A guideline to utilising the benefits of SAP Ariba - In conversation with Industry Expert and Consultant

SAP Ariba - In conversation with industry expert Pritam Adhikari

SAP Ariba is a top SAP product that enables suppliers and buyers to interact and conduct business globally by offering cloud-based supply chain, spend management, and procurement services.

Industry expert with close to a decade’s experience, Pritam Adhikari is a leading SAP Ariba consultant at Exalogic Consulting. In a recent pro talk, he shared his valued learnings from his extensive experience in SAP Ariba field.

Which companies/industries are eligible to implement SAP Ariba?

Ariba, according to Pritam is recommended for mid-size to large organisations that are document and process heavy. Although every company deals with a procurement department, Ariba Upstream (strategic sourcing solution made for cloud) which involves modules like sourcing, contracting and supply management are most suitable for domains like manufacturing, hospitality, media and pharma as buying and selling are rampant in these sectors.

For industries that deal with trading, he is of the firm opinion that they can benefit greatly from the ever-extensive Catalogue Management Solution hosted by Ariba. It provides traders an option to choose from different sellers based on their price offerings. Furthermore, it enables them to place orders and receive auto-generated receipts, all under one automated system.

 The most well-suited module for the automobile industry is SAP Ariba’s Supply Chain Collaboration. With this, suppliers can connect with customers through a single channel of communication for production and deliveries - the Ariba Network, hence eliminating all email and mobile communication from their systems. “In the future if there is any compliance issue, there is evidence to back you up as in the Ariba Network, all communication with suppliers can be tracked and documented”, he states.

Supplier resistance v/s buyer resistance

At times, the feature of traceability brings with itself a few challenges. Up until recently, procurement used to be an end-to-end manual process. Thus, one of the biggest challenges for organizations is change management and shifting from manual labour mentality, which tends to invite resistance from participants.

Throughout his vast industry experience, Pritam observes that supplier resistance is much less when compared to buyer resistance, as SAP Ariba and its operations are much more beneficial to the former. With Ariba, suppliers get an equal opportunity to participate in requests for quotations (RFQs) and online negotiations (auctions), from which they are usually excluded during legacy practices.

Buyers, on the other hand, have often shown a strong aversion to SAP Ariba and its functioning because it puts in place harder deadlines for them than traditional procurement methods. “Buyer concerns when working with Ariba are at least 10 to 20 percent more than that of suppliers because they are comfortable with legacy practices they have been performing for years”, comments Pritam.

Ariba brings to the forefront, a visibility like no other. All day-to-day tasks, functionality, activities of the stakeholders involved and relevant documents are traceable and liable for scrutiny at the click of a few buttons. The design of the platform works in a way that along each step of the way, notifications are generated and reports are sent to everyone relevant to the processes, thus strengthening security and accountability. “It is usually this visibility most buyers are wary of”, says Pritam.

The advantages of Ariba 

Despite the challenges discussed, SAP Ariba has established itself as the future of procurement processes. This procurement solution lets individuals or companies enlist themselves as potential buyers on a global database. Potential customers then have an option to conduct audits for buyers for a better scrutiny of their processes. If compliant, buyers are provided with an eligibility certificate and they are enlisted in the database for a better global visibility.  

Apart from compliance, Ariba displays the optimal prices for each resource or service, that would traditionally be set by suppliers. This gives the buyer the power to negotiate with the supplier, thereby eliminating dependency.

From negotiating to creating RFQs, and to passing approvals and finalising quotations, SAP Ariba streamlines the procurement process like no other solution. It helps to keep the system in check while eliminating manual intervention, thus ensuring errors are minimised or error handling is the best.

With a deeper understanding of spend management, it offers a future-focussed procurement platform so your company is not only able to sustain the tides of a changing market but also grow with time. It also equips you with business process integration tools in real time which makes it possible for you to find trading partners who can deliver at an optimal value while implementing a seamless source-to-pay process.

If you would like to get in touch with our experts for more information on SAP Ariba implementation and its various industry-specific modules, visit our website and request for a free demo.

We also provide training to buyers and users across domains, so they know how to utilise SAP Ariba in the most optimal way. If you would like to opt for SAP Ariba as your procurement solution, our experts are here to help. We would be honored to be a part of your growth journey.