Procurement Reimagined Insights

Review six key takeaways from the SAP Ariba LinkedIn Live sessions.

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Wisdom to help you chart your course

SAP executives took to LinkedIn Live to discuss how the procurement landscape is evolving and how SAP continues to help organizations face today’s – and tomorrow’s – challenges head-on.

Gretchen Eischen, Global Vice President for Marketing, SAP Procurement Solutions, interviewed several solution executives, subject matter experts, and customers, including:

Magnus Bergfors, Analyst, Spend Matters
Jeffrey Tramel, Vice President, Global Procurement, NTT DATA Services
Lisa Bianco, Experience Management and Advocacy, SAP Procurement Solutions
Baber Farooq, Senior Vice President and Head of Product Strategy, SAP Procurement Solutions
Salvatore Lombardo, Chief Product Officer, SAP Procurement Solutions

You can read about and watch excerpts from their conversations below. As you prepare your organization for the days and years ahead, use these insights to guide your strategy. And to stay informed about upcoming LinkedIn Live events, be sure to follow SAP Ariba the next time you visit LinkedIn.

The Six Insights

Read a quick summary, then click on the link to see the short video.

ONE Having a robust supplier network is essential

A robust supplier network helps you quickly deal with disruptions in your organization by:

Ensuring tighter digital collaboration between the buyer and supplier and equipping you to retrieve important data from your supply chain (i.e., order status, delays). This improves organizational agility and enables immediate action to identify alternative sources of supply within the network.

Sharing available data across all users in the network ensures that organizations are getting key data, such as risk signals, faster so buyers can make informed decisions and look for pre-approved or vetted suppliers.

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TWO Procurement is the custodian of innovation for organizations

Most procurement tasks can be automated and digitally transformed, and with procurement solutions from SAP you can make it happen. You can harness the power of Ariba Network and its vast transactional data to deliver insights and recommendations that eliminate redundant procurement tasks, facilitate intelligent business decisions, and reduce supply risks.

And when you drive digitization and intelligence through all types of spend, its effects can be seen throughout your organization, making procurement a strategic partner in the boardroom and a trendsetter in digital transformation for your organization.

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THREE An open and extensible platform is crucial for your business

Procurement solutions from SAP provide an open, extensible platform that caters to the various landscapes and setups of customers. While some organizations opt for the standard processes and systems to keep the total cost of ownership lower, others have special, custom needs; they need plug-in points to integrate SAP solutions with their own systems. This plug-in capability is offered through the vast number of APIs available on our API hub.

Additionally, if you have a complex, multi-back-end landscape, it is critical to look beyond data integration and ensure deeper, transaction-level integration. This is fulfilled by SAP Central Procurement capabilities on SAP S/4HANA.

All this is made possible through SAP Ariba Cloud Integration Gateway, which comes with hundreds of pre-built interactions. It can provide you with the ability to plug and play and connect to SAP procurement applications and Ariba Network from your home-grown or other third-party systems.

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FOUR Bringing the best of our solutions to create one world-class procurement experience

Procurement solutions from SAP combine best-in-class capabilities across spend categories. Together, SAP S/4HANA (direct spend), SAP Ariba (direct and indirect spend), and SAP Fieldglass (SOW and contingent workforce spend) create a world-class solution to manage overall enterprise spend with critical analytical capabilities.

We’ll work with you to understand the integrations you have built and ensure that we are not merely building data integrations, but also deeper system and domain-level integrations to build capabilities that are greater than the sum of their parts.

And if you’re an SAP SRM customer, we also offer clear transformation paths to help you migrate off our legacy solution to our cloud solutions.

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FIVE A trusted procurement partner is crucial in navigating any business challenge

We all look for a trusted partner during times of trial and tribulation. NTT DATA Services found that in SAP and its solutions during this volatile COVID-19 pandemic.

Working closely together and using SAP Ariba Discovery, SAP helped NTT DATA Services find PPE suppliers during a period of severe supply chain shortage. With over 90% of the workforce being forced to work remotely, mobility became a huge issue for NTT DATA and its employees. They were able to take advantage of the digital and mobile capabilities of the SAP procurement solutions and access all the procurement tools on their phones, ensuring that there were no obstacles in their day-to-day procurement operations.

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SIX The secret to creating solutions that resonate with your customers is to give them a voice in the process

At SAP, we’re passionate about creating communities and platforms that give our customers a voice. We look for ways to interact with you and use your feedback and insights to guide solution development.

Through numerous advisory boards and even features within our products, you have the opportunity to share your thoughts and suggestions throughout the life of our partnership.

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Watch the full LinkedIn Live sessions

Average run time: 22 minutes.

Session 1

Procurement Trends in the Market

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Salvatore Lombardo, Chief Product Officer, SAP Procurement Solutions

Session 2

SAP's Procurement Product Journey

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Jeffrey Tramel, Vice President, Global Procurement, NTT Data

Session 3

SAP's Procurement Product Journey: Customer insights, featuring NTT Data

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Explore SAP Ariba

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