SAP ARIBA INTRADOUCTION

SAP Ariba - Introduction

SAP Ariba is a cloud-based innovative solution that allows suppliers and buyers to connect and do business on a single platform. It improves over all vendor management system of an organization by providing less costly ways of procurement and making business simple. Ariba acts as supply chain, procurement service to do business globally. SAP Ariba digitally transforms your supply chain, procurement and contract management process.

In today’s world, there is a need to control your supply chain and to collaborate with your suppliers in an efficient way. To enable healthy supply chain, you need to have suppliers with visibility to every part of procurement process so that they can maintain an efficient supply chain and help organizations to grow their and own business.

The cloud based innovative solution was first developed in 1996 by a company named Ariba and was later acquired by SAP in 2012 with a total acquisition cost of 4.3 billion USD with each share cost $45. Thus, the name SAP Ariba. At the onset, Ariba was a B2B company to do procurement over Internet and was the first one to introduce IPO in 1999.

Key Features of SAP Ariba

In this section, we will learn about the key features of SAP Ariba.

• SAP Ariba is a B2B solution that allows you to connect to the world’s largest network of vendors and suppliers and enhance business collaboration with the right business partners.
• SAP Ariba allows organizations to connect with the right suppliers with deep visibility to your inside vendor and procurement management processes giving way to error free business transactions.
• With SAP Ariba, you can directly connect Ariba network with millions of suppliers meeting your business needs and managing supply chain.
• SAP Ariba network removes overall complexity in procurement process and suppliers and buyers can manage all key terms of vendor management on a single network.
• With acquisition of SAP, Ariba can easily integrate with different SAP ERP solutions like SAP ECC and S/4 HANA with easy to configure workflows to automate different processes in complete procurement cycle.
• You can easily integrate master and transactional data from different ERP solution to Ariba processes.

SAP Ariba - Key Benefits

SAP Ariba is a cloud-based Procurement solution, which help buyers and suppliers to meet at one single network. SAP Ariba Partner program enables you with tools, resources, and benefits to help build, run, and grow your business.

Following are the key benefits of using SAP Ariba −

• One of the key advantages of using Ariba solution is that it simplifies procurement and sourcing process with easy synchronization to SAP SRM and other ERP software.
• It enhances supplier, buyers and user experience by bringing in a digital transformation to the supply chain process.
• With cloud-based solution, SAP Ariba can be accessed from different locations. It requires very low initial capital cost for setting up the solution.
• With SAP Ariba, there is an easy setup of key procurement processes - Procure to pay (integration of purchase department with Accounts payable department), Procure to Order by maintaining shopping carts.
• There is easy transfer of master data. Organization structure, suppliers and GL data can be easily transferred to Ariba solution using optimal way of integration.
• SAP Ariba enables easy transfer of transactional data. Invoice details, goods receipt, PO details can be easily transferred to Ariba solution with optimum integration.
• We can use integration toolkit to connect ERP system with Ariba solution.

The following illustration shows Ariba as the world's largest B2B trading platform

SAP Ariba - Account Configuration

In SAP Ariba, you can access and configure new accounts, set email notifications, electronic order and invoice routing and other account related configuration for new suppliers.

• Go to https://supplier.ariba.com
• To login to your account, enter username and password.

• To configure account access and configuration, you need to navigate to Company Settings tab.
• Navigate to Company Profile tab to update company profile information.