MOBILE PROCUREMENT APPS
Enhanced communication and collaboration With the Coupa App , team members can see , reply to and add new comments when ordering or approving , ensuring seamless communication and rapid turnaround .
Another feature in Coupa Mobile is Group Buying . Employees can invite their team members to collaborate and add items before placing an order , enabling teams that are distributed across locations or work shifts to work better together .
Baber says , as procurement professionals are working with different suppliers across many time zones , it becomes a necessity to have a platform where communication channels are always open and accessible .
“ These team members work with overseas suppliers and urgent purchasing decisions may have to be made with the approver in a different location ,” he adds . “ A procurement mobile app breaks down these virtual , collaborative barriers across both time and space .”
A recent TechReport article shows that people spend almost 3.8 trillion hours on their mobile apps and the number of mobile app downloads has increased by 86 % since 2016
“ The app offers flexible and secure authentication controls , ensuring data access policies are upheld ”
DOUG BENSON SR DIRECTOR PRODUCT MANAGEMENT , COUPA
Challenges implementing mobile procurement solutions Despite all these benefits , there are challenges .
Every organisation has its own requirements for allowing or controlling user-provided or organisation-provided mobile devices – such as authentication . There are also expectations from customers to have mobile use cases at feature parity with web applications .
At Coupa , there is the use of standard authentication controls to support the widest variety of these requirements without needing to rely on third parties .
“ This allows multiple scenarios common to large enterprises , including optional control over who is allowed to use the mobile app and on which devices ,” Doug says .
120 November 2024