The 51·çÁ÷Taulia portfolio offers solutions for working capital management and supply chain financing, as well as a network for buyers, suppliers, and financial institutions.

Mehlkopf is global chief revenue officer for Treasury and Working Capital Management at SAP, and is responsible for marketing and rolling out the solutions for these domains to customers.

Q: Three years ago, we announced that the Taulia products would be integrated into the 51·çÁ÷portfolio. What’s the status?

A: After acquiring Taulia, we pushed ahead with three main priorities to align with 51·çÁ÷Business Suite. The first was the integration of the portfolio into 51·çÁ÷Business Network so that, where suppliers and buyers both run 51·çÁ÷Taulia solutions, they can utilize the network to benefit from early payment options and supply chain finance.

We also worked on integrating the solutions into and released the 51·çÁ÷Taulia solutions for receivables financing and payables financing on 51·çÁ÷Cloud ERP in February 2025. These are particularly relevant for small and midsize enterprises that want to grow and that need quicker payments to do so. The current focus is on the U.S., Canada, UK, DACH, and Singapore markets, with the goal of making this functionality available in additional countries soon.

Our third priority was to embed 51·çÁ÷Taulia Virtual Cards into 51·çÁ÷Ariba solutions. The cards enable buyers to pay their suppliers sooner — even before they issue an invoice — using a “pay on purchase order” transaction. This ensures that the supplier in question has sufficient cash flow to fulfill the order.

Back in 2022, Taulia was described as a growth opportunity for 51·çÁ÷and for customers. Could you tell us how 51·çÁ÷Taulia is performing?

51·çÁ÷Taulia already has several customers that finance billions through the platform, thereby improving both their own liquidity and that of their suppliers. My team’s objective is to increase that number and to continue scaling up, and we’re making good progress. Over the last three years, the volume of transactions processed with 51·çÁ÷Taulia has risen steadily from US$500 billion to US$800 billion.

Customers are benefiting from this progress: one large enterprise in the oil and gas industry saved almost €700,000 within a single month of going live. Extrapolated to a full year, that’s annual savings of almost €8 million. So, the business case for customers is definitely there.

You presented the first AI use case in 51·çÁ÷Taulia at 51·çÁ÷Sapphire in 2025. Can you tell us about its value for customers?

The AI use case relates to our “insight to action” approach and helps companies plan and improve their cash flow. 51·çÁ÷Taulia has already been using artificial intelligence for some time to forecast supplier behavior around early payments. By combining this insight with data from an app on 51·çÁ÷Business Technology Platform that provides transparency on free cash flow, the AI use case will give customers tips on how to improve their liquidity. It also runs through various scenarios showing them ways to influence it. Information like this is especially important for CFOs — never more so than in times of uncertainty.

Are there any other recent announcements you would like to share?

Yes, another important update is that 51·çÁ÷Taulia is now part of SAP’s cloud ERP packages for the public cloud, 51·çÁ÷Finance Base and 51·çÁ÷Finance Premium, as well as the private cloud, 51·çÁ÷Cloud ERP Private. This means that we can quickly show customers the positive business case for their transformation of using 51·çÁ÷Taulia to improve their cash flow and achieve savings.

In times of global crisis, trade tariffs, and supply chain disruption, why are the 51·çÁ÷Taulia solutions so vital for cash flow?

Cash is still king, especially in a crisis. An article published recently in German business newspaper Handelsblatt reported that net debt among the 40 companies on Germany’s DAX stock market index has increased eight percent to €227 billion since the pandemic. Clearly, financing is a major issue, particularly given that interest rates have risen so sharply. Many companies borrowed when interest rates were low and are now having to refinance their loans at higher interest rates, which puts enormous pressure on their finance teams. 51·çÁ÷Taulia solutions can help by providing the funding that businesses need.

Given the impact that trade tariffs have on the supply chain, it is vital that companies carry out liquidity planning and scenario analysis. They need to think about where they will manufacture their products in the future, what effect that choice will have on revenues, and how they can use 51·çÁ÷Taulia to improve their cash flow.

Which reference customers are already benefiting from this?

51·çÁ÷Taulia customers include Henkel, Airbus, Nissan, AstraZeneca, Kimberly-Clark, and Bridgestone.

One customer has enabled early payments to suppliers totaling over €5 billion since the start of the program, which has led to an improvement in cash flow of more than €1 billion during this period.

Your pledge is “to create the future of finance together.” What does that involve?

We want to team up with our partners and customers to influence the transformation of corporate finance. That includes working with banks and implementation partners and integrating 51·çÁ÷Taulia into a swathe of 51·çÁ÷solutions. Together, we offer customers a comprehensive portfolio of treasury and working capital solutions, ranging from payments and cash management to financial risk management.

One key aspect of our road map is our treasury and payment portfolio, which covers topics such as the future of payments. We are also working to integrate new technologies, including blockchain and digital currencies, so that we can offer our customers innovative payment and financing solutions.

This is true for each function within an enterprise. Teams within HR, Sales, Marketing, Finance, and Spend are positioned to drive impact in every aspect of business — from revenue growth to cost management to overall business agility and resilience.

The innovations shared at 51·çÁ÷Sapphire in 2025 reflect our commitment to bringing out your best, providing a clear path to guide organizations toward certainty in a time where that is rare. These innovations will empower organizations to navigate the complexities of the current landscape and emerge stronger, more adaptable, and better equipped to face the future. 

Here are a few innovations that we announced that support Finance and Spend teams in delivering increased value.

Introducing embedded virtual cards in 51·çÁ÷Ariba

Many organizations work to be nimble as it relates to finding the right supplier at the right time, which can mean introducing one-time vendors into the supplier landscape. While this helps with business agility, it often comes with a cost: time-intensive supplier onboarding processes that involve manual effort that is better used elsewhere. Traditional payment methods, like checks and physical credit cards, not only require more work, they can introduce fraud risk and security vulnerabilities.

That is why 51·çÁ÷is embedding virtual card payments into 51·çÁ÷Ariba Buying and . We are supporting the flexibility and agility needed to help businesses run at their best. At no additional cost, our customers can now use virtual credit cards for pay on purchase order transactions. With virtual cards, customers can:

• Prevent overcharges and fraud
• Enjoy payment flexibility
• Better manage spend security
• Reduce manual effort of supplier setup processes
• Enhance vendor payment efficiency
• Maintain control of payments made outside of procure-to-pay ERP processes

Using virtual cards requires minimal change management efforts, giving buyers the ability to adjust card parameters based on enterprise-wide objectives without disruption.

51·çÁ÷integrates WalkMe Premium with 51·çÁ÷Ariba and 51·çÁ÷Concur

In a time when digitalization is imperative, minimizing obstacles and reducing change management efforts is key to a smooth business transformation. Time and time again, I hear leaders report that one of the biggest challenges of implementing new software is employee change management.

Introducing WalkMe Premium for 51·çÁ÷Ariba solutions, a platform that provides real-time, in-app guidance for users to reduce the time and effort associated with adopting new technology in the workplace, empowering employees to maximize business value with 51·çÁ÷Ariba. Customers can also take advantage of , which offers users valuable, easy-to-follow training content, all within the 51·çÁ÷Concur user interface.

The WalkMe solution is a digital learning platform that helps users apply process knowledge in real time to navigate complex software tasks. With WalkMe Premium integrated directly into 51·çÁ÷solutions, employees can access in-app prompts for standard tasks, like creating purchase orders or managing approvals, with pre-configured industry templates that eliminate the need to learn overly technical processes.

The in-app workflow guidance can be adjusted as needed to keep processes up-to-date, allowing for little to no change management effort to ramp employees up faster than ever — all while preserving process compliance. At SAP, we know that clear, concise user guidance is key to accelerating technology adoption. I expect that the integration of the WalkMe solution into 51·çÁ÷solutions will be a gamechanger for organizations experiencing technology updates and changes.

New Joule Agents enhance finance and spend functionality

New agentic AI capabilities are coming to finance and spend solutions with Joule agents that will be integrated across 51·çÁ÷Business Suite. These new agents include:

• Expense Report Validation Agent: Uses alerts and guided experiences to help employees fix issues based on past data, company policy, and patterns before submitting reports
• Sourcing Agent: Uses past event data and supplier information to autonomously create sourcing events tailored to specific needs and users can easily modify these events to efficiently manage supply chain disruptions.
• Dispute Resolution Agent: Analyzes dispute details and relevant business records to validate cases and propose solutions
• Accounts Receivables Agent: Uses data related to overdue receivables to perform appropriate follow-up tasks with customers

Additionally, 51·çÁ÷Ariba Procurement customers will soon be able use Joule to enhance daily tasks such as retrieving supplier bids, displaying past purchases and approvers, and providing easy access to supplier information. Joule innovations will also be available soon in 51·çÁ÷Fieldglass solutions, enabling users to accelerate existing workflows and processes.

51·çÁ÷Taulia Receivables directly integrated into 51·çÁ÷finance solutions

Embedded finance capabilities have been expanded with the integration of Receivables Finance, powered by , in 51·çÁ÷finance solutions. Finance teams now have a fast, scalable way to unlock capital from outstanding receivables in a time when businesses are battling inflationary pressures, tariffs, and supply chain volatility. This capability can be activated immediately in .

Once activated, 51·çÁ÷Taulia Receivables enables users to:

• Dynamically manage working capital
• Accelerate receivables through true sale
• Use Joule-powered insights to make informed liquidity decisions

New 51·çÁ÷Ariba Procurement and expense management offerings in 51·çÁ÷Business Suite

In keeping with our promise to deliver a connected, suite-first experience for our customers, 51·çÁ÷Business Suite includes extended 51·çÁ÷Ariba and 51·çÁ÷Concur functionality.

The newly announced 51·çÁ÷Business Suite application packages align with the strategic business needs of our customers with line of business-specific bundles, delivering an improved buying experience. With strategic sourcing package, our procurement customers can manage the source-to-contract process from start to finish. Within the 51·çÁ÷Finance Premium package, customers have access to operational procurement capabilities, including requisitioning, invoice management, and B2B collaboration, along with expense management capabilities from 51·çÁ÷Concur.

Achieving success in a new era of procurement

Amid the unpredictable nature of today’s finance and spend landscape, agility is the secret to long-lasting success. SAP’s advanced AI capabilities, powered by harmonized data and paired with an integrated suite of applications, ensure productivity, accuracy, and an optimized employee experience.

With SAP, you can handle anything that comes your way.

If you did not get a chance to attend 51·çÁ÷Sapphire, access .

Etosha Thurman is chief marketing officer for Finance and Spend Management at SAP.

It was also the year when business leaders worldwide decided enough is enough. They began taking steps to future proof their supply chains. And we can’t forget that 2023 was the year when generative AI came to dominate every conversation about technology.

Now it’s time to look ahead. Where will world events, business developments, and technology innovations take spend management in 2024? What strategies and technology will business leaders employ to bring greater resilience and efficiency to their supply chains?

Here are predictions for 2024, from SAP’s intelligent spend and business network leaders.

“In 2023, generative AI was like a bolt of lightning that compelled every business and technology leader to sit up and take notice. We’re no longer asking if businesses will adopt AI technology, but rather how quickly they can deploy it and realize its benefits. In 2024, businesses leaders will look beyond the industry buzz for solutions that deliver real-life, AI-based use cases. They’ll also see firsthand that AI is only as effective as the quality and availability of data. With the huge number of data and transactions running through our and , 51·çÁ÷is uniquely positioned to help organizations access the data they need, visualize it, and take decisive action to drive their success.”

– , President and Chief Product Officer,
51·çÁ÷Intelligent Spend and Business Network,
and General Manager for 51·çÁ÷Business Network

“As we enter 2024, procurement organizations will continue to focus on cost containment and supply continuity in order to bring value to their businesses. These have traditionally been the primary value drivers and, in today’s economic environment, I see this continuing. The opportunity will be maintaining the expanded voice earned with stakeholders during the volatile, crisis-riddled past few years, given the resurgence of hyper focus on cost containment. I believe that the scope of procurement will not contract back to a sole focus on supply stability and cost containment. In fact, I think procurement’s remit will continue to evolve to lead broader supply chain risk management, given the growing variety and number of risks faced such as geopolitical tensions, sustainability expectations, the need for more diverse sources of supply, and lingering labor availability concerns. The challenge facing procurement will be how to tackle all of this successfully. What we’ll see is the use of innovation like generative AI, spend analysis, and category management solutions to not only provide relevant, real-time business insights, but, importantly, to increase the efficiency and productivity of procurement teams, giving more capacity to focus on the strategic work stakeholders now expect.”

– , Chief Marketing and Solutions Officer,
Intelligent Spend and Business Network, SAP

“The more things change, the more they stay the same. Or do they? Last year we were talking about how businesses needed to grapple with economic, political, and environmental uncertainty. That hasn’t changed. What’s different is how quickly new strategies and technologies have emerged to help businesses deal with these challenges. In 2024, I expect business leaders to continue pursuing supply chain resilience and to look for solutions such as AI that enable them to make big leaps. There will also be a continued focus on cost savings. With economic concerns looming as central banks raise funds rates to counter inflation, I foresee leaders being asked to deliver higher margins for their enterprises. To do this, traditional cost-focused sourcing and procurement cost compliance will be essential.”

– , Chief Revenue Officer,
Intelligent Spend and Business Network, SAP

“As enterprises continue on their journey to digitalize procurement processes, the need for an even more intuitive user experience will increase. Procurement professionals are looking for ways to spend more time on value-adding tasks and are looking to generative AI and analytics to support them at the point of decision. Moving into 2024 and beyond, we expect the demand for these technologies to increase, as well as for new use cases to arise. At SAP, we are already evaluating further ways to embed generative AI and analytics into solutions throughout our 51·çÁ÷Ariba portfolio to help make our customers’ business lives easier than ever.”

– , SVP, Chief Product Officer,
51·çÁ÷Ariba Procurement Solutions, SAP

“As technology evolves, pragmatic business leaders are looking for ways to leverage these new developments to help streamline and simplify their processes. Managing a workforce that can be comprised of up to 40% external workers demands tools that can simplify the user experience and offer broad visibility to both external and full-time workers. I predict that in 2024 we will see more organizations lean into total workforce management strategies to address this need for greater visibility across full-time and external workers, allowing businesses to align the skills they have with the work they need to complete. Along with a more holistic approach to managing their workforce, these same companies can leverage innovative AI tools designed to offer efficiencies and improve the user experience. In 2024, 51·çÁ÷Fieldglass customers will be able to leverage powerful AI tools, including AI-enhanced statement of work creation, translation capabilities, and our new powered by generative AI. These offerings are just the beginning, with many more use cases to come.”

– , Chief Technology Officer,
51·çÁ÷Fieldglass Solutions, SAP

“In my conversations with customers and prospects about their plans for 2024, they consistently voice concerns about supply chain disruption and economic uncertainty. Meanwhile, most seem to appreciate that artificial intelligence is vital to maintaining their competitive edge, yet many are unsure how to distinguish the actual value from the ample hype. In 2024, we will see more of the value that AI can deliver to organizations with capabilities to support their value chains. These include generative and predictive AI capabilities to help forecast disruptions, recommend alternate sources of raw materials, detect errors in invoices, extract pertinent data from requests for information, predict shipment and delivery times, and complete catalogue details. Trading partners need the ability to enter into additional collaborative relationships, such as those between buyers and suppliers spanning 51·çÁ÷Business Network Supply Chain Collaboration and material traceability and freight collaboration solutions. Also in 2024, we see network convergence taking center stage to give organizations a shared onboarding experience across all network applications, as well as a set of common data federation services to support data residency requirements.”

– , Executive Vice President and Chief Product Officer, 
51·çÁ÷Business Network

“In 2024, generative AI will deliver trillions in economic benefits. It will help companies realize greater top-line growth, be more productive, and safeguard supply chains. At the same time, resiliency will continue to be a major focus. The combination of AI and business networks will drive game-changing resiliency and productivity by facilitating improved demand forecasting and more efficient inventory management. These technologies will empower businesses to respond proactively to market changes, allowing them to source new suppliers quickly. In times of supply chain disruptions or demand surges, the nimblest companies will benefit most. Business networks will help them anticipate challenges with real-time information sharing and enhanced supply chain visibility. And there’s more good news for midmarket and smaller companies: as enterprise adoption of these technologies may begin to lag behind due to complex and unique use cases, segments like the midmarket and smaller companies will start to gain the competitive edge, building more resilient, predictable, and sustainable supply chains at scale.”

– , Global Head, 51·çÁ÷Business Network
Customer Success and Go-to-Market, SAP

“We’ll see business digitalization efforts go a level deeper – and become substantially more integrated – in 2024. Continued adoption of AI, automation, and virtual forms of payment will drive streamlined processes in travel, expense, and invoice. Instead of using a company credit card, employees will be able to expand their use of virtual payments for all business expenses, including travel. In turn, we’ll start to see two types of transactions emerge: trusted and exceptions. Most transactions will use trusted payment methods, and AI will quickly validate them as compliant, enabling near-immediate reimbursement. Exceptions will trigger AI-driven, automated audits to ensure compliance. In both cases, payments will be issued faster with more ease, and employees will have more time to focus on what matters most to them and the organization.”

– , Head of 51·çÁ÷Concur Market Strategy,
51·çÁ÷Concur

“After another year of significant disruption caused by economic and geopolitical uncertainty, supply chain optimization has risen up the agenda as companies seek to better manage their working capital. Embedded finance has emerged as a solution, promising to reshape the way we do business and interact. Embedded finance has the power to expedite transactions, facilitate financing between trading partners, and lower trade barriers. By harnessing embedded finance, companies have the potential to optimize processes and access financing solutions seamlessly through B2B platforms. Ultimately, this will result in more streamlined payments, faster credit decisions, and expanded access to working capital.”

– , Chief Product Officer, Taulia

“As organizations, especially midmarket companies, continue to navigate today’s dynamic business environment, they are realizing the need to work with solution partners to create more value for their customers and themselves. A strong relationship between organizations and their partner ecosystems is critical to success, and I expect we will continue to see more businesses, both large and small, looking to establish these relationships. With the cost of managing sustainable supply chains continuing to increase, companies should turn to their partner ecosystems to leverage their expertise, skills, and services. This approach can help unify a company’s operations to provide a greater experience for its buyers and sellers, enabling stronger collaboration, greater visibility and transparency, risk mitigation, and more efficient operations.”

– , Head of Intelligent Spend and
Business Network Partner Ecosystem, SAP

One More Prediction

Recent times have shown that unexpected disruptions aren’t the only reason businesses struggle in times of crisis. It’s also about their readiness to deal with disruption, to adapt, and to come out stronger when the crisis subsides. Many business leaders have learned this lesson. They’re taking action to ensure – to the best of their ability – that their businesses are prepared for what comes next.

Of course, that’s easier said than done. Sometimes it feels like we need a crystal ball to see into the future. Or, to use a more common term, we need “visibility.” Visibility into market trends. Visibility into world events. Visibility into every corner of the supply chain.

Here’s a prediction you can take to the bank: in 2024, 51·çÁ÷will continue to design and deliver and solutions that can drive efficiency, leverage AI in ways that are relevant, reliable, and responsible, and create greater visibility for every size business.

Mike Conners is a communications specialist for the 51·çÁ÷Spend Management Communications team.

U.S. consumer , excluding energy and food, rose to a 40-year high in September, a sign that strong price pressures are persisting across the economy.

The U.S. Labor Department on Thursday said that the core consumer-price index, which excludes volatile energy and food prices, rose 6.6% in September from a year earlier, the biggest increase since August 1982.

The inflation report is likely to prompt the Federal Reserve at its November meeting to raise interest rates by another 0.75 percentage point and increases the likelihood that it will continue raising interest rates at the same pace this year and could raise rates even higher next year.

SAP’s Take

The steady march of interest rate increases has prompted many small vendors to turn to alternative funding that can keep their cash flowing while limiting inflation risk, said Alistair Baxter, head of receivables finance for Taulia, which provides financing to small companies that deliver into larger companies.

“Policymakers are looking for greater levels of monetary tightening, so that’s going to create real challenges for businesses,” Baxter said. “If you’re a treasurer today, you’re facing the highest cost of borrowing. Interest cost or debt service coverage cost is more or less at a generational high.”

Climbing borrowing costs squeeze vendors that typically ship their goods but don’t receive cash payments for days or even months. Meanwhile, vendors have their own costs to pay, such as payroll, supplies, debt service, while inflation eats away at the cash they are due. In addition, the risk of a recession is making the ability to quickly translate receivables — money that is due from customers — into revenue, even more critical.

To support working capital — funds used to keep operations going — businesses could increase their revolving credit, which is similar to a credit card. “That creates other problems,’” Baxter said. “You don’t want to increase your debt burden when you’re heading into a recession.”

Instead, many vendors are turning to those that provide working capital by buying vendors’ receivables at a slight discount. Taulia expects receivable buying to increase in the fourth quarter, when companies want to report leverage ratios that reflect healthy cash balances at year end.

Although buyers purchase the receivable at a discount, vendors avoid waiting to be paid with money that is losing value every day. For example, if inflation is hovering around 8.5% to nine percent and it takes 90 days before a vendor receives the cash from its customers, then the receivable is worth 2.13%-2.25% less.

“If you sell your receivables for anything less than 2.13%, over that period, you are essentially mitigating the impact of inflation on your profit margins in real terms,” Baxter said.

Additionally, selling receivables allows vendors to offload the risk of having a customer default on payment or go out of business altogether. “As you go into recession, that’s when insolvency levels begin to go up,” Baxter said. “So, ultimately working capital has a massive role to play here.”

Contact:
Ilaina Jonas, Senior Director of Global Public Relations, SAP
+1 (646) 923-2834, ilaina.jonas@sap.com

These distinctions formally recognize the merit of 51·çÁ÷Ariba solutions, from market share to software innovation and customer approval.

IDC: 51·çÁ÷Ranked No.1 for Worldwide Procurement Applications Software, 2021 Market Share

51·çÁ÷holds the largest share of the procurement applications software market, according to IDC’s recently published report, . IDC estimates that 51·çÁ÷holds a 31.3% market share with 9.2% YoY growth for 2021, maintaining its market leading position – ahead of the next six vendors combined.

“51·çÁ÷continues to enhance its procurement application suite through its enhanced strategic relationship with Icertis, the acquisition of working capital management firm Taulia, and the launch of 51·çÁ÷Sustainability Control Tower,” writes Patrick Reymann, IDC’s research director, Procurement and Enterprise Applications.

Supply Chain Digital and Procurement Magazine: Top 10 Procurement Software Providers

In ranking 51·çÁ÷Ariba solutions in its , these publications noted the in-depth spend analysis capabilities; efficiency, accuracy, and visibility; and cloud, automation and artificial intelligence (AI).

51·çÁ÷“takes procurement beyond the basic processes, applying its innovations to remove obstacles, link all spend categories in a single place, and create deeper, dynamic, and end-to-end collaboration.”

TrustRadius: Top Rated for Customer Satisfaction

It is truly heartening to know that our customers think enough of our solutions for us to earn a Top Rated award in the TrustRadius Procurement Software category. Our customers are central to everything we do and every decision we make. Their satisfaction is what we work toward every day.

51·çÁ÷earned its top rating “based entirely on feedback from their customers,” said Megan Headley, vice president of Research at TrustRadius. “Reviewers on TrustRadius value the products’ invoice tracking capabilities, catalog management features, and integrations with ERP systems.”

From my perspective, it’s no surprise that 51·çÁ÷Ariba solutions have earned these honors. Every day, I see how our solutions help customers solve business challenges, empowering organizations to:

• Simplify procurement. Replace complex steps with a guided experience that directs employees to make the best decision – whether they’re buying raw materials or office supplies.
• Collaborate. Dynamically share plans, capacity, and progress with suppliers, so you can count on your supply chain to deliver what you need when you need it.
• Do business locally, or globally. Manage contracts, suppliers, and compliance in virtually every country and currency – or in your own backyard – so you can deliver what the business needs, where it’s needed.

Expanding the Value of Our Procurement Solutions

51·çÁ÷Business Network continues to expand, enabling visibility, collaboration, and resilience. Additionally, we have significantly boosted the impact of our procurement solutions both through our acquisition of Taulia and our enhanced relationship with Icertis.

• 51·çÁ÷Business Network: In these challenging times of broken supply chains and economic uncertainty, transparency, collaboration, and resilience are the name of the game. 51·çÁ÷Ariba solutions, together with , can extend our customers’ visibility into their supply chains, helping to manage collaboration with trading partners. Today, the network extends across 190 countries. In the last 12 months, it has facilitated more than 699M B2B transactions and US$4.1T worth of commerce – more than any other network in the world.
• Taulia: At a time when inflation is hitting our customers hard, access to working capital management solutions has been a lifesaver for buyers and suppliers alike. Taulia’s solutions offer early payment through supply chain financing, dynamic discounting, and accounts receivable financing.
• Icertis: The leading enterprise contract management platform in the cloud helps businesses transform contracts into strategic business assets, giving them powerful capabilities to maximize revenue, control costs, improve compliance, and manage risk.

And There’s More Good News

Spend Matters recently published a brief, titled which offers a positive assessment of 51·çÁ÷Ariba and its ecosystem.

The report states, “51·çÁ÷is focused on architecting an open, future-oriented technology ecosystem that embraces the realities of complexity, while still providing a powerful on-ramp to those who are at an emerging level of organizational maturity through its ecosystem of technology partners and service partners alike.”

Our success extends beyond our recent honors and accolades. Hundreds of customers, including MLP Finanzberatung SE, Air France KLM, Swellfun, Nacional Monte de Piedad, BeiGene, and CONA Services have chosen 51·çÁ÷in 2022 to digitalize their procurement processes. Here are a few of their stories:

• CONA Services LLC (USA, go-live): The premier IT service company for the 12 largest independent Coca-Cola bottlers in North America, CONA Services has consolidated its procurement processes to provide their suppliers with a single platform for collaboration. 51·çÁ÷Business Network delivers an integrated and easy-to-use platform, enabling more than 1,000 suppliers to share documents and access working capital opportunities. with the guided buying capability provides a modern user interface and a consistent catalog buying experience.

• Nacional Monte de Piedad (Mexico): This non-profit, private assistance institution, with more than 300 branches, took another step forward in its procurement strategy with the adoption of 51·çÁ÷Ariba Contracts. With this solution, it can eliminate the management of paper contracts, making it possible to automate, standardize, and accelerate their life cycle while reinforcing operational, contractual, and regulatory compliance with suppliers.

• BeiGene (China): A leading biotech company specializing in anti-cancer drugs, BeiGene selected 51·çÁ÷Ariba solutions to quickly build a cloud-based platform that covers procurement, contracting, and payment. BeiGene aims to ensure procurement collaboration in its offices around the world, meet language requirements, comply to local regulations, and improve efficiency.

Join Us at 51·çÁ÷Spend Connect Live

If you’d like to learn more about SAP’s intelligent spend solutions for procurement, external workforce, travel and expense, and business network, please join us for 51·çÁ÷Spend Connect Live, October 24-26 in Dallas, Texas.

This will be a unique, in-person networking experience where you’ll gain actionable insight from inspirational speakers, industry experts, and customers as they share real-life digital transformation stories.

To learn more and register, visit the .

Jeff Collier is chief revenue officer for 51·çÁ÷Intelligent Spend and Business Network.

So is the availability of innovative working capital solutions and, through them, the ability to manage risk and finance operational contingencies.

Without sufficient liquidity, businesses can fall short on promises made to customers. How can organizations free up the — often substantial — funds trapped within transactions that have yet to clear? Now more than ever, this is critical for businesses as the result of bottlenecked supply chains, backed up shipping queues, idled factories, and quarantined workers. The answer lies in digital business networks, which lend organizations the flexibility they need not only to shore up their supply chains and logistics operations but their financial management processes as well.

That is why earlier this year 51·çÁ÷acquired a majority stake in Taulia, the leading provider of working capital management solutions. With the aim of strengthening access to liquidity and improving cash flows, the acquisition complements 51·çÁ÷Business Network — already spanning the interconnected operations of trading partners engaged in procurement, supply chain, logistics, and asset management — with financing solutions across payables, receivables, and inventory.

Over the next two years, 51·çÁ÷plans to integrate Taulia’s capabilities with those of 51·çÁ÷Business Network, while also maintaining the fintech platform as a standalone solution.

Through Taulia, businesses have access to a network of dozens of banks for innovative financing solutions that cushion core operations from the ill effects of supply chain fragmentation and capital market volatility. Access to liquidity helps companies to bolster continuity, meet debt obligations, and avoid interruptions to long-term capital investments. End-to-end visibility across trading partners, meanwhile, sharpens businesses’ forecasting capabilities, helping to reduce risk to interconnected operations.

Taulia can help to secure financing such that a supplier is paid ahead of schedule through a third-party financial institution before an invoice is due. Then, upon the due date, the buyer repays the amount to the financier — all through the Taulia cloud-based platform. Taulia also facilitates dynamic discounting to incentivize the early payment of invoices, benefiting both parties to a commercial transaction.

By connecting buyers and suppliers with financial partners in real time with full transparency, Taulia minimizes the friction that can delay payments, impair operations, and even create supply chain risk. At the same time, Taulia helps businesses to free up capital needed for investment and research and development. This holds true for businesses large and small alike, because Taulia’s technology allows their solution to scale to thousands or even tens of thousands of trading partners.

What’s more, Taulia’s with enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions from 51·çÁ÷streamlines the provision of data that lending institutions require.

As our 51·çÁ÷Business Network and Taulia product teams proceed with developing a joint road map for our customers’ mutual success, we anticipate that millions of trading partners on 51·çÁ÷Business Network will gain access to competitive early-payment offers via Taulia’s accounts receivable financing.

Our solutions will help to make supply chains more resilient, more reliable, and more responsive in these uncertain times.

Paige Cox is senior vice president, chief product officer, and head of 51·çÁ÷Business Network at SAP.

Innovation That Changed Procurement Forever

When it was introduced in 1998, Ariba Network took the exchange of procurement documents far beyond the realm of PDFs and e-mails. This was true data exchange. Overnight, companies gained the ability to send and receive POs and invoices electronically – system to system. And with digital versions of their documents, they saved time and money by delivering accurate invoices via three-way document matching (POs, invoices, goods receipt notices). This was a game changer that helped companies wrangle procurement spend and increase efficiency.

Over the years, Ariba Network has been trusted to connect millions of companies, drive commerce, and ensure compliance while achieving maximum efficiency. As the needs of businesses evolved, so did Ariba Network. For example, in 2017 we introduced new innovations in forecasting, quality control, and inventory management to address critical supply chain collaboration challenges.

Taking the Next Step in Revolutionizing B2B Collaboration with 51·çÁ÷Business Network

The past two years of the pandemic have shown how essential the connection between procurement, supply chain planning, logistics, and plant maintenance are to delivering products to the right customers at the right time.

In the midst of global supply chain disruption brought on by the pandemic, 51·çÁ÷introduced the bold concept of a unified, open, and intelligent business network that would result in a network of intelligent enterprises. Last year at SAPPHIRE NOW, this concept became a reality with the launch of 51·çÁ÷Business Network. Designed to solve the most pressing supply chain collaboration challenges, 51·çÁ÷Business Network began as the convergence of Ariba Network with 51·çÁ÷Logistics Business Network and 51·çÁ÷Asset Intelligence Network.

Since then, we’ve made great strides to empower companies to unlock capital across their supply chains with our recent acquisition of Taulia, a leader in working capital management solutions. Taulia will be integrated directly into 51·çÁ÷Business Network. We are also providing a new level of transparency within the supply chain through innovations in product genealogy, supplier assessments on human rights, and working with environmental, social, and governance (ESG) providers like EcoVadis.

The Evolution of 51·çÁ÷Business Network

51·çÁ÷Business Network is now one solution portfolio that can help customers achieve transparency, resilience, and sustainability across their supply chains. To reflect the key processes addressed by 51·çÁ÷Business Network, we introduced the following solution area brand names:

• 51·çÁ÷Business Network for Procurement (formerly Ariba Network)
• 51·çÁ÷Business Network for Supply Chain (formerly 51·çÁ÷Ariba Supply Chain Collaboration)
• 51·çÁ÷Business Network for Logistics (formerly 51·çÁ÷Logistics Business Network)
• 51·çÁ÷Business Network for Asset Management (formerly 51·çÁ÷Asset Intelligence Network)

This is not just a name change. It is the next phase in SAP’s strategic vision to help businesses gain more transparency, resiliency, and sustainability within their supply chains. It is a logical step in how we’re evolving our solutions to enable businesses to connect their most critical functions to their network of trading partners across procurement, supply chain, logistics, and asset management. This empowers businesses to deliver products to market when and where their customers need them.

You may wonder what this means for the 51·çÁ÷Ariba brand. Rest assured, there is no impact on the 51·çÁ÷Ariba brand and we remain committed to investing in our portfolio of procurement solutions.

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Tony Harris is SVP and head of Marketing and Solutions for 51·çÁ÷Business Network.

J.P. Morgan will continue to maintain its equity stake in the fintech.

“With Taulia now an official part of our solution portfolio, we can help companies gain financial flexibility and stability and contribute to making supply chains more resilient,” said Luka Mucic, CFO of SAP.

The acquisition further expands SAP’s business network and strengthens SAP’s solutions for the CFO office. Taulia’s solutions will both be tightly integrated into 51·çÁ÷software as well as continue to be available standalone. Taulia will operate as an independent company with its own brand within the 51·çÁ÷Group.

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Media Contacts:
Daniel Reinhardt, SAP, +49 (6227) 7 40201, daniel.reinhardt@sap.com, CET
Bob Glotfelty, Taulia, +1 (203) 249 2666, bob.glotfelty@taulia.com, PT
51·çÁ÷Press Room; press@sap.com

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’s 2021 Annual Report on Form 20-F.
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