Thanks to Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, most companies have a good handle on their financial data. They can close their books each month, generate financial reports and comply with regulatory requirements. But collaboration is the new corporate competency. And when it comes to connecting with external trading partners, many organizations still struggle because their ERP systems stop at the end of the enterprise.
To help remedy this situation, Ariba, the leading provider of collaborative business commerce solutions, today announced the launch of Ariba® Collaborative Commerce for use with SAP® ERP, an on-demand solution that enables companies using SAP ERP to reach beyond the four walls and connect with external trading partners to fuel better commerce.
"The ERP system is traditionally set up to handle processes from an internal standpoint," said Mickey North Rizza, research director at Gartner in the recently published CIO Market Pulse survey, "Cloud-Based Business Commerce Solutions." "Cloud apps allow you to take a piece of information you need to use with your partners out into the world where you both can see it."
Most companies running SAP ERP have automated a portion of their suppliers and commerce transactions. But many want to significantly scale. With Ariba Collaborative Commerce for use with SAP ERP, they can – without making any changes to their current infrastructure.
Designed to enhance – not replace existing investments, Ariba Collaborative Commerce for use with SAP ERP provides an effective way to maximize the value of ERP by enabling companies to connect to the Ariba Network - an intelligent community through which they can quickly enable thousands of suppliers and more efficiently manage transactions with them regardless of the backend systems they are using.
Many SAP shops have taken steps to automate procurement as well. But research shows that less than 20 percent of spend is actually managed through ERP systems. With Ariba Collaborative Commerce for use with SAP ERP, companies can extend their spend coverage and rapidly increase the value of their SAP system by:
- Expanding easily maintainable catalogs to thousands of suppliers to generate substantial cost savings
- Improving visibility and collaboration across all spend, including direct, indirect, services, complex spend and MRO
- Enhancing organization-wide compliance across suppliers, terms and prices
- Consistently managing spend across categories Automate more financials
Thanks to ERP, accounts payable is a much more efficient function. But within many organizations, invoice processing still takes too long. Matching invoices to POs and contracts remains inefficient. Exceptions are the rule. And opportunities for discounts are often lost. Ariba Collaborative Commerce for use with SAP ERP helps to change all this, enabling companies with SAP ERP in place to:
- Validate and process a clean invoice in days instead of weeks or months
- Drive 98% touchless processing and cost savings of up to 70%
- Boost compliance with efficient PO-invoice matching
- Minimize invoice exceptions
- Proactively capture early payment discounts and new, dynamic discounts
- Improve productivity
"Over the last two decades, ERP applications have driven dramatic improvements in internal information flows. But as the enterprise becomes increasingly networked, companies must extend these applications to improve external process efficiencies and collaboration as well," said Tim Minahan, Chief Marketing Officer, Ariba. "Ariba Collaborative Commerce for use with SAP ERP is specifically designed to facilitate this. Leveraging a network-centric model to connect partners, processes and spend across multiple systems, the offering allows companies to effectively streamline financials, increase visibility and collaboration across the supply chain and improve the efficiency of their trading relationships – all within their current IT environment."
Ariba Collaborative Commerce for use with SAP ERP is available today. To learn more about the offering and how it can help you extend the value of your investments, visit the Ariba website.
