Coupa Taps Amex, Mastercard Track In Spend Management Expansion

Enterprise spend management solution provider Coupa is expanding its offering with new features and a partnership with American Express, the companies said Wednesday (Nov. 6).

In a press release, Coupa announced the launch of Source Together, a solution allowing businesses to harness the power of group buying to obtain greater leverage to access discounts and savings. Integrated into its Business Spend Management (BSM) platform, the tool aggregates the buying power of multiple businesses with similar procurement needs to connect them with discounts.

The company also launched enhancements to Coupa Supplier Insights, which wields Coupa’s anonymous spend data and uses that information to identify suppliers that can meet buyers’ diversity requirements. For instance, the feature can tag vendors that are minority-owned, women-owned or veteran-owned businesses, which are key to companies that must meet supplier diversity requirements.

Coupa also announced the launch of Coupa Contract Lifecycle Management Advanced within its BSM platform, the result of its acquisition of Exari.

Another addition to Coupa’s offering is Coupa Pay for Expense Payments, allowing businesses to reimburse their employees for business expenses from directly within the BSM platform. The company also revealed that it is embracing an open platform framework, adding to the previous rollout of the Coupa App Directory by expanding the ability for companies on the BSM platform to access third-party applications and data within those apps.

Raja Hammoud, Coupa’s executive vice president of products, said the latest features “are designed to help businesses learn, share and collaborate, and get the spend control they need to thrive at all times.”

Finally, Coupa also announced new partnerships, including a collaboration with corporate travel booking firm Amadeus, supplier sustainability ratings service EcoVadis, supplier risk analysis services from Mastercard Track, cybersecurity analysis firm BitSight and American Express.

The latter collaboration will see American Express virtual cards be integrated as a payment option within Coupa’s BSM platform.

“Our priority is to seamlessly unify the buyer and supplier customer experience and, as part of this mission, we seek to partner with innovative companies who help to make electronic business payments easier,” said American Express executive vice president of business financing and supplier payments Dean Henry in a statement provided in a separate press release.