COUPA
“ Your category manager has the time to do what they need to do, which is communicate the value of buying against that category strategy to the customer, not creating the category strategy,” Tricia says. By removing the“ grunt work” of strategy creation, AI allows human managers to focus on the execution and advocacy of that strategy.
Breaking down functional silos One of the most profound impacts of real-time financial data is the dissolution of silos between procurement and finance. When spend patterns are visible in real time, the relationship shifts from a transactional one to a strategic partnership. Tricia argues that the insights procurement holds on spending behaviour are of immense value to finance for forecasting and budgeting.
“ The amount of third-party spend that goes through an organisation and the value of managing that benefits not just procurement but the organisation overall; it’ s finance’ s priority,” she explains.
The connection between these functions, from forecasting to actual spend and through to payment, creates a powerful feedback loop. Tricia reflects on her own time as a CPO, noting that the partnership with finance allowed the organisation to move beyond just having a savings target to actually removing that money from the budget, ensuring a direct impact on the bottom line. This level of synchronisation ensures that procurement’ s efforts are visible and felt in the company’ s financial health, rather than being relegated to a spreadsheet of“ theoretical” savings.
coupa. com 13