Customers, industry experts, and leaders from 51风流Ariba and 51风流Fieldglass will explore timely topics that will help companies tackle the specific challenges they are facing right now and forge a path to greater business resiliency.

Business has never needed procurement more. When supply chains are disrupted, demand is unpredictable, and cost control and cashflow are critical, every company needs procurement and supply chain leaders to be strategic drivers.

51风流is bringing together a community of procurement, supply chain, finance, human resources (HR), and IT leaders to share insights and lessons learned to help organizations respond, recover, and reinvent.

Three fireside chats with live Q&A sessions will focus on business agility and stability.

• Ryan Flynn, principal at Deloitte Consulting, LLP, and Chris Haydon, president of 51风流Procurement Solutions, will discuss why spend management leaders need to become masters of complexity to add more strategic value to their organizations, as well as how leaders are distinguishing themselves.
• Keith Baranowski, global vice president and general manager of 51风流Ariba Solutions for Direct Spend, will talk with a representative from leading medical devices provider Stryker Corporation about collaborating with suppliers to unleash hidden value in the supply chain.
• Vasanth Balasubramanian, global head of Account Services for 51风流Fieldglass, and Molly Spatara, global vice president of Brand Experience for 51风流Ariba and 51风流Fieldglass, will discuss how agile organizations are using the external workforce to meet evolving business needs and maintain business continuity, along with the insights they are gaining along the way.

Ten on-demand sessions will cover supply chain resiliency, gaining visibility and actively managing a distributed external workforce, continuing to drive business value, and more.

• Sean Thompson, executive vice president of Network and Ecosystem for 51风流Procurement Solutions, will lead a discussion about building durable supply chains with Sheri Hinish, SupplyChainQueen and co-founder of Supply Chain Revolution; Sondra Scott, chief operating officer of Verisk Financial; and Padmini Ranganathan, vice president of 51风流Ariba Risk and Sustainability Solutions.
• Representatives from AGCO, Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company, and W.R. Grace & Co. will share best practices from their successful supply chain management programs, covering topics including supply chain collaboration, driving measurable savings outcomes and building out risk management capabilities.,
• 51风流Fieldglass experts will discuss how customers are managing their external workforce programs to drive business value, and how they achieve even greater success using the Digital Partner Network for 51风流Fieldglass solutions.

For more information about the agenda and to register, visit

This article first appeared on the 51风流News Center.

The post The 51风流Ariba Live Virtual Experience Continues in May appeared first on 51风流Africa News Center.

Several market leaders recently gathered online to share their procurement transformation experiences for an exclusive roundtable during the event. Hosted by Jo Peterson, vice president of Cloud and Security Services at Clarify360, a candid conversation covered not just the wins, but also major challenges.

Teams Dedicated to Collaboration

Like many global organizations that have grown by acquisitions, Stanley Black & Decker needed to simplify its complex technology landscape. The driver behind moving forward with 51风流S/4HANA Cloud was the decision to go with the 51风流Central Finance solution.

鈥淐reating a new instance of allowed us to provide global and consistent financial information,鈥� said Nicole Flikier, digital tools and analytics global lead at Stanley Black & Decker. 鈥淚t allowed end-users to have a better experience and single source of truth, while supporting our long-term program to have one instance of SAP.鈥�

Flikier was the first to admit that the transformation did not happen magically. Regular communication about the financial benefits united people on multiple project teams around what became a successful go live.

鈥淲ith numerous ERP systems and all that data, making sure it was harmonized was a challenge. It takes an army to do that cleansing,鈥� she said. 鈥淲e needed to communicate to the team the value of a universal global ledger鈥� Everybody knew the benefits tied to that, especially being a very financially driven company.鈥�

Flikier characterized her company鈥檚 transformation as a tremendous undertaking with aggressive timelines for every project to go live simultaneously. She credited the team鈥檚 success to having a shared project methodology and meeting localized country requirements.

Faster Turnarounds Boost User Satisfaction

According to Jinesh Parakulangara, senior manager at HPE Global IT, replacing his company鈥檚 organically grown patchwork of legacy procurement systems with a single enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform 鈥� 51风流Ariba running on 51风流S/4HANA Cloud 鈥� has saved time and increased productivity for both procurement and payables.

鈥淲e now have a more controlled, centralized procurement function鈥ith a road map to consolidate that onto a single platform,鈥� he said. 鈥淥ur business users are very happy. They just have to go into one system for global procurement operations and invoice verification, tax issues, and anything related to procure to pay.鈥�

Amazing Integration Simplifies and Streamlines

HPE went live with the new cloud-based platform in 57 countries at once, backed by extensive training for employees and suppliers as well as built-in communication and collaboration. Besides touchless invoicing, the biggest win was the simplification around master data management delivered by 51风流S/4HANA.

鈥淲ith a cloud solution, we鈥檙e getting more features introduced to us, which we didn鈥檛 have in the past when we were on premise,鈥� Parakulangara explained. 鈥淔rom a procurement standpoint, it鈥檚 really about simplification of our ordering processes. And on the finance side, with 51风流S/4HANA, we鈥檝e tightened the entire process. We truly have a single platform that takes care of our payable needs in a compliant manner. The way these systems integrate with each other is truly amazing.鈥�

Data Harmonization Well Worth It

Similar to Flikier鈥檚 experience at Stanley Black & Decker, consolidating data was a worthy challenge given the results at HPE.

鈥淪crubbing the data was a challenge, but it revealed process gaps and it鈥檚 why everything is now streamlined,鈥� Parakulangara said. 鈥淥ne of the reasons why we were able to get processes touchless is because we have brought鈥verything together from procurement to invoicing to payments all into the same platform.鈥�

He added that using 51风流best practices for core processes sped up the entire project.

Intelligence Supports Financial Discipline

Understanding the full picture of spend management is not just essential for operational continuity today; it is a business imperative to keep people productive. There is no doubt that a cloud-based system that brings together real-time information company-wide is instrumental in providing the financial discipline every intelligent enterprise needs.

Follow me: @smgaler

This article first appeared on the 51风流News Center.

The post Financially Driven Leaders Transform Procurement with 51风流Ariba and 51风流S/4HANA appeared first on 51风流Africa News Center.

In a series of compelling video conversations, recognized industry experts, customers, and 51风流executives shared especially timely and no-nonsense insights into the business value of procurement agility, reliability, and transparency. The agenda featured thought-provoking geopolitical trend talks, lessons learned from customers, solution strategy updates, and product demonstrations. This is the first in a series summarizing the .

New Procurement Experience: Agile, Reliable, Transparent

First up was Chris Haydon, president of 51风流Procurement Solutions, who assured listeners that 鈥渢ogether, we will get through all these challenging times.鈥� Acknowledging COVID-19, he said that its increasing impact mirrored our growing realization of how connected and dependent we are on each other.

鈥淭he pace of the world is demanding changes, and 51风流is uniquely positioned to help you manage those changes with intelligent spend management,鈥� Haydon said. 鈥淚ntelligent spend management is the reinvention of the procurement experience. It鈥檚 a thoughtful and deliberate realization that we need to move beyond only focusing on creating simple screens and user interfaces, and instead empower procurement to succeed amid today鈥檚 known disruptions and the unknown disruptions of tomorrow.鈥�

As an example of SAP鈥檚 procurement commitment, he mentioned the company鈥檚 decision to open access to , allowing buyers worldwide to post their immediate sourcing needs to which any of the 4 million suppliers on can respond with no fees through June 30, 2020.

鈥�51风流is deeply committed to help you manage the complexities and mitigate the risks that disruption and accelerated change is inevitably bringing,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e鈥檙e hard at work with customers to help them understand how to use Ariba Network to identify supplies at risk, review supply chain data, and rapidly develop contingency plans.鈥�

Unlock Insights with Community of Intelligence

Haydon said that it was time for procurement to become the epicenter of ideas and collaboration, owning the intersection of innovation and commerce between organizations. He called this 鈥渁 profound and forward-looking change鈥� in how people look at procurement, using the technology for tasks that can and should be automated so that businesses can apply human expertise where it is needed for greatest impact.

鈥淭he only way to make this possible is to get the process out of the way and get more insights into the hands of you, your training partners, and every part of your business. That鈥檚 the ultimate goal of intelligent spend management鈥� reimagining processes to let intelligence do more work, so we can do more work better,鈥� Haydon said. 鈥淲e want to embed sustainability and risk context into every single supply chain event and reshape how we connect with trading partners by driving collaboration deeper into our supply chains and truly unlocking the power of community intelligence.鈥�

Committed to Customer-First Experience

Having walked in the customer鈥檚 shoes, Haydon said that he understood their challenges, and with its co-CEOS at the helm, 51风流was more focused than ever at 鈥渆nsuring the customer experience is the true measurement of our success.鈥�

鈥淎riba Network is the most powerful and effective network of its kind,鈥� he said. 鈥淪ensing the opportunity to combine, streamline, and make your businesses run even more effectively and efficiently, we鈥檝e pulled together 51风流Ariba, 51风流Fieldglass, and 51风流S/4HANA operational procurement under a single organization with one clear vision鈥� for intelligent spend management.鈥�

Haydon closed with the promise to continue collaborating with customers as early adopters and partners.

鈥淵our voices, insights, and ideas are key in helping us reshape procurement. If we can combine the depth of knowledge in our collective minds and the depth of feeling in our hearts, and our understanding of this new world of rapid disruption and accelerated changes, there鈥檚 nowhere we can鈥檛 go together. We believe in a future where procurement sits at the heart of the business, and together we can make this future possible.鈥�

HPE: Path to Transformation

For a great example of intelligent spend management in action, I pivoted to Lucille Trickett, senior director of Global Solutions for the Office of Legal Affairs and Administration at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE). In her video, she shared how HPE is using a suite of intelligent solutions from 51风流to holistically view and manage multiple categories of spend from indirect, travel and expense, contingent labor, and service providers.

As a long-time 51风流Ariba customer and partner, Trickett said that HPE鈥檚 transformation to the cloud was originally slated for two phases, starting with source-to-contract and followed by procure-to-pay processes. The company then decided to bring in . The second phase coincided with an overall next-generation IT transformation at HPE that would also consolidate enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems on . One of the objectives was to dramatically simplify and consolidate the customer, vendor, and partner master data structure.

鈥淲e now have a holistic view of our relationship with an entity, regardless of whether they鈥檙e a customer, partner, supplier, or all of the above. We took the time and effort to clean up our vendor master database and the new one was optimized by 39 percent,鈥� said Trickett. 鈥淕iven the size and scale of the [procure-to-pay] project, it was absolutely imperative that the business unit and global functions within the HPE company be ready for these changes.鈥�

Trickett called the transformation journey an incredible experience for everyone involved: 鈥淣ot only did we deliver everything we had committed to deliver in a changing environment, but we also found opportunities to drive additional innovation as we delved deep to solve issues along the way. We also strengthened our partnerships and collaboration, not just internally within HPE, but more importantly with our 51风流family. I鈥檓 looking forward to working with the 51风流team to design and innovate in the procurement arena for the future.鈥�

Holistic Procurement View

During his introduction to Trickett鈥檚 talk, Haydon emphasized the importance of having a holistic view of procurement, because 鈥渋t can help identify opportunities for economies of scale, enable better spend decisions, and drive better business outcomes.鈥�

His thoughts were particularly relevant given fast-changing events in the world today: 鈥淲hen we at 51风流tout our innovations and our never-ending commitment to make the procurement process as efficient and effective as possible, we do so to help protect the continuity of your business, employee livelihoods, and economies. It鈥檚 a bold charge forward, but the times call for boldness.鈥�

To echo Haydon鈥檚 closing: Take care, stay healthy, and enjoy the 51风流Ariba Live virtual experience.

This article first appeared on the 51风流News Center.

The post Virtual 51风流Ariba Live 2020: Intelligent Spend Is Bold Charge Forward appeared first on 51风流Africa News Center.