Coupa, the leading AI platform for total spend management, has officially announced the launch of its Tariff Impact Planning (TIP) app, which will join the company’s widely-accepted Supply Chain Solutions suite.
According to certain reports, the stated app is markedly designed to empower businesses big time in the context of navigating global trade and tariff policies, while simultaneously ensuring profitability amidst widespread uncertainty.
To understand the significance of such a development, we must need to take into account a particular piece of data claiming that more than 50% CEOs identify trade wars as the leading geopolitical risk for 2025.
Against this conundrum, Coupa’s latest technology, along with its wider supply chain solutions, help users seamlessly build tariff-optimized supply chains that assess current networks, future implications, and alternate strategies, all for the purpose of balancing tariff reduction, operational efficiency, and protecting bottom-lines.
More on the company’s new Tariff Impact Planning app would reveal how it arrives on the scene bearing an ability to offer insights and tips needed for businesses to respond dynamically, and at the same time, safeguard margins.
“A lasting trade war could be a black swan event with seismic impacts to supply chains, the likes of which we haven’t seen since the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Dean Bain, SVP and GM, Supply Chain, Coupa. “As we’ve seen before, supply chains are extremely fragile, and the potential for severe disruptions create dramatic downstream business challenges for each of our customers. With these new tools Coupa is helping companies create an adaptive strategy that suits their unique business model, protecting margins and maintaining their competitive edge even amid ongoing volatility.”
Talk about the whole value proposition on a slightly deeper level, we begin from the promise of tariff optimization. This translates to how you can now proactively review current supply chain networks and explore alternate strategies to mitigate tariff impacts. The solution can further, quite intelligently, consider trade-offs between cost, service, as well as risk in production and sourcing locations.
Next up, we have duty drawbacks coming into play. Here, you can essentially explore specific tariff impacts on input and manufacturing costs before identifying potential ways to qualify for duty drawbacks based on the flow of goods through the supply chain.
“Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the world briefly experienced a unique moment without competing global powers. But today, with the U.S. and China wielding economic tools as diplomatic levers—and Europe emerging as a potential third pole—it appears the era of free trade has shifted to a contest over evolving definitions of ‘fair trade.’ For supply chain leaders, this means recent tariffs aren’t a short-term anomaly—they’re part of a long-term norm,” said Nick Banich, Chief Revenue Officer at Miebach.
Another detail worth a mention relates to the prospect of layering tariffs. In essence, one can evaluate the costs of raw material inputs, manufacturing for semi-finished goods, and goods sold for finished goods to avoid unnecessary compounding.
Rounding up highlights would be the potential for optimal pricing and greater market access, something which is achieved on the back of assessing market and policy scenarios. You see, these scenarios really go the distance to inform pricing strategies, and therefore, facilitate navigation through potential cost increases, competitive pressures, and customer impact.
Making the given development even more significant would be Coupa’s existing stature that stems from running a network of 10M+ buyers-suppliers, and leading apps together on one unified platform to seamlessly automate the buying process and connect with customers in an efficient manner.Â
Not just that, the company also enjoys a trusted, community-generated, $8 trillion worth of a dataset,
“Hoping for a sudden change to this trend is risky. Instead, leaders need to look to sophisticated automation and technology, like Coupa’s Tariff Impact Planning app, to gain the necessary visibility, model complex scenarios, and make data-backed decisions that safeguard margins and minimize disruption,” said Banich.
