Interview with Relish's Eric Weitz at Coupa Inspire 2025
Technologists, procurement practitioners, supply chain leaders and finance executives gathered at Coupa Inspire 2025 in Las Vegas, setting the stage for engaging discussions on the future of procurement technology.
Procurement Magazine sat down with Eric Weitz, Vice President for the Coupa Channel and Customer Growth at Relish, who highlighted his company's evolving partnership with Coupa, as well as the proliferation of transformative technologies in the procurement sector.
Enhancing procurement through partnerships
As an integral element of the Coupa ecosystem, Relish is crucial in automating supplier data validation and streamlining invoice intake processes for Coupa users.
"Our purpose really is to help customers extend their investments in their enterprise platform," notes Eric, stressing the strategic collaboration with Coupa's marketplace and product teams to continuously uncover customer-centric solutions.
"We meet with the community, we talk to existing Coupa customers to determine what types of products we can build that help extend the value of Coupa," Eric remarks.
He further describes this synergy as "a very collaborative opportunity" that sees the organisations embark on "a journey to deliver shared value for our customers."
The role of AI in procurement
Touching on major themes at Coupa Inspire 2025, Eric highlighted change, particularly in relation to AI and its strategic implications for procurement.
"There's an undertone of buzzwords—agentic AI, artificial intelligence in general," he commented.
Eric posed some critical questions: "What does this mean? How is this going to transform the way that we're doing business today? How is it going to make our lives easier as humans versus replace it?"
Emphasising practicality, he pointed out that discussions were largely focused on pragmatic applications: "We have all of this information around us, but what are the use cases that are going to drive value when it comes to this topic of AI?"
This perspective resonates with the business-oriented mindset predominant in the Coupa community.
Configurability as a competitive edge
In a dynamic business environment, Eric identifies Coupa's configurability as a significant differentiator.
"Coupa – from the very beginning – has done a great job in creating a very configurable product," he stated, referring to its cloud-borne capabilities that allow swift deployment and adaptability, which are highly valued in the current business climate.
"We’re seeing a lot of things – geopolitical influences, macroeconomic influences – that require businesses to be flexible," Eric explains.
"When you have a configurable platform like Coupa that was designed with that in mind, it means when you have really smart people working together – customers and Coupa – as a team, you get a lot of smart people thinking pretty quickly."
Community and collaboration
A veteran of Coupa Inspire events, Eric values the platform for engaging the entire Coupa ecosystem.
"It's one of those situations where you can have an honest conversation with everybody," he enthuses.
"You can literally walk up to people, engage and ask them how they're using Coupa to solve problems. And, chances are, that solution or method they're using can apply to you."
These exchanges nurture a collaborative climate where common challenges can lead to shared solutions.
"Innovation, partnerships and collaboration will be born here," Eric concludes. "That's a reason that we're here – to have that contact with people and be part of this community so we can just be successful together."
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