How Coupa Drives $10M In Revenue And Certifies 9,000+ Customers Annually With LearnUpon

Coupa helps businesses gain greater efficiency and productivity to fuel growth with its leading business spend management platform.

Serving over 3,000 customers and managing over $5 trillion in business spend, Coupa leverages LearnUpon to sell courses that educate and support its users, helping them get the most out of the platform. Not only is LearnUpon making customer and partner education faster, more efficient, and scalable, it’s also turned learning into a revenue-generating hub that earns Coupa $10+ million annually.

The challenge: Fast-growing customer base, unscalable learning

Initially on the hunt for a learning solution for its employees, Coupa’s Vice President of Education Services, Brett Powell, spotted an opportunity to “create a customer experience.”

Coupa had been educating its customers on its products through instructor-led training. But, with its global customer-base exceeding 3,000 (and growing rapidly), Brett recognized that the current process wasn’t fit to scale.

Instead, Brett and his team recognized they needed a customer academy. One that would make it easy for them to deliver easy-to-access learning to customers, no matter the time and place they were in the world, in a scalable, resource-friendly way.

Additionally, the plan was to have Coupa’s courses available for customers and partners to buy, thus turning them into a revenue-generating asset while also fostering product adoption and customer loyalty.

The Solution: Coupa University, the tool to revolutionize training and drive growth

Using LearnUpon, Brett and the rest of the Coupa team have transformed how they train their customers and partners by rolling out a complete suite of learning through a customer training academy. Named Coupa University, there’s now a library of over 30–40 certifications and courses on Coupa’s products that are easily accessible, allowing customers to learn at their own pace, anywhere, at any time.

For Brett, not only is Coupa increasing the value of its platform, leading to greater customer satisfaction and adoption, but it’s also boosting the business’s reputation. It’s seen as a trusted partner dedicated to empowering its community with the knowledge and resources needed to thrive in the fast-changing world of business spend management.

A seamless customer experience

For Brett, “the choice with LearnUpon was initially driven by the look and feel of the platform itself.”  With branded learning environments, he and his team can control the look and feel, creating an academy that customers know and trust. And, with LearnUpon’s learner-friendly experience, there’s zero barriers for learners as they can easily use the platform.

Adding another level to LearnUpon’s user-friendliness are the integrations on offer, like Single Sign-On. By connecting LearnUpon to Okta SSO and Salesforce, customers gain access to Coupa University directly from their Coupa Portals Dashboard, making accessing learning as simple as possible.

Revenue-driving courses and certifications delivered automatically

When it comes to selling its courses and certifications, Brett and his team took advantage of LearnUpon’s out-of-the-box eCommerce storefront. Simplifying the enrollment process, the storefront allows users to easily sign up for courses. It also enables secure transactions and streamlined course purchases, creating a smooth, engaging experience for customers.

With the storefront in place, it empowered the Coupa team to turn its customer education into a revenue engine that generates $50 to $90k in monthly eCommerce revenue and $10 million a year in overall training revenue.

To make the certification process more efficient for Brett and his team, they created an advanced workflow that streamlines the certification process. Using Accredible via LearnUpon’s Zapier integration, customers and partners are automatically rewarded with digital badges when certified, which are powerful motivators, keeping them engaged.

For Brett and the Coupa team, the results of the certification program speak for themselves. Using completion rates as a key measure of learner engagement and proficiency, Coupa issued a massive 9,000 certifications in FY2024.

Beyond tracking learning completions, LearnUpon and Salesforce’s integration has enabled Brett’s team to dig deeper into the data. By showing invaluable insights, like the relationship between course participation and customer interactions, the team can refine the training programs and critically see the impact of the courses and certifications on Coupa’s organization’s growth.

A trusted partner to its customers

Coupa’s customer training program has made a big difference for both the customers and the company. By providing the right skills and certifications, the program boosts the value of Coupa’s platform, leading to greater adoption and satisfaction among customers. It also helps Coupa stand out as a trusted partner, dedicated to giving its community the knowledge and tools they need to excel in managing business spending.