Pepco Group and Coupa Reveal Path to Procurement Scale

Procurement teams across Europe are contending with a familiar set of pressures: reduce cost, manage supplier risk and maintain control, all while supply chains and markets continue to shift. For organisations in a growth phase, these demands intensify.

That tension sits at the heart of an on-demand webinar from Pepco Group and Coupa, in which Karolina Tarnawska, Group Procurement Director at Pepco Group, and Joe Catling, RVP UKI at Coupa, set out how one of Europe's fastest-growing retailers has approached transformation in practice.

Watch the on-demand webinar to hear directly from Pepco Group and Coupa as they reveal the strategy, technology and lessons behind one of procurement's most ambitious transformation programmes.

Karolina brings over two decades of experience leading global transformations across retail, FMCG and financial services, including senior roles at Heineken (Grupa Żywiec), ING and McDonald's.

At Pepco Group, she oversees end-to-end procurement, with a focus on cost optimisation, digitalisation and risk management across the group's 18 territories. 

Joe specialises in helping organisations unlock spend optimisation through AI-driven Source-to-Pay solutions and works closely with enterprises navigating the complexities of digital transformation.

Procurement as the centre of the business

A recurring theme of the discussion is procurement's role in aligning processes and decisions across an organisation. Karolina makes the case that procurement functions most effectively not as a back-office process but as a coordinating function that touches nearly every part of the business, giving it a strategic role in both driving growth and mitigating risk.

Pepco Group's expansion has tested that principle directly. As the business scaled, fragmented and manual procurement systems became increasingly difficult to sustain. The webinar explores how this exposed the need for stronger foundations across data, processes and technology, a realisation that shaped the group's subsequent approach to transformation and underpinned its rollout of the Coupa platform across all Pepco countries.

Both speakers return repeatedly to a shared point: AI cannot deliver value without groundwork. Clean data, streamlined processes and prepared teams are described as prerequisites, not optional extras. For procurement functions considering AI adoption, this is presented as a practical warning against moving to automation before the underlying foundations are in place.

Watch on demand: Karolina Tarnawska and Joe Catling discuss building the foundations for procurement transformation, securing leadership buy-in and scaling for growth.

Winning buy-in for change

The discussion also addresses the organisational work required to make transformation stick. Karolina and Joe describe change management as a balance between consistency and flexibility, with clear communication central to helping stakeholders understand the reasoning behind changes rather than simply the changes themselves. Securing leadership buy-in, they note, was not a single decision but a collaborative effort spanning multiple functions across the business.

Perhaps the most counterintuitive insight concerns pace. Standardising processes can initially slow operations down, yet the webinar argues this trade-off is worthwhile: standardisation ultimately enables faster decision-making, greater transparency and stronger business continuity. Getting there depends on prioritising user experience, delivering effective training and maintaining clear communication throughout, all factors the speakers identify as central to driving adoption once new systems and processes are in place.

What distinguishes this session is its grounding in real decisions rather than generic best practice. Karolina and Joe discuss the trade-offs Pepco Group faced directly, including where compromises were necessary and what has worked in practice since. For procurement leaders managing their own growth, consolidating fragmented systems, or building the case for platform investment, that practical framing offers something more useful than a polished summary of outcomes.

The webinar is available on demand, offering procurement professionals the chance to hear the full discussion between Karolina and Joe on building the foundations for transformation, securing organisational buy-in and preparing procurement functions for what comes after standardisation.