COUPA THROUGH THE EYES OF ITS CFO

CFO

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CFO Tony Tiscornia considers his biggest achievement at Coupa Software to be able to look back on where he and the company were 10 years ago (with 100 staff) and then contrast that with where they are now (3,500 people). This achievement encompasses milestones, growth, the number of customers who are part of its community now, and the value-add of the system – especially in terms of savings.

“If you assume that maybe five to 10 percent of every dollar that runs through the system is more efficient and is a saving, that’s hundreds of billions of dollars that we’ve helped customers save, which is the goal,” says Tony.

At Coupa, he gets to interact with clients, which he really enjoys. At the same time, there’s also on-the-job training. The management style is not to be a manager, but rather play in a support role, and staff are encouraged to learn and develop themselves.

Tony has had progressive roles at the company, moving from controller through to VP of finance, principal accounting officer, and then chief accounting officer before taking up his current role in June 2021. “The opportunity has been great for me from a career perspective. I love the business, I love the people: it’s just a great place to be,” he says.

His decision to join the company from Soraa was driven by his interest in technology and the then-growing area of cloud and software-as-a-service, and was thanks to an introduction from a former colleague. “I felt cloud computing and cloud software were really here to stay for the long term, probably for the rest of my career. I wanted to try to find an industry with a big opportunity, something that was really untapped. Something that would drive positive change for customers, and that would drive a lot of value over the long-term.”

Coupa Software is a San Francisco-based global technology platform for business spend management. Tony explains that Coupa has a huge opportunity to penetrate more of the market, as its exposure to large and mid-sized companies is still very low. Plus, most companies are using outdated, manual systems that don’t allow them to analyse and manage their spending.

“Cumulatively, we’ve had almost $4 trillion (roughly R72 trillion) of transactions that have run through the core of our platform. We can take that data, anonymise it, aggregate and share benchmarks on price on supplier quality, to really help companies use those insights to optimise spending.”

Part of Coupa’s success is because it helps manage costs – which is especially pertinent in this era of high inflation – and increases a company’s profitability. It gives clients complete visibility and control over all money that they’re spending or investing. At the same time, it means that there is no need for many enterprise resource planning systems as Coupa’s systems consolidate all the information into one space, giving clients complete control over their data.

The data element and the ability to analyse information are what gives Coupa an edge. “The nice thing about Coupa data is that it presents itself in a very consumable way. All the data is aggregated and presented in the dashboard in a way that's easily consumable. The system will show you areas where you can negotiate a better cost, or run a sourcing event, which is like a reverse auction,” says Tony.

The system is also customisable, which makes it easy to integrate. “We architected the system to be like an Amazon look and feel. It’s very easy to use and very powerful,” he says.

At the same time, Coupa’s payment system is based on an approach of driving value for customers. “We’re very results oriented: we’re focused on the success of the customer, and as quickly as possible,” Tony adds.

You can find out more about the great work Coupa is doing by visiting www.coupa.com. l