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Coupa unveils downloadable e-procurement solution
Foster City, Calif.—Two Oracle veterans who formed their own company last year have released what they call the first and only freely downloadable e-procurement solution.
Called eProcurement Express, it was designed by Dave Stephens and Noah Eisner, who together built and grew Oracle’s purchasing application and supplier collaboration systems.
In 2006 they founded their company—Coupa Software—to tackle problems that have plagued e-procurement for years. “We really saw two barriers,” said Dave Stephens, in an interview with Purchasing b2b. “One was the whole ease of use problem or user adoption...and other was system affordability.”
The pair noticed all the systems on the market discouraged employee buy-in because they were so difficult to use, Stephens said. Ultimately, the lack of employee commitment caused many e-procurement projects to fail.
“If you logged in and knew exactly what you needed to do, you could do it, but the system would kind of put you in a straightjacket,” Stephens said. “The mantra we had in building [this] system was ‘we want to build a system that’s easier for employees to use than avoid’. So our vision for this software was to make it far more like using the computer at home, like if you’re on Amazon.com.”
Designed for mid-sized businesses, the solution is freely downloadable and based on open sources, so each organization can build or customize it to meet unique needs, he added. Since its launch in March, more than 5,183 users have downloaded the solution.
In terms of functionality, Coupa describes it as able to:
• Drive the entire e-procurement process process, from employee requisitioning through approval workflow, catalog and contract pricing, purchase order automation, receipt and delivery;
• Eliminate the need for employee training;
• Enable purchasing and financial teams to write buying policies and present the appropriate policy as the employee shops;
• Deliver a community experience so employees can rate products and vendors and how well certain products worked. The feedback allows procurement managers to continuously evaluate buying decisions and vendor agreements.
In May, the company announced a larger-scale enterprise version of eProcurement Express, available as software, or as a managed service. It has expanded capabilities, such as RFQ and invoice management.
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