Question

Who are the users in this case that you believe Patrick Hopkins is referring to when it comes to the "four truths"?

Answer 1

At Coupa Inspire procurement conference that happened in San Francisco, chief procurement officer of Coca Cola Consolidated , based in Charlotte NC, Patrick Hopkins shared his views on the Four truths of procurement and how he has operationalized his views by the deployment of a procure to pay software.

CC Consolidated is one of the last remaining private bottlers of Coke. It has come up with many innovations and is one of the 64 bottlers worldwide with around 6000 employees that are selling a case of Coke every for every 4 seconds.

With regards to “procurement truths”, Patrick shared what he believes are important issues that procurement needs to think about when deploying a procure to pay system.

The product must be in the catalog - All of the items initially piloted end up being in the catalog. The catalogs can be internally hosted using COUPA or in a “punch out” mode using the SAP system.

-Users must be able to find what they need: The team ensured that the employees were well trained prior to the implementation, due to which there was very fast response time. The metric used to determine if this criteria was met was the “binary rule” that is as follows- users were able to find their exact match or 100% of all alternatives the first time using One Search. This refers to the ability of the search engine to find the part using certain keyword searches in a description field. This system worked efficiently, and users found what they needed with zero chance of error, ensuring that the right part was delivered to the right person at the right location.

- Data must be right :System was able to drive good visibility and inventory availability of material, and accuracy of the master data file was well established.

- Users must want to use the system:The main element of success is whether the users are satisfied with a P2P system. This system allows mobility across different applications, including iPhones and Android devices and is easy to use.

Hence the users that he has referred to when it comes to the four truths are the employees of the organization.