Category Archives: humour

It’s Coupa Time!

The Grunka Lunkas are still standing guard at the Coupa factory, so I have nothing significant to report yet … but I am told that the new enterprise version is almost ready and I will do everything I can to break the veil of secrecy as soon as possible.  On the bright side, I am told there are lots of cool new features to make you go “WOW”, so I’m betting it will be worth the wait.  In the meantime, if you’re daring, here’s a Coupa rap.

Apologies Jason (see “Why I’m Not a Poet”** on Spend Matters [WayBackMachine]), but I was dared* (sort-of).
(At least it’s not another oompa-loompa chant!
And hey, as Charles said on the Purchasing Certification Blog (now the Certitrek NLPA blog), it’s guaranteed that no one will ever confuse our blogs. )

(To the rap of “U Can’t Touch This” by MC Hammer.
Time to bring back those balloon pants!)

U-Can buy this!
U-Can buy this!
U-Can buy this!
U-Can buy this!

My, my, my, my Coupa hits you so hard
Makes you say Oh my Lord!
Thank you for blessing me
With an app that works so flawlessly

Feels good when you know you’re down
A superdope guru who slaps code down
And we’re known as such
And this is one app, uh, they can’t touch

I told you mister, they can’t touch this
Yeah, that’s how we codin’ and ya know,
U-Can buy this!
With a slick UI, U-Can buy this!
You know, let me bust the funky lyrics, U Can buy this!

Cool new app features
Built to satisfy all sorts of creatures
Knock you out of your seat
New tagging feature that can’t be beat
Grab your arm-rests, hold on
With order tracking features, your order’s never gone
Like this, Like that
Coupa’s on a mission, better fall back
Tell the world that we’re too much
And this is one app, uh, they can’t touch

Yo, I told you, they can’t touch this
Why you standing there man, ’cause U-Can buy this
Yo, sound the bell, school is in, sucker, U-Can buy this

It can link to your system
Punch-out power is what we’re giving ’em
Can’t negate
The only word is Coupa when you’re buying cor-por-ate
It’s hype and tight
With Ruby on Rails, system needs are slight
Now it’s time to learn
What it’s gonna take in the nought’s to burn
The hits legit
They can’t top us, they might as well quit

It’s all because you know
They can’t touch this … but …
U-Can buy this
Break it down!
Stop! Coupa time!

Go with the flow is what they say
Time to get with Coupa, stop livin’ in yesterday
Purchase at the speed of light
No-click Coupa buys will get your order right
This is it, it’s a winner
Get with this, make your processes thinner
Now move, click that mouse
Just takes a minute for you to not get loused

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, they can’t touch this
But man, U-Can buy this
You’ll probably get hype boy,
‘Cause you know U can, U can buy this
Ring the bell, schools’ back in, buy it now!
Stop! Coupa time!

U-Can buy this
U-Can buy this
U-Can buy this
Buy it now!
Stop! Coupa time!

Every time you see it, the app just gets slicker
It’s dope on the net and service doesn’t flicker
Now why would we ever stop coding it
With others makin’ products that just don’t hit
I toured around the world from London to the Bay
It’s Coupa – Go Coupa – OS Coupa – Yo Coupa
and the rest can go and play

U-Can buy this
U-Can buy this
U-Can buy this
Yeah, U-Can buy this
I told you, U-Can buy this
Too hype, U-Can buy this
Get on outta here, U can buy this!

* Not by Coupa, who, to the best of my knowledge, had no prior knowledge of this post.

** All posts prior to 2012 were removed in the Spend Matters site refresh in June, 2023.

Ain’t No Saving in a Perfect World

To the tune of Perfect World by Huey Lewis and the News.

Ev’rybody’s looking for a perfect world
where you could save everything your heart desires.
A perfect buy will happen every time
and the perfect order will set your world on fire.

What you gonna do
when one and one makes three?
And a vision of the future is impossible to see.
Nobody’s perfect
not even a perfect fool
but if you’ll use sourcing tools reductions will find you.

Ain’t no saving in a perfect world
there ain’t no perfect world anyway.
Ain’t no saving in a perfect world
but we’ll keep on dreaming of getting to a perfect world.
Keep on dreaming of getting to a perfect world.

Everybody’s got targets
you know that it’s true.
They’ll RFX me and they’ll e-Aucton you.
Something happens to the pledges of trust
down through the years they begin to rust.

Now here we are amid the chaos and rising tides
still waiting for our agreements to save our hides.
We’ll keep on fighting as long as we can
try to remember and understand.

Ain’t no saving in a perfect world.
Ainlt no saving in a perfect world.

Keep on dreaming of getting to a perfect world.
Keep on dreaming of getting to a perfect world.
Keep on dreaming of getting to a perfect world.

Davie and the Coupa Factory

When I was in in the valley, I checked in on Coupa. I’m happy to report that the Coupa Oompa-Loompa‘s are hard at work developing the new version of their open-source e-Procurement product, which should be ready in the near future. (Rumors are the next enterprise version will be ready in a month or so.) I wish I had details to share, but everything is hush-hush and I was warned by the Grunka Lunkas not to ask about the secret new features (and since I didn’t have an evil alcohol chugging robot or one-eyed mutant to back me up, I decided to heed their warnings). However, if you listen hard, you just might be able to hear the Oompa-Loompa’s song floating on the breeze.  (At least when they’re not watching TV.)

Oompa Loompa Doom-pa-dee-do
I’m building a great product for you!
Oompa Loompa Doom-pa-dah-dee
If you are wise download it for free.

What do you get when you go open source?
Straying away from the Oracle course
Where you are going terribly flat
What do you think will come of that?

I don’t like the look of it

Oompa Loompa Doom-pa-dee-dar
If you are willing, you will go far
You will live in happiness too
Like the Oompa Loompa Doom-pa-dee-do

Oompa Loompa Doom-pa-dee-do
I have a great product for you
Oompa Loompa Doom-pa-dee-dee
If you are wise you’ll take a look-see

Oracle’s fine when you have lots of cash
It stores all your data and caches it fast
But when you’re cash-strapped, you’re hung out to dry
To watch the vultures circ’ling high

Up in the dark’ning skies

Oompa Loompa doom-pa-dee-dar
But now there’s Coupa, you can go far
You will buy in happiness too
Like the Oompa-Loompa doom-pa-dee-do

Oompa Loompa Doom-pa-dee-do
I have a great product for you
Oompa Loompa Doom-pa-dee-derd
If you are wise, you will spread the word

Ask who they’ll blame when your spend is off track?
Deep in the red and there’s no turning back
Contracts alone will never be enough
If your software’s not up to snuff

And doesn’t track your stuff

Oompa Loompa doom-pa-dee-dar
But now there’s Coupa, you can go far
You will buy in happiness too
Like the Oompa-Loompa doom-pa-dee-do

Oompa Loompa Doom-pa-dee-do
I have a great product for you
Oompa Loompa Doom-pa-dee-dise
If you are wise, you’ll buy enterprise

Recquisitions with a click of the mouse
No more mistakes for accounting to delouse
One click receipts when the order arrives
Invoice matching that always jives

You’ll have no … you’ll have no … you’ll have no regrets

Oompa Loompa doom-pa-dee-dar
But now there’s Coupa, you can go far
You will buy in happiness too
Like the Oompa-Loompa doom-pa-dee-do

And yes, this is to the tune of the Oompa Loompa chant, as first heard in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.

… But I Took Purchasing

To the tune of First We Take Manhattan by Leonard Cohen.

They threatened me with thirty years of boredom
But I promised that I’d get the best of them
They tried to cubicle me in accounting
But I slipped their grasp and I took purchasing

I’m guided by desire to save money
I’m guided by desire to always win
I’m guided by the beauty of a P.O.
So I slipped their grasp and I took purchasing

I’d really like to cut back spend today
I love the hunt and tactics and strategy
But you see that minute hand winding up to twelve
I’m running, I’m running, running out of time you see

I did my job when we were losers, I did my job when we all got to win
If only you managed risk, but you don’t have the discipline
So now I must put out the fires, before my work begins
Too bad I slipped their grasp and took up purchasing

I don’t like your mismanagement mister
And I don’t like the decisions that you make
I don’t like what happened to you, sister
Did I make a mistake when I took up purchasing?

I’d really like to just do my job today
And get some thanks for all the savings that I find
But Nero plays his plywood violin
   and the factory burns to the ground
Could have had accounting, but I took purchasing

I am guided

Ah remember me, I used to live for the hunt
Strategy and tactics, I would fight to win
But outsourcing put our supply chain in shambles
Could have had accounting, but I took purchasing

The Tower of Spend

To the tune of The Tower of Song by Leonard Cohen.

Well my wits are gone and my hair is grey
I spend in categories where I used to save
And I’m crazy for help, but I’m here getting none
I’m just shuffling papers every day
Oh in the tower of spend

I said to Ignacio Lopez: how bad does it get
Ignacio Lopez hasn’t answered yet
But I hear him pacing all night long
A hundred floors above me
In the tower of spend

I was made for this, I could not sway
I felt that purchasing would show me the way
Out of corporate drudgery to the beyond
But they stuck me in the dungeon
In the tower of spend

So you can stick your little pins in that voodoo doll
Because it looks like I’m going to be nailed to the wall
There’s no light from the window when it should be strong
A total lack of visibility
In the tower of spend

Now you can say that I’ve grown bitter, but of this you can be sure
If I can not track my spend I’m going to end up poor
There’s a mighty judgement coming, and I sure hope I’m wrong
You see, I’m drowning in paperwork
In the tower of spend

I see you standing on the other side
I don’t know how the chasm got so wide
We were the same, way back when
And all the bridges are burning that I might have crossed
Still I feel so close to everything that I lost
Don’t want to lose it again

Now I bid you farewell, I don’t know when I’ll be back
They’re moving me tomorrow even further down the track
You won’t be hearing from me again, after I am gone
I’ll be drowning in the darkness
From a dungeon in the tower of spend

Yeah my wits are gone and my hair is grey
I spend in categories where I used to save
And I’m crazy for help, but I’m here getting none
I’m just shuffling papers every day
Oh in the tower of spend