Coupa: The Art of Supplier Relationship Management

Has it ever been so crucial for companies to ensure they have a consistently reliable supplier base at their disposal? 

Consistent, on-time delivery is essential to maintaining production schedules and meeting customer demands, especially during these turbulent times in which we are living. 

Supplier relationship management (SRM) has, therefore, assumed heightened importance, and it’s up to procurement and supply chain leaders to ensure their organisations are getting the most out of their partnership arrangements. 

Well placed to comment on the necessity of effective SRM is Nari Viswanathan, a seasoned supply chain executive with more than 20 years worth of experience in market and strategy intelligence under his belt.

As Senior Director of Supply Chain Strategy at Coupa, known for its AI-driven spend management platform, Nari works to help businesses improve their supply chain processes through increased visibility.

Going hand in hand with this is the ability for firms to improve supplier relations through purchase order and invoice management, risk assessment and strategic sourcing. 

“When SRM is managed in a universal platform, procurement, risk and compliance teams can break down internal silos to scale processes, improve operational efficiency, ensure business continuity and support the achievement of D&I and other company-level goals,” explains Nari. 

“However, at many companies, SRM isn’t a well-developed partner to risk management and procurement teams. Processes intended to be collaborative are often manual, and systems may not be well-integrated across business functions.”

SRM and increased visibility go hand in hand

Nari makes no bones about the importance of SRM in today's volatile business landscape.

He points to the fact countless companies have, for years, been relying on outdated practices, antiquated systems such as spreadsheets and ineffective order management.

It means firms failing to implement effective SRM have little to no insights into whether or not a supplier presents a risk – like lagging on order fulfilment or failing to comply with ESG regulations – are left without a backup if worst comes to worst and a supplier falls short. 

Nari continues: “Just imagine: a business gets a 24-hour notice that the historical, go-to supplier is now bankrupt and will not be able to fulfil outstanding orders. Not only will that business have to find a new supplier, but also negotiate costs, estimate risk profiles and essentially play ‘supply chain Jenga’ to avoid delayed delivery of goods.

“However, an SRM strategy can better predict the external factors and challenges that impact suppliers. It also expands a business’ supplier network with established backups, should there be a disruption in operations – which ultimately translates to angry customers and lost revenue.”

Coupa can call upon numerous SRM success stories made possible by its software.

Nari explains that, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Bank of Montreal (BMO) used its Coupa digital platform to gain insight and a deeper understanding of supplier financial viability risk, simply by pulling the latest viability assessment from the global risk repository within Coupa’s platform. 

As a result, BMO’s team was able to quickly assess how suppliers and third-parties were supporting work-from-home and social distancing requirements by adding a supplemental COVID-19 risk assessment. 

With this information, the bank was able to swiftly respond to frequent requests from regulators who were pressure-testing pandemic preparedness.

Coupa platform helps managers find diverse suppliers

Coupa’s platform is undoubtedly a standout in the field of SRM, bringing a complete, user-centric vision for supplier and third-party risk management that’s fully integrated with source-to-pay and across all back-office processes.

It’s an approach that lets companies improve efficiency, visibility and continuity while putting the right processes in place to ensure compliance across multiple risk domains. 

“Additionally,” Nari continues, “thanks to the wealth of Coupa’s community-based supply and demand data reservoir, the Coupa platform gets the right information to the right people within your organisation to improve decision-making.

“For example, managers get prescriptive recommendations of suppliers that have already been rated and on-boarded for digital transactions to accelerate onboarding.

“Risk and performance monitoring are managed within the same platform as purchasing and invoice management, driving digital adoption by suppliers.”

Coupa is helping managers to find diverse suppliers at the right price to drive impact. Once these suppliers are targeted and brought on board, Coupa continually manages supplier risk using health scores. 

Gen AI propels companies into modern age

Coupa has already been leveraging data-backed community AI for over 15 years now, using it to inform businesses on best practices to interact with suppliers and make strategic supplier choices.

In fact, with visibility into US$6tn worth of transactional data that passes through its platform, Coupa has, over the years, leveraged this to help companies find an edge when it comes to operational efficiencies. 

Nevertheless, Nari points to the reality of a rapidly-changing business landscape and an increasing need to scale beyond what humans can achieve alone.

“With the Gen AI boom of the last 18 months, companies worldwide are quickly learning what we’ve always known to be true – they need a competitive advantage, and AI is key to that,” Nari says. 

With Gen AI, new algorithms can analyse transaction data in real-time to identify suspicious transactions or patterns that might indicate fraudulent activity, ensuring finance teams can prevent financial losses and protecting customer information. 

By analysing historical data, market trends, patterns and shifts, this emerging technology stands to help organisations and their leaders make smarter decisions that minimise risks in their supply chain.

“Rapid Gen AI adoption across businesses is impacting the entire supply chain function,” Nari concludes. 

“This serves as a forcing function propelling companies into the modern age of technology – a movement that is long overdue in an industry consisting of manual processes and spreadsheets.”

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