Coupa Software, which makes a cloud-based set of tools that enables users to manage enterprise spending, on Jan. 14 announced the acquisition of Contractually, a cloud service provider that adds efficiencies to the often-tedious and slow-to-move contract process. Terms of the deal were not released.
Contractually’s IP reduces businesses’ reliance on obsolete processes or inadequate technology tools to version control or redline contracts.
Coupa enables its users to sanction contracts for purchasing processes and for tracking and spending. The 10-year-old company is adding Vancouver, B.C.-based Contractually so it can incorporate its simplified contract-authoring platform inside its own management platform.
The new capability will help businesses streamline the way they manage contract lifecycles, which will reduce human error and increase efficiency, Coupa said.
“Contractually extends our unified suite of applications with a critical new set of capabilities. We look forward to bringing this exceptional new synergistic offering to our customers and market,” said Rob Bernshteyn, CEO of Coupa (pictured).
“We made the decision to acquire Contractually primarily due to the shared vision with their team, and the innovative focus they applied to their Ruby on Rails-developed offering.”
Contracts are a foundation for doing business and often the first step in securing long-lasting relationships among suppliers, partners and customers. Yet, despite how critical contracts are for business continuity and the major shifts in how business today is conducted, outdated processes are still being used to manage companies’ most important documents.
For example, most contracts today require a lot of handoffs; they are authored in one application, then emailed back and forth for review and editing, signed in yet another application, and returned via email for further human processing.
With the addition of Contractually, Coupa will transform the antiquated contract processes to the digital world with a modern app focused on collaboration technology. Benefits will include avoidance of human errors in contracts, reduction of contract risk and prevention of errors that may cause business issues.
Since 2012, Coupa has had contract repository and alerting functionality embedded in its Spend Management suite. Since that time, customers have successfully operationalized hundreds of thousands of signed contracts using Coupa, Bernshteyn said.
Coupa expects the additional capabilities from the Contractually technology to be made available to select customers by mid-2016.
As part of the acquisition, the Contractually team will join Coupa to continue developing forward-thinking approaches for contract collaboration. The team will be instrumental in helping Coupa transform enterprise spend management.