LLamasoft and Coupa: Exploring Procurement, Finance and Supply Chain Use Cases for Today and Tomorrow

In our Spend Matters PRO coverage of Coupa’s acquisition of LLamasoft, we have defined and explored the linkages between direct procurement and supply chain functions and provided a functional overview of LLamasoft’s offerings and their connections to procurement.

In this analyst article, we turn our attention to use cases for the solutions today, as well as brainstorm what Coupa might do in the future with LLamasoft’s broader assets.

The benefits from applying LLamasoft (which focuses on supply chain planning, monitoring and analytics, or SCPMA) to procurement and finance/treasury use cases are further magnified when supply chain considerations are evaluated in tandem with other functions. After all, the power of optimization only starts to really come out when you continue to add additional datasets and constraints!

Let’s start with a chart that explores individual (e.g., procurement) and shared (e.g., procurement + finance/treasury) modeling scenarios using such an approach.

And then we’ll dive into how LLamasoft can change the notion of sourcing optimization and risk management (as two separate areas).

Disclosure: Spend Matters’ parent company, Azul Partners, provided due diligence services to Coupa as part of this transaction.