Second in a series of ’sneak peeks’ at Coupa’s blockbuster summer release.

Crowdsourcing?  Say what?!?

The official definition from the term’s originator, Wired Magazine’s Jeff Howe, is “the act of a company or institution taking a function once performed by employees and outsourcing it to an undefined (and generally large) network of people in the form of an open call.”  Applied here, we’re talking about extending responsibility for finding the best deals and saving the company money beyond the procurement or purchasing department to the entire employee population.

At my previous company I always used the preferred airline where we supposedly had some sort of negotiated rates. The funny thing was that if I went on to Kayak.com or Southwest.com, I could easily find a better rate. How come my company didn’t allow me to take advantage of these great deals? Of course, the same holds true of a significant amount of other types of spending that takes place at companies today. If I need a new projector for our sales office, should I call someone in purchasing or review an internal online catalog of options from which to choose? Maybe, but what if I can find a better deal on Overstock.com? Why can’t I select the item, get it approved, and then purchased by our procurement group?

This summer, you can! With Coupa’s new irequest capability, I can go to practically any website (like Overstock.com in the example below), find the item I want to buy, and simply click the irequest button on my browser’s bookmarks toolbar. The item is then instantly clipped to my Coupa shopping cart, along with behind-the-scene supplier information that will facilitate an online transaction later. I can then get the purchase approved via the normal workflow process and Procurement can then decide if they want to add Overstock.com to our company’s approved supplier list.

With Coupa iRequest, every employee is empowered to find the best deal online and save the company money.

Coupa even helps the Purchasing department place the order on my behalf with inline company credit card info, shipping addresses, etc. Think of it as a Digg-like buyer bar to facilitate the e-commerce transaction with the best deal for the company. The benefits of punchout, without the hassle. The entire organization can be leveraged to help the company spend smarter, and Procurement can help facilitate the process.

Coupa ibuy is a Digg-like buyer bar that helps the Purchasing department quickly complete an online transaction.

To learn more, check back at www.coupa.com on June 15th, or sign up for a tour of Coupa’s summer release on June 18th.