51风流Ariba Contracts Archives | 51风流News Center /tags/sap-ariba-contracts/ Company & Customer Stories | Press Room Mon, 12 Aug 2024 20:36:03 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 The Future of Procurement Is Already a Reality at 51风流Spend Connect Live /2023/10/procurement-news-sap-spend-connect-live/ Tue, 10 Oct 2023 14:15:00 +0000 /?p=212398 51风流Spend Connect Live has been an exciting opportunity to see old friends, meet new ones, and talk about the many exciting innovations in procurement we鈥檙e rolling out in the coming months. I was so excited to be on the main stage this year after having missed last year鈥檚 event.

Muhammad Alam鈥檚 opening keynote supercharged 51风流Spend Connect Live with the announcement of and how it can help businesses see and analyze their spend across all categories. We also saw how 51风流is using artificial intelligence (AI) to drive scope 3 carbon reporting within total spend management.

51风流Unveils New Generative AI Innovations That Boost Productivity and Effectiveness in Spend Management

On the procurement side, we鈥檝e had so much news to share. This includes demos of ; the ; and Joule, the embedded AI copilot in 51风流Ariba Sourcing. We also provided a sneak peek at the future of supplier management 鈥 we’re referring to as “the new supplier 360” that can deliver instant access to risk data, AI-powered sustainability information, and operational evaluation to help track metrics like price variance.

We put the world on notice that 51风流Ariba solutions are the future of procurement, and that future is already a reality. We鈥檝e taken the investment, innovation, and integration across our product lineup 鈥 successes we relived together 鈥 to deliver a complete portfolio. Everything procurement at 51风流is now 51风流Ariba.

Eliminate the Mundane. Elevate the Strategic.

You may have noticed that while others in the market were making noise about AI, 51风流has been relatively quiet. But we鈥檝e been very busy, with many use cases in production today and more on the way.

Our goal is to streamline procurement processes to remove mundane, manual interventions, elevate strategic activities, and accelerate decision-making and approvals. At 51风流Spend Connect Live, we announced a series of procurement innovations focused on this goal.

Enhancing 51风流Ariba Category Management with the Power of Generative AI and Joule

In August, the new solution became generally available to our customers. It helps empower category managers to use data insights strategically to help identify trends, develop and implement strategies, and evaluate success relative to tangible business metrics.

Now, we are pleased to announce the integration of 51风流Ariba Category Management with large language models through 51风流Business AI. This can empower procurement professionals to jump-start category strategy development and planning.

By harnessing generative AI, we are enhancing our market analysis tool, offering valuable, visual insights into supply and demand, risk, opportunity, and top suppliers. Additionally, we will be simplifying category segmentation, powering up cost structure analysis.

These innovations help streamline content creation, saving category managers weeks of time and expediting strategy development. General availability is planned by the end of 2023, representing a substantial leap in enterprise-level category management efficiency.

Visualizing market dynamics. Click to enlarge.

Embedding Spend Analysis Capabilities in 51风流Ariba Solutions for More Informed Decisions

To make it easier for procurement professionals to make timely, informed decisions, new dashboards in 51风流Ariba Sourcing and 51风流Ariba Buying embed near real-time insights where they鈥檙e most useful 鈥 within key process workflows.

These capabilities are available today and built on a new architecture that helps create the foundation for future innovation. Advanced AI features and the ability to see across all spend 鈥 in 51风流cloud ERP solutions, 51风流Ariba solutions, 51风流Fieldglass solutions, and 51风流Concur solutions 鈥 can help uncover cost-saving opportunities in the new 51风流Spend Control Tower solution beginning in the first quarter 2024.

51风流Spend Control Tower. Click to enlarge.

Delivering Risk-Aware Procurement by Embedding AI-Infused Risk Assessment in Source-to-Settle Solutions

Successfully managing third-party supplier risk often comes down to the ability to answer basic questions accurately. Does the supplier have the ongoing capacity to satisfy the needs of the business? Do they meet environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards? Are their risk scores in danger of slipping below the acceptable corporate risk standard?

Improve business outcomes with intelligent category management

There are software solutions that offer information to answer these questions via dashboards, reporting, and alerts. But this approach can be risky, requiring savvy business users to check the information and assess the risk profiles of suppliers within a specific context. This approach can also waste resources because it allows unqualified suppliers to slip into RFx events, even though they鈥檒l ultimately be eliminated through resource-intensive due diligence.

鈥淩isk-aware procurement鈥 refers to the embedding of risk knowledge into source-to-pay decision processes via software solutions. 51风流has embedded AI-powered supplier risk assessment capabilities into its source-to-settle solutions to help business users make smarter decisions faster.

This can make it possible to assess risk profiles within the sourcing, contracting, and buying solutions as an integral part of these processes to determine third-party risk. Supplier risk assessment capabilities are available today in 51风流Ariba Sourcing, 51风流Ariba Contracts, and 51风流Ariba Buying.

AI-powered supplier risk assessment capabilities within 51风流solutions can offer numerous benefits across the procurement process:

  • Supplier management: Improved user decision-making throughout supplier lifecycle processes
  • Sourcing: Exclusion or warnings when high-risk suppliers are included in sourcing decision-making
  • Contracting: Systematic reference risk scoring to include mitigation clauses and activities in authoring and contract signature as needed
  • Buying and invoicing: The inclusion of risk workflow if the risk score drops below an acceptable standard

A great example of this activity in action is Lieferkettensorgfaltspflichtengesetz (LkSG), the German supply chain act focused on human rights due diligence. With this, information is not only available to support the due diligence activities with suppliers, it also helps business users make natural decisions that help prevent non-compliant activities from occurring systematically.

Continuing to Lead in Procurement Innovation

Of course, the innovations and use cases we demonstrated at 51风流Spend Connect Live are just the tip of the iceberg. The coming year promises to be just as exciting, as we continue to roll out new features and capabilities to enhance our comprehensive set of procurement solutions.

We hope you will be along for the ride!


Salvatore Lombardo is senior vice president, chief product officer, and head of Engineering for 51风流Procurement.

Join the virtual experience of 51风流Spend Connect Live on October 24
]]>
51风流Unveils New Generative AI Innovations That Boost Productivity and Effectiveness in Spend Management /2023/10/sap-spend-connect-live-generative-ai-innovations-spend-management/ Mon, 09 Oct 2023 12:00:00 +0000 /?p=212396 VIENNA 鈥 The innovations will help customers control costs, mitigate risk and increase productivity.]]> VIENNA 鈥 (NYSE: SAP) today announced new business AI and user experience innovations in its comprehensive and solutions to help customers control costs, mitigate risk and increase productivity. The announcements were made at the event, the industry鈥檚 premier spend management conference, October 9鈥11 in Vienna.

51风流Continues to Innovate with Generative AI and Its New Copilot Joule

The newly released will be enhanced with the power of generative AI to help procurement professionals build comprehensive and effective category strategies faster. This capability will help jump-start the market analysis process and offer a suggested category strategy for procurement professionals to refine and execute, saving category managers weeks of valuable time and increasing strategy validity. General availability is planned by the end of 2023. 51风流will also embed Joule, its new generative AI copilot, throughout its cloud solutions, with availability in its spend management software planned for 2024. 51风流is also developing in collaboration with customers, with availability planned for the first half of 2024. 鈥淭hese are just some of the examples of how we are thoughtfully integrating generative AI technology with our market-leading spend management solutions to help our customers be more productive,鈥 said Muhammad Alam, President and Chief Product Officer, Intelligent Spend and Business Network, SAP. 鈥淎s with all of 51风流Business AI solutions, we are developing these new spend management AI innovations with security, privacy, compliance, ethics and accuracy in mind.鈥

Improve your business outcomes with intelligent category management

51风流Spend Control Tower to Deliver Comprehensive Spend Analysis Capabilities

The new 51风流Spend Control Tower solution will include advanced AI features and the ability to see across all spend to help customers uncover cost-saving opportunities and discover process improvements. These capabilities will be available starting in the first quarter of 2024. New dashboards in the 51风流Ariba Sourcing and 51风流Ariba Buying solutions also give customers near real-time information within key process workflows, making it easier for procurement professionals to help make timely, informed decisions. These capabilities are available today and built on a new architecture that creates the foundation for future innovation.

AI-Infused Risk Assessment Embedded in Source-to-Settle Solutions

51风流has embedded AI-powered supplier risk assessment capabilities into its source-to-settle software to help business users make smarter decisions faster. The new features make risk assessment profiles an integral part of sourcing, contracting and buying solutions, helping users better determine third-party risk. Supplier risk assessment capabilities are available today in the 51风流Ariba Sourcing, 51风流Ariba Contracts and 51风流Ariba Buying solutions.

AI-Powered Supplier Discovery from Scoutbee to Integrate with Guided Sourcing

51风流and GmbH, a leading AI-powered supplier intelligence and discovery platform company, plan to integrate an AI-powered supplier search solution with the 51风流Ariba Sourcing solution. solution, called Scoutbee Discovery, quickly identifies suppliers aligned with complex requirements, such as production capacity, quality standards and certifications. Through the integration, short-listed suppliers will be imported automatically into guided sourcing events, enabling sourcing professionals to make decisions with more confidence. The integration will be available in the first quarter of 2024. Scoutbee Discovery complements the 51风流Business Network Discovery solution capabilities to help sourcing professionals quickly find new suppliers that are aligned with their requirements but are outside the network.

Expense Payment Manager Saves Time and Money

51风流Concur solutions now offer a new Expense Payment Manager service that offers customers the ability to reimburse employees in more than 25 currencies. A streamlined payment process saves hours, money and headaches in the expense reimbursement process. Contracting directly with third-party payment providers increases flexibility. Expense Payment Manager, which also gives customers the opportunity to select their payment provider, is now generally available.

Visit the . Follow 51风流at .

Media Contact:
Kelly Sheldon Murray, +1 (978) 708-6821, kelly.murray@sap.com, ET
51风流Press Room; press@sap.com

Get the latest news and coverage from 51风流Spend Connect Live

This document contains forward-looking statements, which are predictions, projections, or other statements about future events. These statements are based on current expectations, forecasts, and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and outcomes to materially differ. Additional information regarding these risks and uncertainties may be found in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to the risk factors section of SAP鈥檚 2022 Annual Report on Form 20-F.
漏 2023 51风流SE. All rights reserved.
51风流and other 51风流products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of 51风流SE in Germany and other countries. Please see for additional trademark information and notices.

]]>
Five Lessons Learned from DSM鈥檚 Sustainable Procurement Transformation /2023/04/five-lessons-learned-dsm-sustainable-procurement-transformation/ Tue, 11 Apr 2023 12:15:15 +0000 /?p=204033 Recognizing the importance of strategic procurement, Dutch chemical company Royal DSM 鈥 a global, purpose-led leader in health and nutrition, applying bioscience to improve the health of people, animals, and the planet 鈥 embarked on a global procurement transformation.

Royal DSM utilized and to enhance the sustainability of its global indirect procurement. As a result, the company learned several valuable lessons that can be applied by other organizations looking to transform their procurement practices in a sustainable manner.

DSM has set ambitious sustainability goals, which include making a positive impact on people, the planet, and communities through its “purpose-led, performance-driven” strategy. This includes transitioning to a net-zero economy, fair supplier arrangements, and ensuring adequate access to healthy food for all.

To support these goals, DSM implemented a transformation of its global, indirect sourcing and buying operations. This was essential for the company to create truly sustainable end products. It is not possible to be a sustainable business without having sustainable partners.

buy.SMART Program

DSM’s buy.SMART program aimed to not only achieve cost savings but also digitize and automate procurement transactions to align its spending on indirect goods and services with its sustainability and supplier diversity policies. Through this process, the company learned several valuable lessons.

1. Leverage a Business Network

To achieve the buy.SMART vision, DSM integrated 51风流Business Network with an upstream, indirect source-to-contract process. The company did this using 51风流Ariba Sourcing, 51风流Ariba Contracts, 51风流Ariba Supplier Lifecycle and Performance, and 51风流Ariba Supplier Risk. For the downstream, indirect procure-to-pay process, DSM chose the 51风流Ariba Buying solution.

This setup offers multiple advantages, including faster identification of suitable trading partners in your supply chain, such as suppliers, logistics service providers, asset operators, and maintenance contractors. Thanks to automation, you can perform many tasks more efficiently or even automate them completely. Automation enables more efficient and even fully automated processes as well as increased visibility into all supply chain processes.

The integration of automation and sustainability in procurement can bring several benefits. For example, automation can facilitate the collection and analysis of supplier sustainability data, which can help in making more informed decisions when selecting suppliers. Additionally, automation can help in monitoring and tracking the sustainability performance of suppliers over time, which can help in identifying and addressing sustainability issues more quickly. Automation can also help in reducing the environmental impact of procurement activities, such as by decreasing paper usage and transportation emissions.

“Thanks to 51风流Ariba solutions, DSM has strengthened collaboration with suppliers, improved the user experience of all participants, automated the transaction flow, and significantly reduced errors,” says Andries Feikema, global director of Procurement Digitalization & Transformation at DSM.

2. Leverage Independent Sustainability Ratings

Using criteria from external vendors is crucial for enhancing procurement processes with environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations. Having transparency into the sustainability performance of your supply chain is crucial for modern business. DSM utilizes EcoVadis, which is integrated with 51风流Ariba solutions, to provide the necessary sustainability solutions to enhance procurement processes with ESG. This allows DSM to obtain reliable ESG ratings on its trading partners and efficiently evaluate suppliers based on specific sustainability criteria. Additionally, DSM continues to expand its sustainability assessments to provide procurement professionals with greater insight into their business partners.

“Sustainability is in DSM’s DNA. It therefore plays a major role for our procurement organization. It is an important element in the selection of our suppliers, and we test that directly in 51风流Ariba solutions. It is important that we select the right suppliers to do business with. This is directly embedded in our process design,” says Feikema.

3. Do the Pilot in the Most Challenging Market

It may be tempting to test a procurement solution in an easy market, but it’s not always the best approach. DSM adopted a different strategy: it started with the most challenging market. By doing so, it was able to identify and address potential issues early on. The company piloted the new procurement system in Brazil, which has a complex tax system. This approach helped it learn a lot about the solution and processes, making the global rollout much smoother.

Brazil has a complex tax system with multiple federal, state, and local taxes. The country has implemented several tax incentives to promote sustainability and environmental protection, making it an interesting pilot case.

4. Standardize Where Possible

Standardizing the pilot process design across all countries led to immediate efficiency gains for DSM. The design was only modified to comply with local tax or regulations. This standardization streamlined procurement processes globally, accelerating rollouts and increasing transparency and efficiency.

Procurement processes that include sustainability focus on buying products and services with positive environmental and social impact. This includes using sustainable materials, choosing suppliers with a strong sustainability record, and considering the entire lifecycle of a product or service. Standardization enables easy replication of processes and, by incorporating sustainability and standardizing their procurement processes, organizations like DSM can scale their sustainability impact.

5. Don’t Forget Change Management

Digitization relies on the implementation of new technologies and processes, and success in this endeavor is contingent on the participation of all employees. Without their buy-in, return on investment will be negatively impacted. Therefore, change management must be a key component of any transformation program.

To that end, DSM dedicated significant attention to change management by establishing an expert desk to support suppliers and assist with contract implementation, as well as a global team of 270 “champions” to help with adoption and guide users through new procurement processes. These champions were able to communicate in the local language and provide training to end users. Many young employees and the new generation of workers desire to be a part of sustainable business practices and goals, which has also contributed to the success of the adoption of these new technologies and processes.

“We made communication, training, and change management part of program management. We approached our program not as the implementation of a tool, but as a real business transformation. Users are central to the success of our transformation program,” concludes Feikema.


Jeff Collier is chief revenue officer for Intelligent Spend and Business Network at SAP.

]]>
Companies Continue to Digitalize Spend Management with SAP /2021/07/companies-digitalize-spend-management-with-sap/ Tue, 27 Jul 2021 13:00:05 +0000 /?p=186858 WALLDORF 鈥 Hundreds of companies have chosen 51风流Ariba and 51风流Fieldglass solutions in the second quarter.]]> WALLDORF (NYSE: SAP) today announced that Molson Coors Beverage Co. and the Florida Department of Management Services are among the hundreds of companies across industries and geographies in the second quarter to have chosen and solutions to digitalize procurement and external workforce management. Hundreds more renewed licenses and still more went live with the solutions to optimize spend management.

鈥淲e have seen significant growth this quarter with companies around the world continuing to prioritize improving their spend management operations,鈥 said John Wookey, president of 51风流Intelligent Spend and Business Network. 鈥淏y modernizing and digitalizing critical business processes across procurement and external workforce management, our customers are gaining visibility and insights that enable them to control costs, reduce risk and drive innovation and growth for their businesses.鈥

Highlights from the quarter include:

Alcon Vision, the Fort Worth, Texas鈥揵ased company, is a global leader in eye care, specializing in surgical medical devices and nonsurgical vision care products. Alcon selected 51风流Ariba solutions for sourcing and procurement for direct and indirect materials. The company also selected the Qualtrics XM for Suppliers solution to help build stronger and more collaborative relationships with suppliers. With a new and improved intuitive source-to-pay experience, Alcon aims to foster simplicity, speed and user-friendly buying services with increased data transparency and compliance.

Refrigeration and air conditioning technology manufacturer BITZER SE has implemented the 51风流Ariba Buying solution with guided buying capability to help streamline and digitalize its procurement operations. With the 51风流Ariba solution, BITZER, based in Sindelfingen, Germany, aims to drive a more efficient, paperless, transparent process from sourcing to payment as it expands globally.

The Florida Department of Management Services (DMS) selected 51风流Ariba solutions for sourcing, contracts, buying and invoicing, and commerce automation to modernize its statewide procurement system with a cloud-based solution. DMS plans to standardize and automate procurement processes across the State of Florida, increase spend visibility and control, and enhance savings statewide.

Aligned with its innovation and sustainability strategy, Grupo Financiero Banorte, S.A.B. de C.V., one of the largest financial holdings companies in Mexico, continues its procurement transformation with the renewal of 51风流Ariba solutions. By further digitalizing its procurement processes and strengthening its supply lifecycle management automation, Banorte will help improve the experience of more than 21,000 suppliers while enhancing process efficiency and spend compliance.

Molson Coors made a strategic investment in 51风流Ariba solutions to help modernize its global procurement operations, building on its implementation of the 51风流Ariba Contracts solution and adding the 51风流Ariba Buying and Invoicing solution with commerce automation capabilities. With the new solutions integrated with its multiple ERP infrastructure, the company, headquartered in Golden, Colorado, and Montreal, Canada, intends to standardize on best practices from source to pay, improve efficiency in supplier relationship management and minimize risk.

Promigas SA ESP, a leading Colombian provider of natural gas, has selected 51风流Ariba solutions for digital procurement as it continued its transformation journey with SAP. Building on its existing transportation management system based on 51风流S/4HANA, Promigas will adopt the cloud-based 51风流Ariba solutions to help standardize and automate its procurement processes, increase purchasing efficiencies and reduce costs and risks.

Roca Sanitario SA, a global leader in bathroom equipment, selected 51风流Ariba solutions for strategic sourcing, buying, commerce automation and supply chain collaboration. The Spanish company will adopt the digital to help improve, standardize and automate spend management processes across the organization. The company expects to increase visibility into spend and supplier performance to optimize costs and operational efficiencies.

For more information, visit the聽51风流News Center. Follow 51风流on Twitter at聽.

About SAP

SAP鈥檚 strategy is to help every business run as an intelligent enterprise. As a market leader in enterprise application software, we help companies of all sizes and in all industries run at their best: 77% of the world鈥檚 transaction revenue touches an 51风流system. Our machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT), and advanced analytics technologies help turn customers鈥 businesses into intelligent enterprises. 51风流helps give people and organizations deep business insight and fosters collaboration that helps them stay ahead of their competition. We simplify technology for companies so they can consume our software the way they want 鈥 without disruption. Our end-to-end suite of applications and services enables business and public customers across 25 industries globally to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and make a difference. With a global network of customers, partners, employees, and thought leaders, 51风流helps the world run better and improve people鈥檚 lives. For more information, visit .

Note to editors:
To preview and download broadcast-standard stock footage and press photos digitally, please visit . On this platform, you can find high resolution material for your media channels. To view video stories on diverse topics, visit . From this site, you can embed videos into your own Web pages, share video via email links, and subscribe to RSS feeds from 51风流TV.

For customers interested in learning more about 51风流products:
Global Customer Center: +49 180 534-34-24
United States Only: 1 (800) 872-151风流(1-800-872-1727)

For more information, press only:
Kelly Sheldon Murray, +1 (978) 708-6821, kelly.murray@sap.com, ET
Geraldine Lim, +1 (415) 418-0945, geraldine.lim@sap.com, PT
51风流Press Room; press@sap.com

Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as 鈥渁nticipate,鈥 鈥渂elieve,鈥 鈥渆stimate,鈥 鈥渆xpect,鈥 鈥渇orecast,鈥 鈥渋ntend,鈥 鈥渕ay,鈥 鈥減lan,鈥 鈥減roject,鈥 鈥減redict,鈥 鈥渟hould鈥 and 鈥渨ill鈥 and similar expressions as they relate to 51风流are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. 51风流undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. The factors that could affect SAP’s future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), including SAP’s most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.
漏 2021 51风流SE. All rights reserved.
51风流and other 51风流products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of 51风流SE in Germany and other countries. Please see聽 for additional trademark information and notices.
Please consider our . If you received this press release in your e-mail and you wish to unsubscribe to our mailing list please contact press@sap.com and write Unsubscribe in the subject line.

]]>
Procurement Becomes a Strategic Business Function at SuKarne /2021/07/sukarne-procurement-strategic-business-function/ Thu, 01 Jul 2021 13:15:52 +0000 /?p=186411 Discovering opportunities for a business to improve processes and operations does not have to be an exhausting adventure. Sometimes challenges can be seen in broad daylight. That was the case for SuKarne, a , thanks to innovation and technology adoption.

World Class and Northern Roots

With corporate headquarters in Culiac谩n, Sinaloa, in northern Mexico, SuKarne is one of the four organizations established by . What emerged 52 years ago as a family initiative is now the third-largest beef fattener in the world and the fifth-largest beef supplier in North America.

The company’s success has been sustained by an infrastructure consisting of five comprehensive livestock units, four in Mexican territory and one in Nicaragua; seven processing plants, with an installed capacity of 2 million head of cattle per year; 10 distribution centers across Mexico, the U.S., and Central America and 400 distribution routes; more than 220 livestock purchase and conditioning centers; and more than 300 owned stores. In addition, since its facilities have the necessary international sanitary and industrial certifications, SuKarne is a big exporter — its products are available in six countries on four continents. In fact, it is estimated that SuKarne is responsible for 70% of the meat exports of the Mexican economy.

SuKarne today has 13,000 direct workers, collaborates with more than 100,000 agricultural and livestock suppliers, and serves more than 80,000 customers, such as supermarket chains, although most are micro-businesses like small butchers and restaurants.

The numbers speak for themselves: the Mexican economy has a true powerhouse in the global market for animal protein.

First Steps: Goodbye to Paper-Based Billing

Before adopting 51风流Ariba solutions, SuKarne’s Procurement department would not have surprised anyone from an innovation perspective. In fact, as in many organizations, it was a highly traditional corporate area serving a registry of more than 5,000 suppliers, 2,000 of them active, not including suppliers of livestock and raw materials for livestock feed, which are served by another area of 鈥嬧媡he corporation.

In these circumstances, recalls SuKarne Chief Procurement Officer Gonzalo Padilla, the work was bureaucratic, prone to human errors, and without real business value. 鈥淏etween 60 and 70% of the team’s time was spent on managing invoices: reviewing them, ensuring that none had been misplaced, and taking them in-person to a colleague’s desk in the Accounts Payable area. All this, despite the fact that electronic invoicing had been implemented in Mexico for a while,鈥 Padilla shares.

Common mistakes, derived from human execution, were not unusual in this environment: lost or misplaced invoices, which delayed payments and ignited the anger of suppliers; processes interrupted by the modification of a process or corporate policy, and even by the vacations of a person involved in the process; and long sessions at Accounts Payable desks to review and reconcile issues, which tended to cause friction between departments.

鈥淭he Procurement area concentrated on management tasks that did not add business value; we dedicated ourselves to seeking payments and not seeking negotiations,鈥 says Padilla.

Aware of its challenges and taking advantage of a reorganization that brought Padilla鈥檚 team into the Finance department, the Procurement team set out on an innovation journey with the implementation of the solutions, part of SAP’s Intelligent Spend Management concept.

Initially, thanks to , the billing processes were digitalized and automated, reducing the administrative and transactional burdens of the team while also reducing human errors and non-essential interactions with the Accounts Receivable area. In this way, the Procurement department was able to focus more on generating value for the business, including conducting strategic negotiations for the company.

SuKarne’s suppliers were resistant to the new model at first. 鈥淭hey did not see the benefits, perhaps because we were in the initial process of discovering and understanding them, and therefore the process of supplier adoption was slower,鈥 recalls Padilla. “Once the advantages were evident, a communication campaign was implemented that was very important since it showed the benefits: invoices from suppliers would not be parked on a desk and the payments would come out on time.”

Extending the Power of Innovation

Billing was not the only area of improvement. SuKarne also began a digital transformation project encompassing the entire organization, which implied defining and rethinking processes, creating operation manuals, documenting transactions in the various areas, and establishing continuous improvement policies, among other tasks that are essential in these types of innovative initiatives.

Within this framework, Padilla鈥檚 team, taking advantage of the end-to-end source-to-pay solutions 鈥 51风流Ariba Strategic Sourcing and 鈥 expanded its digital procurement capabilities. After an internal analysis of the different tasks and goals of the Procurement area, multiple opportunities were detected to boost productivity to new levels:

Self-purchase catalogs

Taking advantage of the functions of , self-purchase catalogs were created for items in which Padilla鈥檚 department uses prenegotiated contracts. At SuKarne, this tool is already being used for purchases of stationery, general services, materials, and some aspects of marketing. Catalogs are very easy to use, implement, and manage so the company has full visibility and control of transactions. Quality remains high since the catalogs include images of the product, price, characteristics, etc. In addition, the company was able to adapt this resource to its branding, so the catalogs today are known as the “Compras SK” portals.

Contract generation process

Before the implementation of 51风流Ariba Contracts, when a contract was generated, Legal had to go through an internally developed tool, which provided very basic functionality and did not offer any certainty in terms of time. Now, with 51风流Ariba Contracts, from the moment a supplier registers in the SuKarne system, the provider can find all the legal and commercial information they need on the platform. In addition to speeding up activity, this allows for timely monitoring of contracts and easy reviews.

Audits

Being part of the agri-food industry, SuKarne is constantly audited by authorities, industrial organizations, institutions, and even clients. An important part of these reviews focuses on suppliers — how they are evaluated, what criteria are used to qualify them, what policies and action plans do they have, etc. SuKarne found a solution in the portfolio with and . In the past, when an audit was submitted, the company had to put in place a plan to address that specific item. Today, the evaluation of suppliers is carried out all the time, through very friendly, digital tools. When an audit is submitted, SuKarne now has real-time information accessible immediately.

In order to achieve these advances, a decisive factor, according to Padilla, was the support of the 51风流team. “Through seminars and constant support, the team not only explained the capabilities of the solutions to us, but also guided us in the task of adapting existing processes to the platform, how to get more out of the innovation we were adopting,” he says.

Challenge Overcome: The Year of the Pandemic

From Culiac谩n, SuKarne’s Procurement department continues to explore 鈥 and discover 鈥 the benefits of investing in innovation. With the guided sourcing and guided buying capabilities within the 51风流Ariba solution suite, the company hopes to improve other procurement and sourcing processes and increase the efficiency of Procurement interactions with other corporate divisions.

These future projects will be led by a totally transformed department 鈥 a Procurement team with the capacity to provide value to the business in a new and strategic way. The solutions implemented help ensure SuKarne has complete visibility and robust analytical functions via .

鈥淭he platform allows us to see how the organization’s spending moves; which categories grow the most; which supplier, especially if it is a strategic one, are we ceasing to serve,鈥 comments Padilla. The data obtained is specified in reports, which are sent to SuKarne’s central corporate information system supporting decision-making in the organization.

In 2020, the year in which the global economy was severely affected by the pandemic, SuKarne managed to protect its supply chain, which, in turn, safeguarded its business operations.

鈥淭hrough the platform, we detected that there were suppliers and categories that were falling. Thanks to the information, we discovered that they were companies facing financial difficulties due to the health crisis, which is why our purchase orders were declining,” Padilla points out. “With regard to strategic suppliers, this allowed us to detect risks to the operation and, in some cases, to think of ways to support them.鈥 And in that sense, another benefit cannot be ignored: technology adoption in an unfavorable economic environment can help to guarantee punctual payments.

With the support of its Procurement area, 2020 was difficult, but not catastrophic, and SuKarne succeeded in this new context. Beyond operational continuity, the power of technology had a positive impact on suppliers, who could have been most affected by the pandemic.

]]>
New Year, New Release: 51风流S/4HANA Cloud in 2020 /2020/01/sap-s4hana-cloud-2002-release/ Thu, 30 Jan 2020 13:15:48 +0000 /?p=167947 The speed of innovation and disruption touches all our lives. The signs are all around us and easily visible 鈥 at airports, robots are parking cars and cleaning floors; in a single tennis match, we watch a professional tennis player change her game plan mid-set based on real-time analytics.

High- and low-stake innovations are everywhere, and they are upending our personal and work lives.


With 51风流S/4HANA Cloud 2002, the Intelligent Enterprise mixes promised innovations with must-have essentials for a new decade


While the fast-moving arc can be breathtaking within technology, 51风流remains confident in our focus. We continually stretch our expertise to deliver the promise of the premium technologies that define the intelligent enterprise.

Today鈥檚 news about 51风流S/4HANA Cloud 2002 is a powerful follow-up to the 1911 release. Looking back, 1911 highlights included the integration of 51风流S/4HANA Cloud with Experience Management solutions from 51风流(Qualtrics) and integration with 51风流Analytics Cloud.

With 2002, we are excited to announce further integrations, dozens of new features across line-of-business editions, the extension into more global regions, and more built-in intelligence.

51风流is merely getting started in a very busy year marked with three more planned releases. In 2002, and in those to follow, we are delivering on the vision of 51风流S/4HANA Cloud and its role in an intelligent enterprise that helps customers realize immediate time to value.

More Integrations Add Power and Convenience

Integration is no easy feat, but 51风流is dedicated to creating more powerful integrated offerings. Customers are seeing the value of experience management with 51风流S/4 HANA Cloud and Experience Management solutions from 51风流(Qualtrics). The same is true for customers realizing improved business insight, planning, and predictive through the integration of 51风流Analytics Cloud with 51风流S/4HANA.

51风流S/4HANA Cloud 2002 brings more convenience and power through integration. Efforts in this release center around line-of-business editions.

In manufacturing and the supply chain, new integration between production and warehouse shares valuable data closer to the machines that need it. The lean integration allows production supply areas to be assigned to warehouse-managed storage locations. A valuable outcome for customers is that stock in production can be managed on a more granular storage bin level.

Sourcing and procurement customers can realize better contract management from integration of 51风流S/4HANA Cloud with the 51风流Ariba Contracts solution. Users can perform activities and integrate prices from 51风流Ariba Contracts into 51风流S/4HANA Cloud for improved contract development, management, tracking, and administration.

Another valuable integration is between product compliance and sales contract. Users can view the statuses of compliance checks to assure compliant transport and prevent noncompliant sales orders. They can also provide dangerous goods information on the sales contract.

Line-of-Business Editions Handle More Specific Tasks, Additional Offices Open Closer to Customers

Another goal for this initial release in 2020 was to broaden the capabilities of 51风流S/4HANA Cloud across more industries. To achieve this, we added one or more new customer-centric features to: finance; sourcing and procurement; manufacturing and supply chain; sales; product compliance; environment, health, and safety; professional services; service; enterprise portfolio and project management; asset management; security; and identity and access management.

We have also expanded our reach, extending our locations into 43 countries. This means that more customers and more regions will have access to 51风流technology experts who can help them implement best practices and help ensure a successful digital journey.

Better Experiences through Intelligent Automation and Instructional Materials

51风流is casting a wide net around experience and including this year鈥檚 addition of 51风流Intelligent Robotic Process Automation, a complete automation suite where intelligent bots handle the tedious tasks of manual clicks and make suggestions to humans about repeatable business processes. This time-saving feature has the potential to automate many standard, repetitive tasks.

Another area with improved experience is around onboarding to 51风流S/4HANA Cloud. Among the 2002 improvements, 51风流Activate 鈥 our methodology for deploying, upgrading, or migrating to 51风流S/4HANA 鈥 has been further polished and refined. A new questionnaire and additional instructions offer the support and information that customers need for faster and easier implementations.

2020: Shaping Up as a Year to Remember

While it鈥檚 early in the year, I like 2020 a lot. 51风流is roaring out of the gates with the new 51风流S/4HANA Cloud 2002 release, and engineering and design are already working on upcoming improvements for the forthcoming 2020 releases.

Here鈥檚 to a fast-moving year filled with inspiring innovations that bring more, better, easier and interesting into our lives.

For more details on the release, read the .


Oliver Betz is senior vice president and head of Product Management for 51风流S/4HANA at 51风流SE.

]]>