Case Study: Scoring Financial Goals: How a Championship Club Transformed Operations with Barkers and Coupa

11 Aug
Posted by: Matthew Hardaker
Category: Case Studies
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Procurement transformation case study for an elite Premier League football club delivered by Barkers consultancy.

A Championship Club, renowned for its underdog victories, community support and its pursuit of excellence.

For a world-class organisation like this Championship Club – famous for its underdog triumphs and relentless pursuit of excellence – performance is everything. With hundreds of staff supporting everything from match-day operations and player transfers to global merchandising and community outreach, the club’s operational tempo is relentless.

Yet, their back-office operations were being held back by inefficient, manual expense and purchase-topay (P2P) processes. Barkers partnered with the club to deploy the Coupa Business Spend Management platform, transforming their approach to spend and supplier management. The project eliminated financial blind spots, automated burdensome tasks, and gave the club the operational agility and tight financial control expected of a top-tier team in England’s highest football division. Our philosophy, grounded in Coupa best practices, is that 100% user adoption is the only path to 100% spend visibility. Our primary goal was to design a Coupa environment where the right way to spend money was also the easiest way.

Challenge

With a history of defying odds and outfoxing the competition on the global stage, was bogged down by legacy processes. Spend and supplier management was clumsy and often paper based, while the P2P solution was inefficient and time-consuming. In the fast-paced world of elite football, where speed is critical, this created significant bottlenecks that hampered the entire organisation. Without a single, unified approach, the club had little control over their supply-chain.

This challenge was magnified by a simultaneous, high-stakes project to implement a new ERP/finance system. This created a perfect storm of complexity, as the new ERP’s success depended on receiving clean, structured data – something the old manual processes simply couldn’t provide. The two projects required careful coordination, and Barkers’ support was essential to navigate the intertwined design decisions.

Solution

Barkers was contracted to lead the Coupa implementation and build a bespoke system perfectly tailored for the club. Our solution was engineered around a core principle: powerful technology is only effective when people use it. We focused on creating an intuitive, user-centric experience to drive clubwide adoption.

Led by our team, we configured a comprehensive solution:

  • A Unified Platform for All Spend: We implemented Coupa for both P2P and expenses, providing a single, consistent platform for both functions. This eliminated confusion and created one source of truth for all non-payroll spending.
  • Empowering the Team: We enabled staff across the club to become self-sufficient by allowing them to raise purchase orders directly within the system. Users can now easily select from preconfigured catalogues or submit free-text requests for specific services.
  • Hardwiring Financial Governance: A key part of the solution was building the club’s internal approval workflows, including budget checks, directly into Coupa’s DNA. In the new system, once a request is approved, the purchase order is seamlessly sent to the supplier, ensuring every purchase is compliant from the start.
  • Automating the Final Mile: We introduced automation to streamline invoice processing, transforming a task that was previously entirely manual and freeing up valuable team resources.

Results

The project has fundamentally transformed the club’s operational and financial performance.

  • Total Financial Control: The implementation delivered significant improvements in compliance. Unapproved purchases and surprise invoices have been completely eliminated. The club’s Procurement and Finance teams now have full, real-time visibility over all spend, ensuring every transaction aligns with company policy.
  • A New Level of Efficiency: The increased automation has greatly reduced the manual workload across the organisation. This operational agility allows the club to move faster and frees up staff to focus on more strategic, high-value tasks.
  • Embedded and Adopted: A technology investment only pays off if it’s used. To ensure success, we delivered a comprehensive training programme. This included bespoke training content created and delivered by our team, alongside sessions for key users, which embedded the new system as the standard for how work gets done across the organisation.

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Scoring Financial Goals: How a Championship Club Transformed Operations with Barkers and Coupa – Case Study

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Author: Matthew Hardaker
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