Coupa Taps Alexa For Added Spend Management Features

Coupa has rolled out enhancements to its business spend management (BSM) solution, the firm revealed this week.

The enterprise spend management company announced at its annual Inspire conference the addition of voice activation using Amazon Alexa to manage inventory, locate items, and reorder stock. This feature, via Coupa Inventory, is available only in an Early Access Program (EAP). The company also introduced new tools that deploy artificial intelligence (AI) to identify fraud. Spend Guard, as the capability is called, analyzes employee transactions and spend behavior on the Coupa platform. Similarly, it is only available via an EAP.

Both are part of several other enhancements to Coupa’s solution, including Commodity Insights — a way to optimize spend based on category — and Approver Cycle Times, which can accelerate or decelerate the approval process for individual employees based on their performance against peers.

Coupa is also expanding its platform for third-party systems, including Office Depot and Staples, enabling users to procure goods from these suppliers. A data analytics solution to identify and mitigate supply chain risk was also announced, with Coupa adding the capability of integrating this feature into companies’ own data sources.

Raja Hammoud, Coupa’s senior vice president of product, said in a statement, “Traditionally, finance and procurement teams faced numerous challenges that have prevented effective visibility throughout their organizations. Our BSM solution brings everything together with a single, easy-to-use cloud platform, and our new product enhancements take that holistic approach even further, enabling spend-focused analysis by decision-makers.”

Coupa, which will report its first quarter earnings next month, released a report earlier this month that found most chief financial officers do not have full visibility into company spend. In a statement, Coupa Chief Executive Officer Rob Bernshteyn said that while the findings were “not surprising,” they reveal the importance of adopting “a cloud-based strategy for [BSM]” that improves visibility and control.