On the occasion of the American edition of SAP Ariba Live, held in March in Las Vegas, the publisher announced new modes of electronic collaboration at no cost to suppliers and a series of innovations to facilitate the adoption of its e-procurement solutions.
Nearly a year after joining SAP, Ariba took advantage of its annual event to present its latest application solutions and especially to unveil a series of innovations around its Business Network. In the preamble, Alex Atzberger, President of SAP Ariba, set the scene: "In the field of procurement, we are now taking full advantage of the combination of the power and size of SAP, on the one hand, and Ariba's innovation and customer approach, on the other."
The main innovation of the Business Network, the "Light enablement" offers a "lighter" exchange system to class C suppliers, the least important in terms of expenditure volumes for their principals, but the most numerous, and often the most difficult to convince of the advantages of the Business Network. Without the need for registration on the network, it is now possible for them to receive a purchase order, send a confirmation or trigger the associated invoice, through e-mail, without changing their procedures or going through a portal, or paying a commission.
"Of course, these providers remain free to connect to the Business Network if they want to take advantage of advanced features around catalogs, financial services, interconnection of their system, etc.," says Monique Ventura-Delatour, sales manager of SAP Ariba solutions with the partner network. He added that a "Supplier Mobile App" now allows all providers to register from a smartphone. The group's objective, clearly set out by Alex Atzberger: to reach 5 million referenced companies in 2020, compared to 2 million today.
Other innovations on the Business Network, the solutions of " Collaborative supply chain " aim to facilitate interfacing with ERPs, to automate exchanges between purchasing, on the one hand, and production and supplies, on the other. "While this connection is native in S/4Hana, we offer improved integration with other versions of ERP," says the manager. "The aim is to enable contractors and supply chain providers to improve collaboration with their suppliers and gain visibility."
Always for the sake of flexibility and simplicity, SAP Ariba will launch soon « Guided Buying », a new ergonomics and kinematics as well as a set of tools (documentation, tutorials, contextualized help, etc.) to facilitate the appropriation of e-procurement solutions. New features are also expected around risk management or supplier performance, in addition to solutions such as Ariba Pay (management of payments via a trusted third party) or Spot Buy (module to connect to other "communities" of purchases, including eBay), already available. All these innovations will be presented again at the European edition of SAP Ariba Live, scheduled from 13 to 15 June in Madrid.