P&SC LIVE New York: Keynote with Mike Schanker, Coupa
Mike Schanker, Executive Vice President of Strategic Insights at Coupa, took to the virtual stage to share how AI can revolutionise your procurement uncertainty- if used correctly.
In his role, he supports Coupa's go-to-market strategy, product marketing, segment marketing and customer marketing teams.
He's spent more than 20 years in enterprise software across Marketing, Sales, and Services leadership roles after starting his career in Finance.
Common threads across all his work experience are a passion for leading new market categories, and a focus on creating customer value by applying technology to hard problems.
To watch Mike speak at Procurement & Supply Chain LIVE New York, click here.
Margin multipliers key to overcoming uncertainty
In his "Conquering Today's Confidence Crisis: Using AI to Manage Through Uncertainty and Change" keynote speech, Mike addressed the "confidence crisis" faced by today's organisations, emphasising the impacts of recent changes such as inflation, economic disruptions, and geopolitical challenges on supply chain and procurement professionals.
"With all this change going on, what we see in talking with a lot of our customers is that this combination of external pressures and internal inefficiencies erodes margins."
While AI is frequently proposed as a solution, Mike argues it's necessary but not sufficient on its own.
"My advice is to look for margin multipliers...you need to think about comprehensive action across your organisation, meaning across your supply chain, procurement, and finance functions."
Examples from companies like Novo Nordisk, Proctor & Gamble, Onsemi and Microsoft illustrate how such strategies have led to significant savings, operational efficiencies, enhanced resiliency, and sustainability improvements.
Mike also emphasised the importance of breaking down silos across supply chain, procurement and finance to maximise the impact and drive business growth amidst uncertainty and change.
The role of AI
In the presentation, Mike emphasises the role of AI; an example is Coupa, which leverages US$6 trillion of historical spend data, providing robust AI-driven insights.
"AI should be embedded in the processes throughout the platform and throughout the application layer because that's where your business processes lie, and your AI should be embedded within your business processes.
"When you're driving this kind of end-to-end AP automation, you're driving an efficiency multiplier. We've seen huge efficiency gains for a number of customers that previously had cumbersome manual processes."
The integration of AI within business processes is crucial for achieving operational efficiency and cost control.
Various applications of AI in business processes are presented, such as improving procurement efficiency, automating accounts payable (AP) processes, and enhancing fraud detection.
AI enables significant productivity gains and helps manage risks across the supply chain.
Mike went on to discuss the importance of leveraging AI for sustainability, compliance, and risk management, particularly with new legislative mandates like the EU Corporate Due Diligence Directive.
His resounding message, though, was to "Use technology as an enabler to break down silos across your organisation, but if any vendor tells you your technology is going to solve your problems, they're underestimating the change management that's involved."
P&SC LIVE continues to expand
Procurement & Supply Chain LIVE continues to expand its repertoire of events, with more to come in 2024 and 2025. Discover our essential diary dates below.
2024 diary dates:
- Procurement & Supply Chain LIVE London | 24-25 September 2024
- Procurement & Supply Chain Awards | 24 September 2024
- Manufacturing & Mobility LIVE | 6 November 2024
2025 diary dates:
- Procurement & Supply Chain LIVE Singapore | 11 February 2025
- Procurement & Supply Chain LIVE: Scope 3 | 5-6 March 2025
- Manufacturing & Mobility LIVE | 5-6 March 2025
- Procurement & Supply Chain LIVE Dubai | 29 April 2025
- Procurement & Supply Chain LIVE Chicago | 4-5 June 2025
- Procurement & Supply Chain LIVE London | 23-24 September 2025
- Procurement & Supply Chain Awards | 24 September 2025
- Manufacturing & Mobility LIVE Chicago | 4 November 2025
******
Make sure you check out the latest edition of Procurement Magazine and also sign up to our global conference series – Procurement & Supply Chain LIVE 2024
******
Procurement Magazine is a BizClik brand.