any collaboration efforts? Yeah, I think there's two things that stand out for me. The audience heard about our accelerated and our really aggressive roadmap around AI.

Mm-hmm. And in particular, our Compose AI strategy, which is all about helping our customers build AI, connect AI, and orchestrate AI. Just a great roadmap for the future to really help our customers embrace what is the industry narrative in technology right now.

And then the second piece is we announced a very strategic acquisition of Rossum AI. Yes. We've been hearing a lot about that.

Yeah. I think that's really cool. Which is great and important for me.

I lead our financial operations business, which is all about helping our customers manage expenses, AP automation, treasury, and payments. And Rossum is a amazing technology. Mm.

It's an amazing team. They've built their technology with AI at its core from the very beginning, and they're bringing to Coupa and our customers a proprietary large language model that's been- Okay ... trained on millions of supply chain invoice and procurement documents that is going to provide tremendous value for our customers.

They've been a partner with ours for two years now. So we've seen them in action. We've seen the value they bring, and we're really looking forward to bringing it to more of our customers.

That's amazing. It sounds like a really good relationship. So you talked about how you lead the financial operations side of Coupa.

So what does AI adoption have to do with finance? If you want to just expand on that. Yeah.

So AI adoption is at the top of mind for all C-suite executives, and CFOs in particular are no different. And we did a recent survey and report in the CFO community, and- Mm-hmm ... they said, 92% of them said AI is core to their strategy.

But they also said, about 80% of them, that they weren't sure how they were going to execute on it. So like any functional area, CFOs are knowing that AI is important, but they're trying to figure out the tactics and the approach around how can they bring more efficiency, how can they make sure they protect their organization. If you think about finance, there's a lot of fraud in that- Yeah ...

arena. And then ultimately, how can they help grow the business overall? So financial professionals are no different than other parts of the organization.

They know this is critical for them. Mm-hmm. And moving into that, unpredictable costs seem to be that they're number one killer of AI adoption.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. So cost is a concern.

I would also step back and as we talk to customers, there's three or four key areas that customers are talking to us about around how they can drive AI adoption, what are some of their concerns, and what do they think some of their gaps are. Pricing is certainly one of them. Mm-hmm.

There's also the how do I get started, and what expertise do I need to do to build AI? Data is another critical item. CFOs have identified the fact that they are not sure their data is ready in order to help them build an AI strategy.

Mm-hmm. And then the other component is how do I connect and integrate AI into all my workflows and systems? And from a Coupa perspective, those challenges align really well with what we've built around our Compose AI strategy, which is multi-prong in nature.

So we're helping customers by providing them with a set of tools to build AI within our software. Mm-hmm. We're providing them resources, so forward-deployed engineers, forward-deployed business consultants.

We have our data moat as a company, so our $10 trillion of community data- Yes ... that we built over many years. Trillions.

Trillions. Yes, exactly. And they've talked about disconnected systems financial professionals have.

If you think about Coupa, one platform across procurement, sourcing, treasury, payments. That brings all those systems together. Mm.

And we've also built a strategy here where we will be connecting to other systems to bring that into our agent studio, into our AI strategy. Mm-hmm. And then getting back to your lead around pricing- Yeah ...

another core component of helping our customers make sure that they can understand the cost implications is from our standpoint, we are transforming the way that we price our software to move from seats and from users into a spend under management- Mm-hmm ... concept so that CFOs, procurement professionals, as they think about budgeting to bring AI into the Coupa ecosystem, it's tied to spend and growth of their business- Mm ... and not about how many users are in the system or how many agents are acting on their behalf within the workflow.

Well, I'm glad you brought that up. Is it more of a CFO problem, more a procurement problem, do you think? I think it's both.

Okay. And especially a lot of organizations, procurement and CFO, one functional area. But ultimately, as companies think about budgeting for technology and software, that rolls right up into the CFO office.

What do you think? I know you've been talking a lot about the AI adoption. What do you think a good AI pricing model looks like to your customers?

What they want it to look like? Our usage-based pricing model, which is based off of spend managed in our network, we've been talking to customers about that for several months now, and we are hearing great feedback. It gives them more cost certainty.

It's easier to tie to the ROI that they're seeing in our platform, and we think that the model that we're introducing as part of this is the right one for our customers. What should they be asking for that they're not asking that you could provide? You provide a lot of tools that could help them, like you had mentioned.

Is this something that they're not asking for that you want to push? So back to one of the key concepts of where do they get started. Yes.

I think more customers are starting to ask that question, about how do I get started or where do I get started? And as the saying goes, the best time to plant a tree is now. Mm-hmm.

And the concepts that we're introducing to say, "Hey, we're going to bring resources to bear to help you figure out your workflows and how you can build agents and how we can help you do that," customers weren't necessarily asking for that until recently. And we've started to spur and drive those conversations, and we think ultimately that is going to really help them accelerate their AI strategies within our network and within their procurement, sourcing, and financial operations processes. So with some of the customers that have been invited or have attended this event today and tomorrow, of course, what's the hallway track, the conversations that you noticed that were the best or something you're going to take back to your team?

" I was actually spending time with a customer prior to this, and he was just really amazed at what we were introducing, how we had been thoughtful on all the aspects of addressing where the friction points, if you will, around AI adoption that I mentioned. Yes. So I think our customers are in a place right now where they're saying, "Hey, how do I get started?

" And they're really amped about what we're bringing to the table. Amped is good. Bill, any last thoughts you want to leave with any finance leaders, if you've met any at Inspire today or people outside of Coupa?

Yes, definitely. I would say finance leaders are really at the forefront of driving change within their organizations, and AI is no different than all the other great things they do within their companies. And so I really encourage them to really be AI advocates within their organization and look at how they can help drive the right efficiencies within their organization and really drive the change that is needed.

And working with a company like Coupa, we can really help them make that transformation. That's fantastic. I love it.

Bill Wardwell, Senior Vice President and GM of Coupa. We have more to come at Coupa Inspire. Stay tuned.