← B2B Agility with Greg Kihlström™: MarTech, E-Commerce, & Customer Success
B2B Agility with Greg Kihlström™: MarTech, E-Commerce, & Customer Success
#57: Supply chain as competitive advantage with Salvatore Lombardo, Coupa
00:20:43
Is your supply chain a competitive advantage, or your biggest liability waiting to be exposed? Agility requires preparing for the unpredictable, especially when your brand’s ability to deliver hinges on global events that are entirely out of your...
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- [00:00]
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- [00:50]
Salva Lombardo
Agile.
- [00:57]
Greg Kilstrom
Welcome to the B2B Agility Podcast where we look at the factors that drive success in B2B marketing with a focus on the people, processes, data and platforms that make B2B brands stand out and thrive in a competitive marketplace. I'm your host Greg Kilstrom, advising Fortune 1000 brands on MarTech marketing operations and CX best selling Author and speaker. Now let's get on to the show.
- [01:24]
Is your supply chain a competitive advantage or your biggest liability waiting to be exposed? Agility requires preparing for the unpredictable, especially when your brand's ability to deliver hinges on global events that are entirely out of your control. In a world of political unrest, regulatory change and natural disasters, the brands that win are the ones who can pivot fast without losing their balance. Today we're going to talk about the crucial connection between modern supply chain strategy and brand agility. To help me discuss this topic, I'd like to welcome Salva Lombardo, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Coupa. Salva, welcome to the show.
- [02:01]
Salva Lombardo
Hi Greg, thank you for having me.
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Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, absolutely looking forward to talking about this with you. Definitely a timely topic here. Before we dive in though, why don't we start with you giving a little background on yourself and what you're currently doing at Cuba.
- [02:15]
Salva Lombardo
Oh sure, sure. So yeah I joined like well three quarter of a year ago so very very very very nice time I'm having there and I'm since 20 years roughly in the space of supply chain and procurement. Basically run a lot of procurement technology products at SAP, so one of a big SaaS vendors too. And. Yeah. And decided to stay in that space and do my best with Coupa. Yeah, that's me. So chief and product Technology Officer obviously, you know, heading product and engineering, cloud ops, everything when it comes to getting the product into a service and getting it to the clients.
- [02:56]
Greg Kilstrom
Perfect. Well, yeah, let's. We're going to talk about a few things here, but I want to start with this idea of resilience and risk. And so when you look at how brands are handling disruption in 2025, surely there's a lot of things. Political unrest, regulatory changes, climate challenges and more. What do you think is missing from these brands approach to supply chain resilience?
- [03:23]
Salva Lombardo
Yeah, well, missing is always like a little bit difficult to say because obviously, obviously the point is all brands do good business. Right. I mean, you know, if they would not be in good business, they would have maybe reacted even before. And that's fine. Missing is always, I think, exactly the key word. Do I recognize that it's missing? Missing. I think the two, three triggers to see this is for example, do I really judge rightly risk profiles of my suppliers? It's just a very interesting, very easy basic question, it seems. But I think that's where missing parts are. Because if you don't do a really diligent way on judging your suppliers, if they are the right ones from a risk profile perspective, the. That's a part which I'm seeing as a pattern or a second, it could be like, hey, how much, how much automation do I have in my recognition of problematics in my supply chain? Be it now, be it now, you know, the place of where I supply. How much is this in any case automated enough that I can really immediately see like, oh, there is some geopolitical problem or that I can see like, oh, there is a thunderstorm or whatever happens. Right. That's a missing part and maybe to mention a third one and that's maybe one which is very near to the current situation. How much can I really immediately at least judge and simulate the, you know, I call it this tariff, the tariff situations at the moment. Because every day maybe some new idea comes and not, not because of the tariffs itself. It can be a strategy, it can be whatever, but US business need to immediately translate this into your impact. And I think that's a missing piece too, that then the simulation takes partly longer than maybe the reactions you should have. So that's the three themes I would say, Greg, which I see today. Yeah. In many brands happening.
- [05:23]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, yeah. And certainly there's a lot of considerations of Making a brand successful. But you know, why supply chain strategy is maybe it's, it's not mentioned quite as much as, as some other things, you know, like go to market strategy and, and some of those very like customer facing, maybe the flashier things. But you know, why is supply chain strategy one of the most important tools in a brand's arsenal when it comes to staying agile and competitive?
- [05:52]
Salva Lombardo
Yeah, I guess it, it plays into also the missing parts because I think to sum this up is the speed of reaction you can translate this into. If you do not have a supply chain strategy, are you really prepared to speed speedy enough, react on certain changes that that's how I would really simply put it. If you don't have it, don't, you know, be not surprised that you can't react quickly. That's how I would put it. And just very easy words. Obviously you can, you know, you can go deeper like how quickly am I to adapt a new supplier, how quickly am I to understand new routes for supply chain which needs to come. Right. So all of this crack, obviously, you know, lays this down a few layers but at the end you can always sum it up. If I don't have a strategy, and it's not only supply chain, it's also a spend strategy, a supplier strategy, a category spend strategy. If you don't have this, your reaction speed is not as quick as your competition speed.
- [06:52]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, yeah, well, and I think that also speaks to, you know, including supply chain but beyond the diversification. Right. So it's relying too heavily on a single region, relying too heavily on a supplier. You know, what are some of the mistakes that you see companies making when building or failing to build a diversified supply chain?
- [07:17]
Salva Lombardo
Yeah, well, I think the most obvious mistake is don't. And you know, this is, this is obviously being at Cooper, I, I now, you know, I have the, the data set available and it's maybe easy for me obviously to say this, but because I can provide this to our customers. But, but I mean this really from, from my absolutely. Experience, the transparency of your business in data points, in figures, in number of suppliers per material, spend per suppliers per material. You know, supply chain diversification in the sense of, you know, how much am I getting the supply from different countries to balance my risks. All of this is for me, transparency of your business when it comes to spend and supply chain. Greg. And I think that's what I see. I mean, you know, in all respect, I think every brand has so excellent, you know, strategies. But this is when I, when you, when I need to look the first time into it. This is what in 9 of 10 cases I see not being there, not necessarily because of missing digitalization. I think many brands have understood that you better digitalize. I think that's over. But not the right tools and system support for business procurement, business supply chain to have the transparency on their data. And that's why I would put the very, very first baseline when you get started and want to do strategy, get the data set, get a company which can give you those data and then doing benchmarks and start from there on getting more and more. Excellent.
- [09:00]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, yeah. So let's, let's talk a little bit more about that then. You know, technology, you know, as you mentioned, clearly plays a role in agility of the supply chain. Maybe, maybe start a little bit with. And I want to talk a little bit more generally about, about AI and some other things as well. But, you know, can you talk a little bit about what Koopa does and the role that it plays? And then, then I want to talk a little bit more about AI in general.
- [09:23]
Salva Lombardo
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, just very quickly because we should not spend every day.
- [09:27]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, I think we should.
- [09:28]
Salva Lombardo
I'm, I'm absolutely, you know, so super keen to talk about the business though. I think Kuba is the technology provider for an end to end business when it comes from supply chain to sourcing, contracting, you know, with suppliers to the operation, operations, operational part and the pay part. Right. Me being, you know, like getting the, paying the suppliers quicker. Everything which is about the invoicing part. And then on the other side, as we are building the network which runs and powers the global trade, then the supplier offering, so suppliers in the same network, you know, creating their profile, creating the risk profile, uploading the certification and with this, matching the data set I was talking about, and we call ourselves the, the business spend platform because we know the spend end to end, from the very start strategy to the very end, paying it. Right. And then obviously with supplier inputs in the middle. So that's, that's Craig, how you can roughly explain the platform.
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Greg Kilstrom
Okay, yeah. And I think that's a good. So, you know, knowing that and knowing kind of that, that view that, that you have on this, certainly, you know, AI is playing a big role in all aspects of business from end to end as well. How are you seeing tools like, you know, AI tools, whether it's, you know, predictive or other planning tools or other things, how are you seeing AI playing a role in, you know, making it easier for brands to be more proactive versus Reactive in such a volatile kind of state of things.
- [10:57]
Salva Lombardo
Yeah, yeah. I mean obviously spot on question because this is the number one question the ctos asked me to. And Greg, you are. But you know I'm, I'm starting, I like to start this answer with one thing I'm love to say because I was long time enough also on the business side of the house and not only technology, honestly brands should not, brands should not worry about the word AI because the word AI itself is a technology, it's a, it's a wonderful technology disruption. That's it. But the disruption itself is no value yet for the business, Greg. And the value is now my duty as a technology provider, as a vendor for software and for SaaS to turn AI into a business value. So that's why AI itself will not bring value if the vendor of choice is not making the best out of it. That's Greg how I like to in General answer the AI question because I'm getting often the question from CPOs or business like hey how can I leverage AI as well? It's your vendor which needs to leverage AI and then deliver for you the right SaaS services which are AI empowered which again can you know up double down on what services could be delivered compared to others. So that's how I see at least as cooper our duty for our customers. Right. And then it comes obviously in the, to the business value. So in the business value is for me make the unpredictable today predictable. I think that's a, that's a theme which I like to really, really often spend on the time because if I would just argue with automation it would be, it would jump to slow to, to not, you know, not far enough because the unpredictable is the things which today is really hard for businesses to predict. Right. Obviously they call it unpredictable. That's why it's a little bit of a. But, yeah, but, but, but AI with the technology on scanning and having this multiple skills which you today can't even imagine, Greg, I mean you, you see this in the business in a normal private life, right. If you ask about a question and we are not using this because we use more the business LLM models but you get my point, you get answers which like oh my God, I would have not predicted that I, that they know that. Right. And that's the point of unpredictability in business. And the second part obviously being you know, the speed and the upskilling of my 2 day business. Meaning what today maybe I have a lot of manual and let's say not the most Strategic tasks shift into much more automated and strategic operations which the, the other ones will be done by AI as, as AI is that intelligent that you can trust that, that you know my services will deliver this and I think those two areas is how I would describe it. And you know, just one concrete example and just close this. I imagine an onboarding as a service for suppliers in the supply chain. Right. Which is AI enabled. So an intelligent AI agent helps suppliers to onboard because all this immense data set are anyway there they are either on the Cooper platform or they are either on an Internet place where the supplier can say like yeah, that's it, that's my certification. Yes, that's. They are judging me rightly. No, that's wrong. Correct that one. And then a wonderful profile with an AI agent will be created. That's what we are working at the moment on which makes just a supply. The onboarding one day a non event. Right. It's just there and I think that's just an example for how AI will help at least with Cooper to, to make the business life easier.
- [14:38]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah. I mean as you mentioned it's solely thinking about the automation and the workflow doesn't kind of do the opportunity justice as far as some of the AI stuff goes. But there are incredible, I mean even you know, the examples that you just mentioned, I mean that's an incredible time savings and everything like that as well. In addition to the technological part of prediction and all that. Like what, what do businesses, when you're able to predict better and react more easily, what, what does that mean for the business in maybe from the operational standpoint, you know. So in other words they're going to have these tools that enable them to pivot better, but they're used to you know, whatever 3612 month projections and you know, kind of the, the processes aren't necessarily in place. Like what is, what does that mean for a leader that's trying to anticipate these things being available but has a team? That's kind of thinking five years ago.
- [15:43]
Salva Lombardo
Yeah, yeah. Well, there may be three areas. One, I touched the very beginning of our talk. You remember that I said speed. I think it's all about speed, honestly. That's the top one. And you can argue there in every area that if you really start that journey as a business together, obviously with your IT department and with the right vendor of choice software Choice on the SaaS platform, I think one top result is much more day to day calculation which you can work from now in maybe a few minutes on recalculating every kind of simulation we are seeing at the moment a 50 to 100 time quicker. For example logistic network scenario calculation. By changing one parameter which in past took us maybe a day, we can do now in a very quick way that you know, the buyer, the source of the category manager can immediately and also the supply chain operator can quickly do decisions on seeing like what changes if I'm increasing the tariff 0.1% here. And then you get three scenarios and you continue. Right? So this simulation is believe it or not is a highly, highly complex thing. And the compute and AI allows us today a much, much quicker way on doing this. So that. That's just making an example, right? That's number one. Number two is, and this is maybe an exciting thing for all I call this internally that AI will be the new user experience. So what do I mean with this? I. I'm. I'm an absolutely believer and we are working towards this that one day the menu and module way of working how we are used today, right. Whatever we use, like even buying something as a, as a consumer will disappear. I'm absolutely believer in that one day at least for easy to medium complex tasks. A conversational AI agent in our case it's Cooper Nabi, we call this Agent Cooper Nabi will be that intelligent that you don't need to do anything except of talking or typing with this agent and doing the rest of your work. And be it also supply chain scenarios, be it risk assessment, be it the way on ordering, you know, just a simple task on operational procurement. But all of this will be step by step replaced by agents and intelligent, intelligent agents and not necessarily modules, right? So that's number two. And I think what I also see is like and this is a way of you know, the slice and dice of how you look at data analy analyzing them instantly understanding what is going with your business is something which will, which if you do it right will be just a. Will become a table stick of everybody which is working in procurement. Meaning you know, an instant question to Navi which is again our AI agent from Cooper or maybe a prompt or a button click that you get immediately the view of your transparent spend data of your transparent supply chain routes. Where is. Where are disruption that the future will be like data insight and then action, right? And not like menu modules and then finding out which menu it will be like hey, give me the data what happens? Okay, then please do this right. And that's how I see this world moving. At least this is what we do at Cooper and want to be obviously the first being there and showing that it is possible.
- [19:19]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, that's exciting. Well Salva, thanks so much for joining today and for your ideas and insights. One last question for you before before we wrap up. What do you do to stay agile in your role and how do you find a way to do it consistently?
- [19:34]
Salva Lombardo
Wow, that's a good one. Well, I think I'm trying always I think there is like a little ritual I have or how to say you know like I'm having always my I'm putting the phone for a few maximum an hour away and I'm trying to read the paper. I mean even if it sounds like very odd but still as being a really front runner in software, I'm I'm love to read it. It just gets me back into my brain working so to say in the read and understand for some reason it works so well for me just getting aside the phone for an hour or so in the evening when I'm just trying to relax that that brings me that charges me for the next 24 hours. You know, if you include a little sleep, I'm back in the next day. So I'm doing this quite regularly. It helps me so much to just stay very up but and reading obviously you know the newest in the software area and procurement space and supply chain space. So that's how I'm keeping up with this and well and I'm super passionate for that area. So I love this area and I just want to make it, you know, disrupt and revolutionize it.
- [20:39]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, yeah, love it. Well, again I'd like to thank Salva Lombardo, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Koopa, for joining the show. You can learn more about Salva and Koopa by following the links in the show notes.
- [20:51]
Thanks again for listening to the B2B Agility podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please take a minute to subscribe and leave us a rating so that others can find the show more easily. You can access more episodes of the show at www.b2b agility.com. that's b2b agility.com while you're there, check out my series of best selling agile brand guides covering a wide variety of marketing technology topics. Or you can search for Greg Kilstrom on Amazon. Until next time, stay focused and stay Stay Agile.
- [21:27]
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