Welcome
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Enhance Your Success
Welcome to
SAP® Ariba® Solutions
The Best Run Together
Contents
Welcome
Welcome to
SAP® Ariba® Solutions
You’ve chosen SAP® Ariba® solutions, and we are pleased to have you on board. We look forward to running together with you throughout your digital transformation journey.
Our goal is simple: to help you get maximum value from your digitalization investment. And we are here to accompany you along every step of the way to help you achieve your goals.
We’ve worked with thousands of companies over the years, and they have all asked us the same question: how to ensure that everyone within the organization and suppliers are on board and understand the benefits of the relationship with SAP. This e-book was designed specifically to help you address that question.
Read through the following pages to learn more about the wealth of resources, knowledge, tools, training, and support you now have at your fingertips as a customer of SAP Ariba solutions. You’ll find plenty of useful information and easy access to a variety of assets, events, contacts, and communities to help you get up and running quickly.
We hope that you find this welcome e-book of value as you begin your digital transformation journey. We urge you to share it with other members of your team.
Welcome
Drive Your
Digital Transformation
The chance to use digital technologies to enable new levels of business insight, productivity, and efficiency has never been greater than it is today.
The new world of digitalization continues to drive new ways of working, collaborating, and communicating. And with that comes an unprecedented opportunity for your organization to shine.
So just how do you begin your company’s digital transformation?
- Define a clear digital strategy to raise awareness, set the direction, and drive decision-making
- Apply a best-practice organizational innovation model and establish a collaborative and agile IT operating model
- Deliver the right platform and tools to support enterprise-wide transformation and innovation
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Plan Your
Journey
Achieving the objectives of your company’s digital transformation initiatives requires employees to do their jobs differently.
A perfectly designed process, job role, or technology solution adds no value if no one uses it. Most companies struggle, however, with managing change. A recent study by management consultancy Bain & Company states most corporate change efforts fall short with only 12% achieving orexceeding expectations.1
We often hear that implementing change management programs across an organization can be challenging. To help with your efforts, we’ve created a series of videos that speak to the specific roles within your company that will use SAP Ariba solutions.
People want solutions that make their lives easier, plain and simple. These videos demonstrate how SAP Ariba solutions do just that.
View videos
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Companies that successfully transform their business and can sustain improvements do a number of things differently from those that fail. These 12 practices are not a guarantee of success, but they correlate strongly with how successful contenders operate.
Program vision
and business case
- Education, awareness, and buy-in of key stakeholders
- Business case, business outcomes, benefits investment, and change
Executive
sponsorship
- Executive advocate and champion of the program
- General discussion of importance
Process refinement
- Update business processes to drive optimization and consistency
- Leverage best practices
Flight planning
- A multiphase road map timeline
- Enablement plan (for example, by stakeholder, category, business unit, region)
Cross-functional
collaboration
- Clearly aligned objectives
- Participation across departments
Incentives
- Ensure goals are perceived as important
- Inspire and rationalize the need to change
Governance
- Cadence for monitoring progress, resolving issues, and celebrating wins
- Drive for accountability
Success
measurement
- Key performance indicators and performance monitoring
- Baseline versus target
- Benchmarking
- Definition of what success looks like, regular measurements to manage goals
Resource planning
- Implementation
- Steady-state operations
Supporting policy
- Internal and external
- Clarity on expectations for compliance
Training
- How the day-to-day job will be different as well as subject matter, value, and reason for change
- Not a one-size-fits-all solution, but one based on job function and role
Communication
- Develop a strategy for internal and external communication
- Initiate strategic communications from executive sponsors
Key members of your team include:
Customer engagement executive (CEE)
Think of your CEE as your guide to making your vision a reality – your advocate, your partner, your
strategist, your advisor, and, yes, your challenger. Whether it’s assisting in account planning, creating a
strategic road map, or leveraging additional support from SAP to help your colleagues and suppliers, your
CEE is dedicated to assisting you and your business. The CEE will make sure you achieve optimal value from
your SAP Ariba solution.
Network deployment lead (NDL)
The NDL is a knowledge expert who designs and develops the enablement processes, infrastructure, and
materials necessary to provide the education, testing, and support of your suppliers. Spearheaded by the
NDL, these activities are introduced at the project kickoff meeting for Ariba Network.
Network enablement lead (NEL)
The NEL focuses on your enablement activities. A knowledge expert, the NEL communicates opportunities to
bring business-impacting value. Day-to-day enablement activities, which are led by the NEL, are introduced
in the implementation phase.
Best-practices center representative
This representative helps enable the smoothest adoption and rollout possible with the knowledge and support
from the SAP Ariba Best Practices Center service. Intimately familiar with your organization and its unique
needs, your best-practices center representative provides strategic coaching and guidance as needed.
Learn more about the SAP Ariba Best Practices Center service for:
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Start Fast with
SAP Ariba Solutions
Who wants to speed up their deployment? Everyone we know. With SAP Ariba solutions, you can get up and running quickly so you have more time to innovate.
Here’s how it works. Once we receive the executed contract, the delivery team for SAP Ariba solutions sets up a meeting with the key partner team members to review the scope of the project, roles, responsibilities, and the timeline. Next, the delivery team contacts you to schedule a deployment overview meeting to which your partner is also invited. If a connection project for Ariba Network is in scope, the team schedules a readiness review call with you to confirm your project requirements, connect type, and more.
You’ll be given a form to complete for the solutions in scope, and it may include an enablement workbook for some solutions. Once you complete the form and return it to us, you’ll be moved to “ready for kickoff” status. The delivery team will target a kickoff meeting within two weeks of that date. For projects for Ariba Network, the delivery team will confirm the timeline after the readiness review document has been signed.
Choose the
Right Partner
Need help implementing or deploying your SAP Ariba solution? Not to worry. Choose from one of our trusted network professionals.
We actively partner with leading technology and business process outsourcing (BPO) companies to provide the most innovative solutions. Learn more about each of these valued partners.
The SAP Ariba Live event
This is the big one. The SAP Ariba Live event provides limitless opportunities for learning how to drive
change in your business for a successful digital transformation. Just a few of the benefits of attending
include:
- Discovering innovative ways to manage your spend
- Learning how to strengthen your relationships with
trading partners - Creating a healthy supply chain
- Delivering more value to your organization
Customer Success Day
These regional events are designed to encourage knowledge sharing across the community of SAP Ariba solution
customers who use procurement and business network solutions. Each Customer Success Day focuses on specific
business challenges faced by customers like you.
Enhance Your Success
While these events are great for collaboration, you also have access to a wealth of online resources anytime, anywhere.
Buyer support resource center for SAP Ariba solutions
Make sure everyone inside your organization understands how SAP Ariba solutions will benefit them. Explain
to suppliers their advantages when they accept your invitation to join the buyer support resource center for
SAP Ariba solutions – which provides resources to help communicate with your stakeholders about their
opportunities.
Learn more
SlideShare for SAP Ariba solutions
Situations sometimes arise that prohibit our customers from attending the SAP Ariba Live event. While
nothing can compare to the networking and in-person benefits of participating, you don’t have to miss out
on the invaluable event content if you can’t make it.
With the SlideShare for SAP Ariba solutions, you can watch breakout sessions and main stage session replays
anywhere at any time.
Take a look
Podcast for SAP Ariba solutions
Join subject-matter experts in procurement, supply chain, and finance as they provide thought leadership and
insights for source-to-pay digital transformation in this podcast
#MakeProcurementAwesome with SAP Ariba solutions.
Each episode covers various topics and innovations on the source-to-pay process, transforming procurement,
improving business outcomes, best practices, and change management – all designed to help you prepare for
awesomeness.
Listen to podcast
Whether it’s help with change management, adoption, or in some other area, SAP Ariba solutions have you covered. We’re here to help your digital transformation run better by sharing our technology and market intelligence with your team through a variety of formats.
Best-practice Webinar series
Get the most out of your SAP Ariba solutions by tuning in to these best-practice Webinars. Learn all about
the tools at your disposal that can help make your job easier and boost your productivity.
View now
Business commerce enablement with SAP Ariba solutions
Consider a custom-made business commerce program – built with domain expertise, superior analytics, and
buyer-seller collaboration insights – to identify and realize value quickly with your solution.
Learn more
Content and connectivity software from SAP
Ramp up your trading partner collaboration on Ariba Network with a range of services, including supplier
enablement, catalog enablement, catalog maintenance, and buyer membership packages.
Get the data sheet
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Connect
This is your go-to technical support source for all SAP Ariba solutions. You must register
to access Connect by creating a user name and password. Once that’s completed, you have a choice of two
types of access.
Basic access
You can search, display, and read content, receive notifications, view product documentation, perform
searches, access training sites, and view and submit enhancement requests.
Designated support contact (DSC) access
In addition to the benefits of basic access, DSC access allows you to log service requests and download SAP
Ariba software. You’ll also receive communications about new releases, downtime, product clarifications,
and service packages. Three DSCs per purchased SAP Ariba solution are allowed, so be sure to designate yours
right away to take full advantage of all of the benefits.
Education and training
People and organizations acquire knowledge in different ways depending on learning preferences, time
constraints, complexity of content, and cost. That’s why we provide innovative training and enablement
options that allow individuals to learn the way they learn best, including:
- Adoption services
- World-class instructor-led training
- Cloud-based access to every course on SAP Ariba solutions in SAP Learning Hub
Technology services
Technology upgrades, application management, and hosting services are all covered under technology services
for SAP Ariba solutions. With these services, we can help ensure that you have the right technology to drive
savings and reduce costs.
Discover what’s right for your organization
Success planning with SAP Ariba solutions
Collaboration delivers the best results. Let’s work together to incorporate your business objectives and a
cost-benefit analysis into a step-by-step process that leads to success.
Find out how you can benefit
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Courses on SAP Ariba solutions in SAP Learning Hub
Convenience can be key when it comes to learning. That’s why all courses for SAP Ariba solutions can be
found in one place – whenever and wherever you need them – in the cloud. Simple to use, SAP Learning Hub
hosts training courses and materials in a self-recorded, self-paced environment with interactive learning
rooms.
You can purchase your own SAP Learning Hub subscription, or your organization can provide subscriptions for
up to thousands of users. With an extensive collection of learning content, SAP Learning Hub offers a
cost-effective training solution for your real-time education development needs.
Learn more
Benchmark program for SAP Ariba solutions
Having the ability to assess your performance objectively is critical, and the benchmark program for SAP
Ariba solutions enables you to do just that.
This world-class program helps you:
- Measure and compare solution adoption rates
- Use empirical data to track performance
- Identify the best ways to drive cost savings through greater efficiency and effectiveness
- Build a success plan for improvement with targets for internal initiatives
- Quantify the savings achieved through improved performance
The benchmark program has combined with the benchmark program for SAP software to become the largest
benchmarking database in the world.
Learn more
Enhance Your Success
SAP Ariba Solutions
in Action
Successfully implementing your new SAP Ariba solution can transform your company and speed your digitalization journey.
National Grid, Bouygues Telecom, Cirque du Soleil, Avery Dennison, Clariant, and Nexans are building and
simplifying procurement processes to transform their businesses and bottom line.
Watch the video
The County of Santa Clara procurement department is using its appreciation for technology to inspire a new
way of delivering goods and services to public sector operations. By using the SAP Ariba Buying solution,
the SAP Ariba Invoice Management solution, and the SAP Ariba Sourcing solution, the organization has
automated and consolidated its transactions and contracts. They now support acquisition processes that are
efficient, compliant, and transparent.
Watch the video
Explore our complete collection of case studies, podcasts, demos, and more at our resource library.
We are committed to keeping you and your team up to date with the latest technology and industry developments. Please share the links below with members of your team and encourage them to fill out the form to receive future updates.
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through our customer portal for knowledge and support, Connect for SAP Ariba
solutions.
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