SAP-linked Ariba unveils cloud-based collaborative business commerce solutions

SAP AG has announced the official launch of cloud based B2B collaboration solutions in Sri Lanka at an event held in Colombo recently.

The new range of solutions combining Ariba’s (an SAP company) successful buyer-seller collaboration network with SAP’s broad customer base and deep business process expertise, are the outcome of the latter’s recent acquisition of Ariba, Inc, the leading cloud-based business commerce network.

The event saw some of the early adopters of the model from Sri Lanka such as Hemas and Ceylon Breweries sharing their experiences with others present.

Commenting on the possibilities brought forth by these solutions, Priyadarshi Mohapatra, Head SME Sales, SAP India said: “Sourcing is no longer limited to the boundaries of local markets.

This has made it necessary for businesses to gain better insights about their suppliers and the entire sourcing process to make sound decisions. Our new offerings leverage Ariba’s open global trading network and SAP’s solutions and analytics to provide our clients with this information and thereby help increase efficiencies. The early success that we have seen in Sri Lanka is very promising and we look forward to seeing more clients benefit from this model.”

Hemas Holdings has been one of the early adopters of this model and has already implemented the Ariba Sourcing Module in their company.

Elaborating on the company’s experiences with the solution, Priyanthi De Silva, Financial Controller, Hemas Holdings PLC said: “Hemas is the first company in Corporate Sri Lanka to foray into the world of online sourcing. We wanted to move away from the Manual Procurement Process (MPP) to a software platform which would primarily serve the complex sourcing requirements of a multi-dimensional conglomerate like the Hemas. Ariba Sourcing Module fitted the bill completely as it offered substantial financial and non-financial benefits. The changeover process was driven with the support of the Board of Management (BOM), representing the Managing Directors of Hemas. The BOM decided to assign a team of Champions as change agents to drive this process across the group to ensure clarity and precision of project deliverables.”

“Hemas Group was able to save upwards of Rs. 25 million or 7% savings in a limited period of time. Apart from cost savings, other intangible benefits we could achieve: Greater visibility of buying habits embedded with commodity and sourcing intelligence; complete, accurate, and continually up-to-date spend records help in compliance initiatives with both internal and external parties; uniformity of formats and classifications assisted by applying industry and company-specific standards that support global supplier and supply market intelligence; company-wide spend data was consolidated into one reporting system for easy access, analysis, and decision making; and provide critical details about supplier financial ratings, risk scores, capacity and constraints with warning indicators prompting immediate action,” De Silva added.

Speaking at the event, Amit Bhatia, Group Director & Head Sales – India Subcontinent, Ariba India said, “Sri Lankan companies have tasted success that about a year back we were seeing with other Asian and global companies only. Companies like Hemas and Ceylon Breweries have shown that leadership and mind set change can help replicate global success in Sri Lanka too.  We are seeing fabulous results in Sri Lanka in terms of driving process change, efficiencies, transparency that ultimately results in reduced cost of doing business.”

The combination of SAP’s innovations and core applications with the Ariba cloud-based network will create new business value for customers. Together, SAP and Ariba can deliver a truly end-to-end solution that enables companies to achieve a closed-loop from source-to-pay, regardless of whether they deploy in the cloud, on-premise or through a combination of both.

Ariba’s open network and SAP’s integration expertise will facilitate participation and extend the benefits of business collaboration to all companies, on any system, from any provider.

The Ariba network will benefit from the performance delivered by using SAP’s flagship in-memory platform SAP HANA. Relationship and transaction information from commerce activity in the Ariba network together with SAP’s leading analytics will provide real-time insights to enable trading partners to discover, connect, and collaborate more effectively.

All SAP customers will be able to easily connect to the business network through pre-built integration points.

Through the combination of the business network procurement solutions from Ariba and SAP, organisations can gain 360-degree business intelligence and effectively demonstrate that spending activities, contracts, and supplier interactions adhere to corporate compliance guidelines.