 Welcome back to theCUBE everyone. Lisa Martin here on the ground in Las Vegas at Coupa Inspire 2022. This is our second day of coverage here. There's been about 2,400 to 2,500 folks at the event this year. People are ready to come back. I've been happy to talk with lots of Coupa folks, their partners, their customers, and I've got both a customer and a partner here with me. Heidi Banks joins us. The Senior Director of Global Procurement at Jable. Heidi, it's great to have you on the program. Thank you for having me. Give the audience an overview of Jable and what you guys do. So Jable is a $30 billion manufacturing solutions partner that provides contract manufacturing services for 450 of the world's largest and most premier brands around the globe. Most people don't know our name, but we're the wonderful face behind the name. What you guys had, I was looking at some stats, over 260,000 employees across 100 locations, very customer centric. You guys are as is Coupa. There's good obviously synergy there, but you had some objectives from a global procurement perspective. What were those? What were some of the challenges that you wanted to solve? So about seven years ago, Jable went on a journey to identify what challenges we had out in the indirect procurement space. Being such a large global company, we had no idea what we were spending on indirect at the time. After a little bit of digging, we found out that we had over two billion in spend that was untapped from a category management perspective. And so we knew that we needed to grow as a company and buy technology as a foundation. As our goal and our mission in the company is to be the most technologically advanced manufacturer solutions partner for our customers. Was there any sort of one thing or a compelling event seven years ago that caused you guys to go, we need to be really getting our hands around this indirect spend. So we started off by bringing in category managers and they were doing an amazing job delivering savings in our contracts. But we had no way to deliver that out to the company and the company being so big and so many different jurisdictions and countries around the world, you could negotiate the best contract in the world, but if you couldn't communicate it out to your users, then it was a challenge to really capture that savings and make sure we were delivering bottom line savings to the company. And you guys, we're talking about three different SAP ERP systems. So a lot of technology in the environment, what were some of the core technology requirements that Jable had when it came looking for the business spend management solution? Yeah, so we were looking for something that was very user friendly. Of course, Koopa takes that box very well. Also something that could drive governance and policy controls. Again, challenging being such a global organization and making sure that things were going according to our policy into our global category managers to be sourced and negotiated for the company. We looked for one that was end to end from a business spend management platform perspective. We wanted something that was integrated and could cover three ERP systems from one pane of glass across the company so we could get great analytics without having to search in so many different places. That is so key. I was talking with Rob, I was talking with Raj and they were all talking about how those silos still exist and how they're helping organizations like Jable break those down and give them that single pane of glass as you mentioned to be able to see, to get that visibility into indirect spend, for example. Talk to me about the solutions that you implemented from Koopa. So we started off with Koopa's procure to pay system. Really our focus was to get off of our old system as quickly as we could and get everyone managing on the same policy controls, approval flows. We then also had analytics. So we had Koopa AIC and brought in analytics and in the last year and a half have also deployed strategic and tactical sourcing through Koopa as well and Spengard from an audit control and compliance perspective. So then the phrase sweet synergy then actually probably means a lot to you. Koopa was talking about that during the keynote this morning. Your Jable is living that sweet synergy kind of experience through Koopa. That's right. As we source in Koopa and we can see are there different behaviors that we need to look into? Maybe suppliers that are bidding at the last minute and winning or less than desirable number of suppliers coming in or duplicate invoices and being able to really look through that and see Speng patterns that we wouldn't otherwise uncover is highly important to us from a compliance standpoint. We've gotten great value out of that solution. And in terms of value, one of the things I know that was important to you when you were looking for the right technology partner was you wanted to involve other folks within the organization across IT, other lines of business. Talk to me about how important that was to bring in that cross-functional team to help make the right decision. Yeah, that was one of the most critical things that we did. We needed to make sure, especially being an SAP shop, we needed to make sure that we were standing back and really being impartial in our decision and driving a non-bias decision in that RFP process. And so we got our executives together, talked to them about the value drivers in the ROI that we could do if we had all of the right support from the right departments so that we could avoid resistance as we tried to deploy in such a rapid way. We brought IT, legal, users together, procurement, and in advance did a balanced scorecard approach to say these were the important factors that we had, whether it was IT infrastructure, whether it was capabilities to make sure that when we came out of that decision and we picked a solution, we could all look at each other and have a handshake and say it was the right decision for us as a company. And so no departments had pushback at that point because of that approach that we took. That objective approach that you took. That's right. Let's talk about some of the outcomes. I look at, actually let's not, let's talk about your deployment first because you guys started with probably your most challenging sites whereas other folks might go, let's start with the low-hanging fruit and kind of work our way up. Jable said, nope, we're going to flip the script on that. That's right. So we went with what we call an East to West strategy. We are heavily concentrated in our Asia markets. And so we also wanted to deliver our ROI as quickly as possible and get our spend into the system as quickly as possible. So we went live with 12 sites, 11 mega sites in China and our corporate headquarters in St. Petersburg in order to get that spend in as quickly as possible and get our ROI delivered. So we started in China and the US then in a second phase deployed the rest of Asia and then the US and North America and then over to Europe. So we went regional from a time zone perspective but also just, I say go bold. You know, I hear a lot of people that start small and then grow but if you want to deliver that ROI and get your money out of that system as soon as possible, go big or go home. I like that, go big or go home. Well, it's like Mike Ebeling was talking about this morning from Not Impossible Labs, commit and then figure it out. And I just thought, you know what, that's actually brilliant advice because it's probably the opposite that a lot of us want to. We want to be able to figure this out and then go, okay, we can do that. And he said, no, do the opposite. Do the opposite. Do you have to get buy-in from those cross-functional folks to say we want to start with our most challenging sites first? Was that a team decision? That was a decision that we did just basically to get that ROI delivered. And we also had a really strong team that still partners with our Coupa admins today that were really invested in getting onto a solution where they can automate and drive control and compliance. And so not only did we involve the team in this solution selection, but also in the global design. So we brought different cross-functional departments together into one location together. We made all of our decisions on how we were going to configure Coupa. So that way, again, all of our divisions and departments had buy-in to how we were going to move forward. And then we went from there. Well, and in that case, everybody feels like they have a stake. That's right. In the issue, they have a vested interest. That's right. Which is critical for these types of large projects to be successful. That's right. So they were involved in the RFP process. So they knew why we were doing it. And they were then involved in the design and how we were going to set it up so that they knew that they had a vested interest in how it was going to perform in the end. And then of course, there were things that we had to tweak. So we needed to have a design committee that we could come back to and make changes as we needed to make changes throughout the projects. You don't always get every single decision right the first time, but you need to be nimble and make changes fast and get consensus across the company. Right. Talk to me about some of the outcomes. I know I've seen a lot of stats in your case study. And I always love those numbers that we just jumped out at me. Talk to me about some of those metrics-based business outcomes that Jable is achieving so far. Yeah. So in the last four years, we've had a heavy focus on catalogs. So actually in the last few months, we've gone from 20 to 30% by using Coupa Analytics and drilling really into the details and putting really great category strategies in order to drive more catalog penetration. We've got great stats around electronic invoicing, especially in certain countries where people think it's not possible. Right. There's a great change management story we have for what we've achieved in our Asian markets around electronic invoicing. And from an ROI perspective, we were able to deliver 3x our ROI by the end of year two, which we projected would take three years to do, and 7x by year four. So we had a very conservative and achievable ROI that got the buy-in, and then we were able to accelerate it by being aggressive, but also with a great solution, it was easy to then get that done. You talk a little bit about the change management that you were able to achieve in the Asian market. Change management is a difficult thing to do. People are resistant to change. One of the things we've learned in the last two years is sometimes the change comes and there's nothing you can do about it. But how did you affect that change management within that culture in the Asian market? Yeah, so with the executive buy-in that we had, because they knew that there was high potential for us to deliver an ROI, we had executive sponsorship that helped us get through some of those barriers. So if we decided not to bring certain users into the system, for example, and there was pushback that they needed to have access, we had executive messaging as to why from a policy governance and control standpoint, we couldn't break that. So we used our executive's voice and their support to do that, but also we brought in a great system that was user-friendly and so we didn't get a lot of resistance in that sense. So they actually embraced the change compared to the solution we had in place before. So by making the right selection from a user-centric company, we also didn't get as much resistance there as well. That's nice. The path of least resistance is good, especially if you're not exactly sure if you're going to find it, but verifying that and getting that ROI is probably a big win. Talk to me a little bit about, you guys liked Koopa so much, you had such, you mentioned 3x ROI within, you said the first year? With after year two. After year two, 3x ROI. You liked it so much, you decided to become a Koopa partner. Talk to me about that. What does that mean? What are you guys doing as partner? Yeah, so this is a super exciting thing for us to adventure into. So we pride ourselves on, our theme is built for practitioners by practitioners. We've run the system every single day. We've been running it for years. So my team members are deep in the knowledge and capabilities of Koopa, its functionality, how to manage it every day, how to get the most value out of it, and we want to share that knowledge with other Koopa customers to get the most value out of their system as well. So whether that's optimization and helping them get more out of their system or whether it's roadmap or assessments and in our perspective or even doing that new implementations, we're excited to venture into that area of services with Koopa as a partner. Are you, have you guys started doing that yet? We, today is our, this is our first Koopa Inspire as a partner, which is exciting and we literally just got started in the last few months. So we are working on getting our first customer here, hopefully very shortly and I've had a lot of really great conversations with customers at the show so far. That's one of the great things that Koopa took the risk to bring us all together because there's, they have a phenomenal community of which you guys have been a partner you said I believe about seven years but there's nothing that replaces the connections that you make in the community that is grown from doing events like this. I imagine that you've gotten to talk with a lot of prospect, prospective customers who what, how did you do this? This seems like an impossible feat that you've gotten to share with them. This is doable. Here's how we did it. That's right. So fortunately I've been at previous inspires as well so I've gotten to talk to people that I haven't seen in a couple of years which is always exciting. I've been able to talk to customers that I've done referrals for with Koopa before that are now Koopa customers and we get to talk about that and also those prospective customers and helping them know that it is doable. It is achievable. You can get consensus in a decentralized company where all the sites, if you have lots of sites in countries have their own autonomy, you can do it. You can do it fast. You can do it effective if you take the right approach and so it's exciting to get here and share that opportunity and our adventure and our journey with Koopa and the journey is only just beginning. Right. What are some of the things that you are excited about in terms of the innovations that they've announced at the event? I know Koopa is very much symbiotic with its customers that the community very much generates a lot of the direction in which the technology goes but what are some of the things that you've heard announced that you thought, yes, they continue to go in the right direction? Yeah, so there's some actual foundational capabilities around things like payment agreements and group carts and things that actually we've contributed through their customer cabs or VP sessions with design, just doing collaboration together but I'm also excited to see some of their price benchmarking that they're doing so that we can know how well are we doing from our pricing standpoint and also where they're going with supply chain. I'm excited to see where they're going with that. Being a big supply chain company ourselves, we're hoping that that all turns out to be something that we can innovate with Koopa on and hopefully have in the future as well. Well, as they said, Rob said it to me just an hour ago, they're tip of the iceberg but what it seems that you've become Heidi yourself and Jable is really kind of an influencer within the Koopa community. We appreciate you coming by theCUBE, sharing with us what you've accomplished and how you're expanding your Koopa partnership into helping other companies. Fascinating. Thank you again for having me today. My pleasure, all right. For Heidi Banks, I'm Lisa Martin and you're watching theCUBE's coverage of Koopa Inspire 2022 from Las Vegas. Stick around, my next sketch joins me momentarily.