Spending Platform Coupa’s Steady Ramp-Up to Compete With Concur
Photo Credit: Coupa Travel and Expense includes features that recognize new travel trends. Unsplash / Shashivarman Kolandaveloo
Skift Take
Buying up niche startups can only take you so far, because at some point you've got to consolidate. Coupa’s new travel and expense platform neatly sums its acquisition strategy to date, but some features could be a little hit-and-miss.
Business spending management platform Coupa has launched a dedicated travel and expense platform, following years of buying up niche startups.
Booking platform Pana was the most recent, as Skift revealed a year ago, and before that it bought flight reshopping tool Yapta in January 2020 — just as the pandemic hit. Coupa CEO Rob Bernshteyn said he “maybe” regretted the timing and price tag of that latter deal.
Coupa and other expense software forms like Emburse have had rival SAP Concur in their sights for a while, but Coupa appears to have regrouped and this latest rollout packs a punch: some features are well-adapted to post-pandemic travel, but some may grate with company travel managers, if not chief financial officers. At the end of the day, Coupa is designed to help companies manage their spending through procurement tools, not manage business trips.
Rolling Up the Features
Coupa’s new travel and expense platform, launched Tuesday, wraps up several features from its acqui
