SAP Community - SAP Ariba Procurement, cloud edition

2308 Early Release Series

2023-07-24T21:14:07+02:00

2308 Early Release Series for SAP Procurement and SAP Business Network releases

Sign up now for the 2308 Early Release Series

Follow this blog to receive notification of new series as soon as registration opens.

SAP strives to equip our customers and partners with valuable release readiness resources for each SAP Procurement and SAP Business Network quarterly release.

Early Release Series

The SAP Procurement and SAP Business Network Early Release series of webcasts cover features planned for the upcoming quarterly release. This platform, available to customers and partners, has a clear mission: deliver an interactive forum to engage with SAP product experts providing simple, direct answers to your most pressing questions. There is a different session for each product area with content tailored for the specific audience:

Procure-to-Pay

Source-to-Contract

Supplier Management & Risk

Business Network & Supply Chain

Category Management

If you want to learn more and actively engage with SAP subject matter experts, we encourage you to participate in these informative sessions. Register now!

Quarterly Release Communications

The release calendar for SAP Business Network and release calendar SAP Ariba Applications, on SAP Ariba Connect, identify release timing several quarters in advance.

Notice of upcoming quarterly releases will be communicated to Buyer customers three weeks prior to the release date. Suppliers receive notice two weeks prior. Releases are communicated via email notification (look for subject line starting with: Advance Release Notice).

Designated Support Contacts (DSC) and anyone from your organization that have chosen to subscribe to product notifications will receive these announcements.

Where to find out more details?

On demand replays of webcasts from completed quarterly releases can be consumed from SAP Ariba Connect.

What’s Up, SAP Companion? An Update on User Enablement in SAP Procurement

2023-09-15T23:34:35+02:00

It’s been a while since Andy Rubinson’s last blog post about the status of embedded help integration in SAP's procurement solutions, specifically SAP Ariba solutions. Since then, the Web Assistant used for providing embedded help to end users was rebranded to SAP Companion, a component of SAP Enable Now. With this post, I’d like to give you an update of where we currently stand regarding SAP Companion integration in SAP’s procurement solutions and what our user enablement strategy looks like.

SAP Companion in Procurement Solutions Built on SAP BTP

While embedded help has been an essential part of our user enablement strategy for some time, it is part and parcel of procurement solutions that are built on SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP), including SAP Ariba Central Invoice Management, SAP Ariba Buying, base edition, and SAP Ariba Category Management. Did you know that these solutions not only offer a state-of-the-art, intuitive user experience but also come with a built-in integration of the SAP Companion framework?

As a result, end users now benefit from embedded help right from day 1. In addition to context-sensitive help for fields and screen areas, we aim to include learning tutorials for the most common workflows directly in the app – and completely for free! Those of you familiar with SAP Companion know that the framework allows us to provide embedded help content throughout the entire software lifecycle. This includes onboarding content for first-time users, help and tutorials for casual and more advanced users, links to enablement assets on SAP Help Portal and other platforms, and information about new and changed features directly on the user interface.

Curious what our user enablement strategy looks like? Take our brand-new SAP Ariba Category Management solution, for example. The following screenshot shows the SAP Ariba Category Management homepage. (Please note that the visibility of apps depends on the user role, so not all apps depicted here are visible to all end users).

SAP Ariba Category Management Homepage

You open SAP Companion by clicking the question mark in the shell bar. The help panel includes information that’s relevant for the page you’re looking at. A link tile provides access to the documentation on SAP Help Portal.

Let’s check out the Manage Taxonomy app. When you open SAP Companion, the default view is for context-sensitive help.

Context-Sensitive Help in SAP Ariba Category Management

To access the available learning tutorials, click the academic hat icon in the help panel.

Learning Tutorials in SAP Ariba Category Management

Learning tutorials guide you through a screenshot-based simulation of the most common end-to-end workflows. If tutorials are available for an app, they are shown in the help panel. The Learning Center button takes you to a repository of all tutorials available for the solution.

As of the first follow-on release, you’ll find an additional icon in the help panel. This allows you to view information about changes and new features since the last release.

SAP Companion in Classic SAP Ariba Solutions

But what about the classic SAP Ariba solutions, that is, solutions that are not built on SAP BTP? For those of you who aren’t familiar with the way SAP Companion works in these solutions, let me highlight some aspects in which embedded help in a classic solution differs from embedded help in a SAP BTP-based solution.

In a classic SAP Ariba solution, embedded help is available on selected pages. In some of these solutions, the icon for launching SAP Companion is located to the right of the page, while the question mark in the shell bar provides access to the SAP Ariba Help Center, a support tool. In addition, customers with an SAP Enable Now license can add custom content or extend the standard content provided by SAP.

The following screenshot shows embedded help in SAP Ariba Supplier Lifecycle and Performance.

SAP Companion in SAP Ariba Lifecycle and Performance

Here's an overview of the classic SAP Ariba solutions that provide embedded content via SAP Companion:

Solution/Capability	Standard Content	Custom/Extended Content Option	Learning Tutorials	SAP Companion Icon
Guided buying capability for SAP Ariba Buying	Yes	Yes	Yes	In the shell bar
Guided sourcing capability for SAP Ariba Sourcing	Yes	Yes	Yes	To the right of the page
Direct Spend Sourcing capability for SAP Strategic Sourcing Suite	Yes	Yes	Yes	To the right of the page
SAP Ariba Supplier Lifecycle and Performance – Supplier Management dashboard	Yes	Yes	Yes	To the right of the page
SAP Ariba Risk – Finding and Event Collaboration	Yes	No	No	In the shell bar
SAP Business Network for Trading Partners	Yes	No	No	In the shell bar
SAP Business Network for Procurement	Yes	No	No	In the shell bar
SAP Business Network for Supply Chain	Yes	No	No	In the shell bar

A similar overview is available on SAP Help Portal. Unlike this blog post, SAP Help Portal content is updated regularly, so make sure to bookmark the SAP Companion - Supported Applications and Content Scenarios page.

Summary: User Enablement in SAP Procurement

While we continue to update and enhance existing SAP Companion content for our classic SAP Ariba solutions, our focus going forward is on new procurement solutions built on SAP BTP. For these solutions, we provide standard content right from the start – allowing your users to get started as quickly as possible.

Let’s summarize how SAP Companion integration differs between procurement solutions based on SAP BTP and classic SAP Ariba solutions:

	SAP BTP-Based Solution	Classic SAP Ariba Solution
SAP Companion icon	In the shell bar	Depends on the solution – either in the shell bar or to the right of the page
Availability of embedded help	On all pages (with few exceptions)	On selected pages
Enablement	Automatically on	Automatically on, but can be disabled via parameter* For more information, see Setup of SAP Companion for SAP Ariba.
Custom/Extended content option**	Currently not available	Available For more information, see Setup of SAP Companion for SAP Ariba.

^{* Exception: You can’t disable SAP Companion for Finding and Event Collaboration, which is integrated in SAP Ariba Risk.

** Requires an SAP Enable Now license}

The missing possibility for customers with an SAP Enable Now license to add custom content or extend the standard content provided by SAP is indeed the only, albeit temporary, caveat I must add for procurement solutions that are based on SAP BTP. We’re working at full steam to enable these options and will inform you as soon as they are available. So stay tuned for updates!

To conclude, here’s a collection of helpful resources, most of them already mentioned throughout this blog post:

Introducing: SAP Companion – Your Adoption and Productivity Layer

SAP Companion - Supported Applications and Content Scenarios

Setup of SAP Companion for SAP Ariba

SAP Central Invoice Management

SAP Ariba Buying, base edition

SAP Ariba Category Management

And now I'd love to hear from you! Do you use SAP Companion in your procurement solution? Any feedback you'd like to share? Post your comments below or feel free to reach out to me directly at daniela.vogler@sap.com.

2311 Early Release Series for SAP Ariba and SAP Business Network releases

2023-10-11T02:07:03+02:00

Sign up now for the 2311 Early Release Series

Follow this blog to receive notification of new series as soon as registration opens.

SAP strives to equip our customers and partners with valuable release readiness resources for each SAP Ariba and SAP Business Network quarterly release.

Early Release Series

The SAP Ariba and SAP Business Network Early Release series of webcasts cover features planned for the upcoming quarterly release. This platform, available to customers and partners, has a clear mission: deliver an interactive forum to engage with SAP product experts providing simple, direct answers to your most pressing questions. There is a different session for each product area with content tailored for the specific audience:

Procure-to-Pay

Source-to-Contract

Supplier Management & Risk

Business Network

SAP Procurement 2311 Release Key Innovations Preview

2023-10-18T22:17:47+02:00

Hello SAP Ariba community!

This year at SAP Spend Connect Live, we introduced SAP Ariba as the primary brand across SAP’s procurement portfolio. This decision was made in collaboration with you, our valued customers, and aims to provide a simplified and cohesive story. While SAP Ariba will now represent procurement at SAP, rest assured that other SAP brands, including SAP Business Network, SAP Fieldglass, and SAP Concur, will continue to serve you without any changes.

Now, let's dive into some of the new features we’re introducing to SAP Ariba.

Region import and use in SAP Ariba Category Management

The ability to import and use regions in SAP Ariba Category Management is a leap forward. This feature enables regions to be imported into Category Management, allowing category managers to create region-specific strategy and plan documents. This means you can now tailor your strategies to specific regions, giving you a strategic advantage when procuring items from different regions. This enhancement delivers a flexible and efficient approach to category management, truly a "must-have" in today's globalized business world.

Region import and use in SAP Ariba Category Management

Support for UNSPSC Version 25 in SAP Ariba solutions

We now support the UNSPSC Codeset v25.9 across SAP Ariba solutions allowing you to take advantage of several important updates for classification of your purchasing documents. This feature allows you to import the latest version of the UNSPSC commodity codes into your SAP Ariba solution, enhancing the categorization of your products and services. Please note, due to changes within UNSPSC, translations are no longer supported and will need to be provided by customers.

Mass Modular Questionnaire Invitations to Suppliers

The mass modular questionnaire invitations to suppliers feature is a key feature in enabling responsiveness to the ever changing data collection requirements faced by many organizations. With this feature, you can easily submit questionnaires to up to 10,000 suppliers at a time. This means you can gather additional data points on your supplier base, fostering better decision-making and compliance. Whether it's new legislation, internal audits, or third-party regulations, you now have a more efficient way to gather the information you need.

Mass Modular Questionnaire Invitations to Suppliers

Email Bidding in Multi-Round Guided Sourcing Events

We're making multi-round bidding easier and more accessible with our new feature, ‘support for email bidding in multi-round guided sourcing events’. Now, suppliers can submit their bids for multi-round events through email, without logging into the SAP Business Network. This simplifies the bidding process and opens up opportunities for more suppliers to participate.

Email bidding in multi-round guided sourcing events

These new features are designed to streamline your procurement processes and make SAP Ariba more user-friendly. We're thrilled to continually innovate and provide our customers with the best procurement solutions.

Stay tuned for more updates!

For more information on SAP Procurement efforts, please visit:

Feature information portal (SAP Ariba Connect) available here

Help Portal Product Page for Procurement and Network

SAP Procurement Community: here

What’s New here

Revisit prior release blogs from 2023: Q1 – 2302 / Q2 - 2305 / Q3 - 2308

2402 Early Release Series for SAP Procurement and SAP Business Network releases

2024-01-26T19:21:48.669000+01:00

SAP strives to equip our customers and partners with valuable release readiness resources for each SAP Procurement and SAP Business Network quarterly release.

Early Release Series

The SAP Procurement and SAP Business Network Early Release series of webcasts cover features planned for the upcoming quarterly release. This platform, available to customers and partners, has a clear mission: deliver an interactive forum to engage with SAP product experts providing simple, direct answers to your most pressing questions. There is a different session for each product area with content tailored for the specific audience:

Source-to-Contract
Procure-to-Pay
Supplier Management & Risk
Business Network

If you want to learn more and actively engage with SAP subject matter experts, we encourage you to participate in these informative sessions. Register now!

Quarterly Release Communications

The release calendar for SAP Business Network and release calendar SAP Ariba Applications, on SAP Ariba Connect, identify release timing several quarters in advance.

Notice of upcoming quarterly releases will be communicated to Buyer customers three weeks prior to the release date. Suppliers receive notice two weeks prior. Releases are communicated via email notification (look for subject line starting with: Advance Release Notice).

Designated Support Contacts (DSC) and anyone from your organization that have chosen to subscribe to product notifications will receive these announcements.

Where to find out more details?

On demand replays of webcasts from completed quarterly releases can be consumed from SAP Ariba Connect.

Release Navigator for Spend Management and Business Network, 2402 Edition

2024-02-01T22:30:00.100000+01:00

The Readiness@Scale team is thrilled to announce that the 2402 updates to the release navigator for Spend Management and Business Network will be automatically deployed with the first release of the year on February 16, 2024. This update will feature the latest content and incorporate enhanced user-experience (UX) elements based on your valuable recommendations!

2024 Innovation & Content Upgrade Plan

In order to reduce any inconvenience to your experience, from 2402 onwards, the release navigator for Spend Management and Business Network will incorporate new UX innovations annually, in August, coinciding with the release of content, rather than on a quarterly basis. Explore the plans for innovation and content upgrades in 2024 here.

Release Event	Date
2402 Content Update	February 16, 2024
2405 Content Update	May 17, 2024
2408 UX Upgrade & Content Update	August 16th, 2024
2411 Content Update	November 15, 2024

Disclaimer: These dates are for informational purposes only and may change. The Readiness@Scale team has the final decision over any UX modifications.

Just a reminder, there are NO TASKS you need to perform for these upgrades to the release navigator; everything is automated. For more detailed information on system upgrade dates, refer to the Release Schedule tile. (see Figure 1: My Home).

New & Updated UX Elements

The Readiness@Scale team has invested significant effort in harmonizing the overall user experience across each release navigator. The team has concentrated on establishing a more cohesive experience, beginning with a modernized approach to the My Home page. Pages & Spaces have been reintroduced, providing a dedicated space for accessing crucial release content and information:

Pages & Navigation: Access any product page for easier navigation.
Welcome: Important messages from the Readiness@Scale team will be found within this tile.
Release Calendar: Stay informed on the latest release dates that may impact your systems.
Product Release Resources: Utilize these release resources to maximize time-efficiency during the release.
Additional Resources: Check out some additional resources SAP provides to use your software to its full potential.
About the Release Navigator: Enable yourself on the latest updates, leave feedback, and utilize other Release Navigators for SAP Business Technology Platform, SAP Customer Experience, and SAP S/4HANA Public Edition by Enterprise Support.

Figure 1: My Home

New Access Points

Support.SAP.com

The release navigator for Spend Management and Business Network is now only two-clicks away from Support.SAP.com!

Go to the new Release Ready page.
Click on the Spend Management and Business Network link.

SAP Activate

The purpose of the Roadmap Viewer is to provide access to the SAP Activate methodology implementation roadmaps. Implementation roadmaps offer a comprehensive view of your project teams' associated activities, deliverables, and tasks with accompanying accelerator assets in document and hyperlink format.

Go to SAP Activate Roadmap Viewer and click on the Explore All Roadmaps button
Select one of the following Roadmaps:

Cloud Specific Methodology:

SAP Activate Methodology for SAP Ariba and SAP Fieldglass

Release and Update Cycles for SAP Ariba
Evaluate New Functionality
Under Accelerators: SAP ISBN – Release Navigator for Spend Management and Business Network

SAP Enterprise Support Value Map

The release navigator for Spend Management and Business Network will be also accessible through the SAP Enterprise Support value map for Spend Management and Business Network.

Value maps provide self-paced learnings, expert-led live sessions, collaborative forums, and access to SAP experts; all included as part of your SAP Cloud Solution subscription.

3 Easy Steps:

Complete a one-time sign-up for SAP Learning Hub, edition for SAP Enterprise Support which is required
Access value maps
Open the value map for Spend Management and Business Network

Got a question about the value maps, or content therein? Leverage the “ask questions” feature in the value map or contact us at sapesvaluemaps@sap.com.

Making Your Impact

At SAP, we value your opinions and suggestions very highly. You can submit release topics that you would like to be covered using our Topic Request & Feedback Survey tile found on the My Home page under the About the Release Navigator section.

This survey is an excellent opportunity for you to tell us how the release navigator for Spend Management and Business Network has worked for you and how we can make your release experience better. We also encourage you to share your feedback, thoughts, or questions in the comment section below.

Staying Connected

Follow the Intelligent Spend Management and Readiness@Scale community tags, and Ryan Russman to stay up to date with the latest blog posts.

Can Procurement overcome challenges with Sustainability, Digital Innovation and Uncertainty?

2024-02-15T11:01:36.772000+01:00

Procurement is navigating through transformative times, facing a mound of complex challenges. As organizations, clients, and modern technology intersect, procurement is shouldering expectations of not just adapting to these changes, but also pioneering novel approaches and strategies. Let us examine and peel back the layers of the key challenges standing in the sphere of procurement today:

Sustainability and social responsibility,
Digital Transformation and innovation, and
Uncertainty and Volatility

Sustainability and Social Responsibility

Now, more than ever, the procurement process needs to ensure its services and commodities are sustainable and have a positive societal impact. Not only does this enhance an organization's reputation, but it also builds trust, fosters loyalty, and spurs innovation.

As per a study conducted in 2019, a significant percentage of procurement team leads stated that their revenue and cost-efficiency improved through sustainability and social responsibility projects. However, these noble objectives come with their share of challenges, such as aligning suppliers with organizational values and incorporating sustainability into decision-making.

Several organizations, even at a global scale, have made commendable strides in overcoming these challenges. For instance, firms have established meticulous codes of conduct for their suppliers, setting standards for environmental, social, and working conditions, while others have resorted to traceability to monitor the social and environmental impacts of their supply chain.

Digital Transformation and Innovation

The digital era offers enormous opportunities for procurement to catapult its efficiency and value-generation. However, leveraging these opportunities is no easy task. It requires a clear vision, planning, and substantial investment in skill enhancement of the procurement staff.

A recent survey indicates that most procurement leads believe digital technologies have bolstered productivity and adherence to quality and compliance. Several multinational organizations embody this digital revolution, investing in technologies to augment their procurement process, client-oriented digital solutions, and systems to navigate the complexity of digital transformation.

Uncertainty and Volatility

External global factors such as pandemics, political shifts and climate change cause disruptions and unpredictability that procurement departments must handle. These challenges demand robust risk management, strategic planning, and a high degree of flexibility in supply chain operations.

Several organizations have successfully tackled these challenges through data analytics, contingency planning, sourcing strategies, and smartly leveraging technology to improve supply chain visibility.

SAP and SAP Ariba: Your Procurement Solutions

Leading tech solutions provider, SAP and its cloud-based application, SAP Ariba, offer much-needed respite from these procurement challenges. With innovative features like supplier lifecycle management, strategic sourcing, and contract management, SAP Ariba provides crucial tools for an organization to succeed in today's volatile market. By leveraging the power of this platform, procurement can align itself with sustainability objectives, digitally transform and innovate, and cut through the fog of uncertainty and volatility.

The Way Forward

In conclusion, procurement is standing at a crossroads of intertwined challenges, each demanding a balanced, thoughtful approach. The secrets to success lie in perpetual learning, evolution, collaboration, and future-focused strategizing. Expansion of partnerships with solution providers like SAP could be a milestone in your procurement journey.

Best-in-class KPIs for all three challenges might include:

Sustainability and Social Responsibility: Percentage of suppliers meeting sustainability criteria, reduction in carbon footprint, waste reduction.

Digital Transformation and Innovation: Percentage increase in digital procurement processes, reduction in process cycle times, supplier satisfaction rates.

Uncertainty and Volatility: Reduction in supply chain disruptions, increase in supplier diversification, establishment of contingency plans.

So, how are you equipping your procurement department to face these challenges? Are you ready to embrace the technology solutions provided by leaders such as SAP and SAP Ariba? Remember, the procurement sector's future hinges on continuous adaptation and a strong commitment to excellence.

SAP Ariba Strategic Sourcing Suite SAP Ariba Supplier Lifecycle and Performance SAP Ariba Supplier Risk

Importance of good product descriptions in catalogs.

2024-02-20T19:10:57.607000+01:00

Expanding upon the blog on how to differentiating within a marketplace...

Product descriptions are an important part of any catalog, as they help potential customers understand what the product is and why they should buy it. A well-written product description can help to increase sales by providing potential customers with the information they need to decide. This is extremely important when your products appear along side similar products from other suppliers on marketplaces and eProcurement application.

Sourcing Product Descriptions

There are many sources for product descriptions, including OEMs, Channel, 3rd Party content providers and AI generators.

OEM: The manufacturer or brand of the product often provides detailed descriptions of the product on their website. These descriptions can be a wealth of information about the product, including its features, benefits, and any warranties or guarantees.
Channel Partners: If you are a multi-tier distributors, your tier1 channel partners may provide access to augmented content.
Third-Party content providers. Multiple services are available for free or for fee that can provide descriptions, images, and attributes that can be used in catalogs.
AI Generators: There are many online tools and websites that can generate product descriptions.
Self-managed content: Many distributors make use of librarians to write proprietary descriptions.

It is recommended to blend a combination of all of the above and tactically invest in self-managed content on products where differentiation is critical.

Self-Managed Content

There are several factors to consider when curating self-managed content.

Informing customers: Product descriptions provide detailed information about the features, specifications, and benefits of a product. They help customers understand what the product does, how it works, and how it can meet their needs. This information is essential for customers to make informed purchasing decisions.
Differentiating products: In a catalog, there may be multiple products that are similar or serve the same purpose. Product descriptions help highlight the unique selling points of each product, making it easier for customers to compare and choose the one that best suits their requirements. Effective descriptions can help differentiate products from competitors and increase the chances of a sale.
Know your audience: Understand the needs, desires, and pain points of your target audience. Tailor your product description to address these specific points.
Focus on benefits: Instead of simply listing features, emphasize how your product will improve the customer's life. Explain how it solves a problem, saves time, enhances well-being, or brings joy.
Highlight unique features: If your product has unique features or benefits, make sure to emphasize them in your product description. For example, if your product is made with high-quality materials, mention that in the product description.
Use descriptive language: Use descriptive language to help potential customers visualize the product and its benefits. For example, if your product is a piece of clothing, describe how the fabric feels and how it fits.
Use customer testimonials: If you have customer testimonials or reviews, include them in your product description. This will help potential customers feel more confident in purchasing your product.
Keep it concise and scannable: When feeding catalogs into eprocurement or marketplaces, confirm your descriptions match field limitations.

Search engine optimization (SEO): Optimizing your product descriptions for search engines can help improve your website's visibility and drive more traffic. Here are some tips to optimize SEO with product descriptions:

Research keywords: Identify relevant keywords that people are likely to use when searching for products like yours. Use keyword research tools or platforms like Google Keyword Planner to find popular and relevant keywords.
Use keywords strategically: Incorporate your keywords naturally into your product descriptions. Place them in the title, and throughout the body of the description. However, avoid keyword stuffing, as it can negatively impact user experience and search engine rankings. Avoid relying solely on generic OEM descriptions or copying content from other websites. Craft unique and compelling product descriptions that highlight the features, benefits, and unique selling points of your products. This will help search engines understand the uniqueness of your content.
Focus on readability: Write descriptions that are easy to read and understand. Use clear and concise language. This will improve user experience and encourage visitors to stay on your page longer, which can positively impact your search engine rankings.
Include media: Enhance your product descriptions with high-quality images, videos, and interactive elements.
Provide detailed information: Be thorough in your product descriptions and provide as much relevant information as possible. Include specifications, dimensions, materials, and any other details that users may find useful. This helps search engines understand the context and relevance of your products.

Remember, SEO is an ongoing process, and it's important to regularly monitor your content and make necessary adjustments to improve your rankings.

Building trust and brand awareness: Detailed and accurate product descriptions help build trust with customers. When customers have access to comprehensive information about a product, including its features, materials, dimensions, and any applicable warranties or guarantees, they feel more confident about the product's quality and suitability for their needs. This trust can lead to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty to the OEM and the Distributor. When the same product is sold via multiple distributors the description can help make the decision.

Overall, well-written product descriptions are essential for effectively showcasing products, informing customers, driving sales, and building trust in a catalog.

Suppliers should merge all electronic pipelines into an Omni-channel strategy.

2024-02-23T18:35:56.547000+01:00

Expanding upon the blog on how to differentiate within a marketplace...

Omni-channel sales for B2B (business-to-business) refers to a sales strategy that integrates multiple channels and touchpoints to provide customers a seamless and consistent buying experience. It involves utilizing various online and offline channels, such as websites, mobile apps, social media, email, phone, and in-person interactions, to engage with potential buyers and facilitate their purchasing journey. Historically, SAP Ariba has focused solely on a simple commodity catalog (either cif or punchout) with pre-defined pricing and ignored the broader multi-channel needs of B2B procurement. Need a widget, find a widget, buy a widget. Omni-channel sales blend the multiple engagement points and value-added/assisted needs of complex goods and services. This is seen in significant non-catalog ordering on SBN for Simple & Complex Services and Complex Goods.

Here are some key aspects of omnichannel sales for B2B:

Multiple Channels: B2B companies leverage various channels to reach their target audience. This includes having a solid online presence through websites, e-commerce platforms, and mobile apps, as well as utilizing offline channels like brick-and-mortar stores, quoting, call centers, and direct sales.
Consistent Messaging: Regardless of the channel, omnichannel sales ensure consistent messaging and branding. This helps build customer trust and familiarity, as they receive the same information and experience across different touchpoints. Trading Partner Portal remains key link across options.
Seamless Integration: Omni-channel sales focuses on integrating different channels and touchpoints to provide a seamless experience for customers. For example, a customer might research a product online, request a quote via email, and then finalize the purchase as a non-catalog order via Ariba. Reminder: over 80% of all network transactions are non-catalog today. The goal is to make the transition between channels as smooth as possible, allowing customers to pick up where they left off without any disruption. Syncing chat, quote integration, and punch-in helps address gaps.
Personalization: Omni-channel sales aims to personalize the buying experience based on customer preferences and behavior. By collecting and analyzing customer data from various channels, companies can tailor their messaging, offers, and recommendations to suit individual customer needs, increasing the likelihood of a value-added sale.
Customer Support: Omni-channel sales also extend to customer support and post-sales service. B2B companies provide support through multiple channels, such as phone, email, live chat, and social media, ensuring customers can reach out for assistance using their preferred method. Today, engagement is limited to the collaboration feature and simple catalog buying.
Data Integration: To effectively implement omni-channel sales, B2B companies need to integrate data from different channels and touchpoints. This gives them a holistic view of customer interactions, preferences, and buying patterns, enabling better decision-making and targeted marketing efforts. Analytics, Analytics, Analytics.

Overall, omni-channel sales for B2B focuses on creating a seamless and personalized buying experience by integrating multiple channels and touchpoints. By doing so, companies can enhance customer satisfaction, improve sales conversion rates, and build stronger customer relationships. Focusing on omni-channel will prevent that downgrade and potentially reverse the pattern. The best way to support an omni-channel approach is with a punchout store. A user should be able to request quotes and chat sessions and retrieve the quote via a punchout experience. The seller controls how these channels interop through the experience.

Uncertainty and Volatility in B2B Procurement

2024-03-04T14:18:25.522000+01:00

In this complex network of industrious aspects such as manufacturing, sales, and distribution, procurement often remains under-emphasized, even though it is an essential part of business operations.

This fundamental element is significant in various sectors, including manufacturing, retail, construction, and healthcare. For businesses to thrive, it's vital to grasp a solid understanding of the multifaceted nature of procurement.

One of the most captivating aspects of procurement lies in how uncertainty and volatility play defining roles in its mechanisms. While procurement occurs in a market defined by its unpredictability, it's not completely random. It unveils a range of remarkable opportunities and concrete risks. For both buyers and suppliers, comprehending how these dimensions can impact their operations is vital to their survival and could potentially deliver a competitive edge.

External and internal factors

The factors contributing to uncertainty and volatility in procurement are multilayered. Interestingly, these aspects are constantly evolving, influenced by several external and internal elements. For example, the decisions of one buyer could significantly reverberate throughout the supply chain, setting off an unexpected chain of reactions.

Or, a sudden external shock like a pandemic, natural disaster, or geopolitical upheaval could rapidly pivot the landscape.

Internally, the capabilities of buyers and suppliers could evolve over time, molded by their experiences, resource investments, and advancements in their processes. Thus, market participants must not only understand the nature and origins of uncertainty and volatility in procurement but also formulate suitable strategies and tools to skillfully manage risks or harness potential opportunities.

Demand uncertainty and supply uncertainty

Classifying uncertainty in procurement primarily splits it into two categories: demand uncertainty and supply uncertainty. Both types can significantly impact the performance and actions of buyers and suppliers, though in different ways.

Demand uncertainty influences procurement in several ways. It can pose challenges to demand forecasting, complicate inventory management, and lead to poor ordering behaviors. On the other hand, supply uncertainty can make the supplier selection process daunting, complexify contract design, and affect supplier relationship management.

Interestingly, the impact of uncertainty and volatility is not a one-way street; procurement, in turn, may also impact these elements. Just as procurement strategies can bolster demand forecasting and enhance inventory management, choosing reliable and diversified suppliers can help mitigate supply issues. Therefore, an optimized procurement strategy can add value and not just reduce uncertainty and volatility.

While dealing with uncertainty and volatility may initially appear intimidating, it can also be an avenue for growth and advantage. By employing appropriate strategies and leveraging the right tools, buyers and suppliers can effectively manipulate market uncertainties and turn them into invaluable opportunities.

Keep in mind

To navigate the unpredictable and volatile procurement landscape, a few important aspects should be kept in mind. Thoroughly examining the sources and types of uncertainty, leveraging digital innovations, and fostering a cooperative supplier relationship is crucial. It is equally significant to be cautious about the use of outdated or erroneous data, maintaining a balance in the procurement strategy, and handling the supplier relationship correctly.

Buyers and suppliers who wish to navigate the uncertain and volatile procurement landscape successfully must regularly check the sources and types of uncertainty in procurement, create a flexible procurement strategy that adapts to changing market situations, leverage technology to expedite and optimize procurement, and maintain a healthy supplier relationship.

It is worth mentioning that businesses must anticipate and avoid common pitfalls that could negatively impact efficiency and satisfaction levels. In conclusion, uncertainty and volatility form an integral part of every procurement process, but with the right strategies, buyers and suppliers can effectively handle these elements and leverage them to their advantage. The success lies in astute planning, adaptability, technological leverage, and a harmonious relationship.

The technical solution

SAP and SAP Ariba Procurement are technological solutions that help businesses navigate through uncertainties and volatility in procurement processes. They offer tools for better forecasting, supplier selection, contract design, and supplier relationship management, turning these challenges into opportunities for growth and competitive advantage.

The Procurement Monthly - Feb 2024

2024-03-06T06:06:57.896000+01:00

Summary

Quite a few reports this month, we can summarise across 3 main areas. Business Priorities, Procurement Priorities and Technology Priorities.

Business Priorities – Growth, margin protection, economic concerns, drive for efficiency concerns about risk and cyber

Procurement Priorities – Digital Transformation, Cost Management, Supply and Supplier risk, Driving efficiency.

Technology Priorities – AI, Cyber, Core procurement, category management.

Hackett Key Issues Report

One of the most influential reports was launched this month, with the 2024 edition of the key issues study. With an uncertain economic and geopolitical outlook, organisations are focussed on protecting growth, and building margin. Procurement in its efforts to align and be a strategic advisor to the business then needs to look at the top 3 priorities for procurement namely, improving spend cost reduction, ensuring supply continuity and combatting inflationary price increases.

In the drive for efficiency, its not surprising that digital transformation is in the top 10, and this is aligned with many other research reports recently, and as per last year there is a productivity gap (ie workload increasing, headcount either static or increasing at a slower rate) which the expectation is that technology will need to help. Within the technology, the prediction is for double digit growth in core technologies for pretty much all areas, as well as for supporting tech (category management, pipeline management, risk etc)

A new entrant to the top 10 was operating model transformation, as technology matures, and new technology (Gen AI – which is likely driving the renewed fervour around digital transformation) operating models are adapting to mee these. In the Economist survey for 2024, we have asked a direct question about the type of operating models that are evolving for procurement so stay tuned for that!

Supporting these priorities come the top 10 improvement initiatives, which include better data, talent, and service design (cat man, sourcing, SRM – as these 3 main stays of procurement deployments begin to coalesce and deliver their potential value.

Overall, its worthwhile downloading and reading (as always!)

RS/CIPS Indirect Procurement Report

In this the 7th edition of the indirect procurement report, it identifies that the top business pressures reported are the need to ensure sustainable and ethical procurement (32%), improve asset performance (32%) and cope with reduced operational budgets (30%). Pressure to reduce inventory costs (28%) and the increased cost of indirect materials such as MRO (27%) are also significant.

Key procurement challenges for the next 12 months were identified as Inflation and cost management (37%), managing risk in the supply chain (31%) and supply chain disruption (30%) which in many ways echoes the Hackett report and others with the key issues/challenges for procurement.

Interestingly the day-to-day challenges identified (separate to the broader strategic challenges) included ensuring contract compliance and delivering cost savings. This pressure to derive efficiency, and to minimise internal complexity are seen as the top reasons for adopting new technology.

The report then links these to the digital procurement service, identifying that benefits of this include reduced time, better spend visibility, and off contract spend identification.

The report has a section about ESG which is again rising in the agenda as the economic headwinds slowly ease, and like the Economist report last year identified that less than 40% had confidence in procurement to deliver ESG outcomes. It also identified that the biggest challenges for delivering on ESG outcomes were the cost saving challenge (and priority as earlier mentioned) not enough specialist skills and misconceptions around ESG (which is interesting seeing as one of the misconceptions is the price premium!)

AoP – Procurement Transformation

This paper is a write up of both a podcast and the KPMG report that we covered in detail last month. It is worth reading as it adds a compelling narrative around the numbers in the report.

Key points that jumped out to me (beyond the numbers):

Supply chain fragility is still top of mind (and I suspect will be for a while yet)
Supplier relationships are critical for procurement to deliver its objectives, and these are being recognised beyond the procurement walls.
Having a roadmap for development is critical. These roadmaps should include operating model evolutions talent & skills as well as technology and be beyond the next 18 months.
Whilst ESG may be more of a priority down the line its crucial to prepare now for this.

AQPC Procurement in the Cloud & Benchmarks

A couple of reports from AQPC this month, the first, procurement in the cloud, surveys how procurement technology is deployed, identifying that cloud technology (31%) now leads on premise (21%) however that most (48%) run a mix of deployments. Of those who run cloud (either mixed or sole then public cloud (31%) leads private cloud (19%) but the majority (50%) is mixed.

What does this mean?

AQPC stated that cloud gives greater benefits including enhanced data security and resilience, lower costs, ability to drive scale and more reliability. The report also identifies that whilst private cloud offers better security, it is also less scalable, so these are some of the tradeoffs discussed.

The second report is a cross industry (there are also industry specific reports) report into benchmarking efficiency metrics. Timely considering that many procurement studies are stating the need for improved efficiency.

Benchmarks included, Electronic PO – 80%, cycle time to issue PO (1.0 for services, 2.0 for goods) P2P cycle times (45 days for goods, 58 days for services)

Beroe/Rob Handfield Interview

Its always worthwhile to listen/read to what Rob has to say on global supply chains and what it means and this interview is no different! Ron is professor of Supply Chain Management at North Carolina State University

In this interview Rob discuses key supply chain trends such as Supply Chain resilience, Technology such as Gen AI and digital twins and their uses for procurement and the geopolitical climate and its impact on strategies such as nearshoring/reshoring.

It’s a quick 5-minute read, that will have you thinking for a lot longer!

Prevalent 3rd Party Risk

This paper looks at 6 third party risks and gives some ideas for managing them. The 6 are

Cybersecurity - The rise of ransomware attacks and new data breach notification rules mean that more companies need to understand how their vendors secure critical data.
Supplier reputational risk - Consumers and business customers are more likely to react poorly to corporate missteps, which could have a significant negative downward pressure on revenues.
Business Continuity - continue to grow in the face of the rising tide of business bankruptcies and reorganizations.
Safety and reliability- Understanding the safety and reliability records of your vendors and suppliers can have a substantial impact on your company’s operational resilience.
Supplier ESG - More regulators worldwide have inked new ESG laws to shed light on corporate business practices.
Bribery and corruption - As the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act remains enforced worldwide and more governments monitor their businesses for corruption, companies would do well to understand their exposure to this risk category.

On a recent webinar I was on with Jason Busch of Spend Matters, we discussed the number of suppliers heading toward bankruptcy (according to prevalent 25% of organisations have been impacted by the failure of a supplier over the past year and chapter 11 bankruptcies grew by 72% of the last year!)

Cyber is on everyone’s agenda and in the report they identified that 41% of companies had experienced an impactful third party data breach over the last 12 months.

It’s a very handy how to guide to get you thinking if any of these areas are on your agenda and to act as a starting point.

Proxima CPO Report

This report is a little different that the other CPO reports, in that its not a survey, but the experience of Proxima in their dealings with clients, and in-depth interviews with a range of procurement leaders.

Unsurprisingly the themes of risk, cost and sustainability rank highly in the paper and in the minds and agendas of many procurement leaders, and it is very interesting to read the in-depth interviews from each of these leaders.

Thomas Udesen – Bayer discusses being efficiency and pragmatic with practices and protocols and drive to simplify rules to add value.

Sandra Brummitt – NI Source discuses resilience in terms of balancing supply in the face of conflicting headwinds. She also discussed digital and momentum in sustainability (potentially lost due to the economic headwinds of the previous year)

Laura Cook – Primark, discusses technology and its impact on operating models and the need to develop relationships with suppliers as well as internal stakeholders.

Tim Herrod – Albermarle discusses being ready and flexibility to cope with whatever comes next, as well as using data, digital and partnerships to find solutions.

Gareth Rhys Williams – Cabinet office UK Gov discusses being outcome focussed, regulations and sustainability.

Overall, an interesting read to see how these leaders are thinking about procurement for 2024 (and beyond)

Conference Board C Suite

Thanks to Pierre Mitchell at Spend matters for sharing this with me. This is a study of over 1200 C suite execs including 630 CEOs and provides valuable insights into organisational pressures and how procurement leaders can align themselves to help solve.

The top external issues that will impact companies are Economic downturn, inflation and Global political instability, like the Hackett business key issues study reviewed earlier. As a result most CEOs say they are making supply chain adjustments, two-thirds of CEOs globally and more than half in the US say they either plan to alter their supply chains in the next three to five years or are already doing so. Their number-one adjustment: introducing AI and digital technology.

State of the CIO Report – Foundry

This report from Foundry is a survey of 800+ global IT leaders and 250 LOB leaders, is now in its 23rd year and whilst not exclusive about procurement IT, it is worthwhile understanding the broader context, especially if you want to put a business case up! There are some interesting stats that jump out. 43% identified that automating business processes are the top priority, and 32% stated that implementing or creating AI apps are top. There is a strong drive for cybersecurity investment increases, and increasing operational efficiency are the top 2 business priorities driving IT investment. The expectation from 54% is an increase in budget, with 35% saying it will remain the same as last year. Interestingly 63% of CIO stated that they plan to work closer with LOB leaders over the next 12 months.

Voices of Sourcing - Keelvar

In our final report, we have a Voices of sourcing survey report from Keelvar. IN line with the earlier reports both from this month and last, Supply chain disruption and market volatility and inflation were major challenges for the previous 12 months, and the drive for 2024, will be all about cost management and efficiency.

The pressure to increase savings is getting bigger, and procurement teams, according to the report, are looking to automation non-strategic spend, and optimising strategic spend to help deliver. It was interesting to note the 49% looking at initiatives such as dynamic discounting, as working capital featured highly on the business priorities, but sometimes doesn’t make it to procurement priorities.

Digital transformation then is at the top of procurements agenda, echoing reports from KPMG, Hackett, and others.

As always reach out to discuss more, links to the reports are included and always happy to hear your thoughts!

Navigating the Data-Driven World of Procurement Analytics: The Roadmap to Achieving Best-In-Class St

2024-04-05T13:35:29.677000+02:00

In the rapidly progressive digital era, procurement analytics mastery has emerged as a crucial strategic asset, providing crucial insights for enhancing business efficiency and fortifying performance. But how does one truly excel in this integral domain? This guide outlines a comprehensive pathway to achieving elite status in procurement analytics.

Data Quality and Governance: The Cornerstone of Analytical Mastery

The first step to mastering procurement analytics involves effective data management. Access to accurate, complete, consistent, and timely data is vital for insightful analysis. A study by The Hackett Group cites that 70% of businesses find their data quality impeding their ability to capitalise on digital platforms. The implementation of concrete policies, standards, and protocols for data collection, validation, integration, storage, and protection significantly enhances your analytical prowess.

Blend and Integrate Data Sources

Judicious procurement decision-making demands access and fusion of data from a plethora of internal and external sources. These may encompass comprehensive data comprising procurement, finance, sales, inventory, customer, supplier, ERP, market, and industry specifics. Research in the Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce has revealed that productive data unification results in annual savings of 3% for businesses. Employing tools such as data warehouses, data lakes, APIs, and ETL processes can optimise this integration process.

Harness the Potential of Data Analysis and Visualisation

Extracting insightful data, the crux of procurement analytics, using analytical techniques like descriptive, diagnostic, predictive, prescriptive analytics and graphical representations such as dashboards, reports, charts and maps, aid in drawing these insights. Gartner reveals that businesses utilising visual data discovery are apt to find timely information 28% more than others.

Nurturing a Data-Driven Culture along with Capability Enhancement

A successful data analytics strategy encompasses more than just sophisticated tools; it requires a shift to a data-driven corporate culture. This shift has been ratified by a NewVantage Partners survey, with 92.2% of businesses acknowledging people and processes as the major roadblocks to adopting Big Data and AI in daily operations. Emphasise on honing the skills of procurement staff and partners while encouraging data usage and analytics in day-to-day tasks and strategic planning can promote a culture emphasising curiosity, collaboration, learning, and innovation.

With the roadmap clearly laid out above, remember that the journey to mastering procurement analytics is dependent on quality data, wholesome data integration, solid data analysis and visuals, and an unwaveringly data-centric organisational culture. Keeping these aspects in focus will enable your procurement analysis efforts to push your company to new heights amidst stringent market competition.

In conclusion, resource investment in honing your procurement analytics capabilities will not only help you keep pace with rapid advancements, but also firmly position you at the vanguard of best-in-class performers. Don't miss the opportunity to bolster your procurement strategy with data analytics today and embrace the challenges of the future with confidence.

Feel free to read my previous blog on Boosting Business Success with Procurement Analytics: A Journey Paved with Numbers

SAP Ariba Spend Analysis

Configuration: SAP Ariba SSO with SAP Cloud Identity Services - Identity Authentication

2024-04-10T15:18:20.686000+02:00

See as well:

Table of Contents:

SAP IAS SAML Metadata Retrieval
SAP Ariba SAML Metadata Retrieval (PLICM-871)
SAP IAS SAML Authentication Configuration
SAP Ariba SAML Authentication Self-service Configuration (PLICM-871)
SAP Ariba SSO Verification
- Validate the SAP Ariba SSO via Intelligent Configuration Management
- Validate the SAP Ariba SSO by accessing the SAP Ariba URL in the browser
  - SAP Ariba without SSO
  - SAP Ariba with SSO to SAP IAS
  - SAP Ariba with SSO to Microsoft Entra ID

SAP IAS SAML Metadata Retrieval

To retrieve SAML Metadata from SAP IAS:

enter the below SAP IAS URL into browser:
https://<SAP IAS tenant id>.accounts.ondemand.com/saml2/metadata?action=download
store the downloaded SAP IAS Metadata File

SAP Ariba SAML Authentication Self-service Configuration (PLICM-871)

From 2402 release of "PLICM-871: Ability to Configure SAML Authentication Settings in Intelligent Configuration Manager" feature, customers can retrieve the SAP Ariba metadata file as self-service.

Note: In case of configuring the SSO setup for SAP Ariba Sourcing, SAP Ariba Contracts, SAP Ariba Supplier Lifecycle and Performance for suite-integrated tenants the SSO setup and thus the metadata retrieval needs to be executed on the SAP Ariba procurement tenant (e.g. for US DC https://<SAP Ariba tenant id>.procurement.ariba.com). In case of SAP Ariba multi-ERP configuration setup (f.k.a Federated Process Control FPC) the SSO configuration and metadata retrieval needs to happen for the parent tenant.
For standalone (not suite-integrated) SAP Ariba sourcing tenant (e.g. for US DC https://<SAP Ariba tenant id>.sourcing.ariba.com)

Prerequisites:

SAP Ariba user with Third Party Enterprise User (Ariba) type
SAP Ariba user with Customer Administrator group membership

To configure SAP Ariba SAML Authentication with SAP IAS:

enter the SAP Ariba tenant as per Note above using the Third Party Enterprise User (Ariba) login URL (e.g. for US DC https://<SAP Ariba tenant id>.procurement.ariba.com/?passwordadapter=ThirdPartyUser)
navigate to Manage -> (Core Administration - for SAP Ariba procurement tenant or Administration for SAP ariba sourcing tenant) -> Intelligent Configuration Manager -> Manage Configurations -> [Continue] -> Authentication -> [Update]
load the SAP IAS Metadata File you retrieved from SAP IAS
select Enable SAML authentication to Yes, to enable the SSO (all the data are pregonfigured from the imported SAP IAS Metadata File)
press [Submit]

press [Approve]

press [Apply] - after this step SAP Ariba SSO changes will take effect!

In case the Enable SAML authentication is set to Yes, SAP Ariba will use to authenticate the users credentials (passwords) stored in SAP IAS and not credentials (passwords) stored in SAP Ariba. Therefore SAP Ariba business users will need to be invited to SAP IAS, activate their accounts and create their user credentials (passwords)

In case the Enable SAML authentication is set to No, SAP Ariba will use to authenticate the users credentials (passwords) stored in SAP Ariba

Note: Users of type Third Party Enterprise User (Ariba), using the *?passwordadapter=ThirdPartyUser URL to login into SAP Ariba will always keep using credentials (passwords) stored in SAP Ariba, no matter of the SSO enablement

SAP Ariba SAML Metadata Retrieval (PLICM-871)

Prerequisites:

SAP Ariba user with Customer Administrator group membership

To retrieve SAML Metadata from SAP Ariba:

enter the SAP Ariba tenant as per Note above
navigate to Manage -> (Core Administration - for SAP Ariba procurement tenant or Administration for SAP ariba sourcing tenant) -> Intelligent Configuration Manager -> Manage Configurations -> [Continue] -> Authentication
download and store the appropriate Test or Production SAP Ariba Metadata File

Note: Because of current temporary gap in the SAP Ariba Metadata File generation, manual adjustment to the entityID attribute value is required as per the process described below.
(assumption here is that the SAP Ariba SSO SAML configuration was already setup and SAP Ariba tenant has SSO enabled)

Manual SAP Ariba Metadata File adjustment process:

Run chrome://extensions/ in Google Chrome browser
Navigate to Chrome Web Store

Search for SAML Chrome Panel -> [Add to Chrome]

Hit [F12] to open the Chrome DevTools
Open your SAP Ariba tenant URL in Google Chrome
(e.g. https://<SAP Ariba tenant id>.procurement.ariba.com)
Navigate to the Chrome DevTools -> SAML -> copy the value of the SAP Ariba SAML Request saml2:Issuer XML element (e.g. http://<SAP Ariba tenant id>.procurement.ariba.com)

Open the SAP Ariba Metadata File and replace the value of entityID attribute with the value of saml2:Issuer XML element, retrieved from SAP Ariba SAML in the Chrome DevTools and save the modified SAP Ariba Metadata File

SAP IAS SAML Authentication Configuration

Prerequisites:

SAP IAS user added as Administrator to SAP IAS (Users & Authorizations -> Administrators -> [Add])

To configure SAP IAS SAML Authentication with SAP Ariba:

enter the SAP IAS Administration Console via https://<SAP IAS tenant id>.accounts.ondemand.com/admin
navigate to Application & Resources -> Application -> [Create] to create Application for SAP Ariba as Service Provider (SP)
- Enter the Display Name, choose SAP Ariba solution as Type, SAML 2.0 as Protocol Type and hit [Create]

navigate to SAML 2.0 Configuration and upload the adjusted SAP Ariba Metadata File

SAML 2.0 configuration is pre-set out of the uploaded SAP Ariba Metadata File

hit [Save]

navigate to Subject Name Identifier and set the Primary Attribute Value to Login Name and hit [Save]

ensure the users setup in SAP IAS have the Login Name set and matching to the SAP Ariba user UniqueName
- navigate to Users & Authorizations -> User Management -> and specific user SAP IAS Login Name needs to match user SAP Ariba UniqueName

SAP IAS User Profile:

SAP Ariba User Profile:

In case you are reading this line, you have successfully configured the Single Sign-On (SSO) between SAP Ariba as Service Provider (SP) and SAP IAS as Identity Provider (IdP)!

SAP Ariba SSO Verification

To verify the status of the SAP Ariba SSO Setup follow one of the options below:

Validate the SAP Ariba SSO via Intelligent Configuration Management
Validate the SAP Ariba SSO by accessing the SAP Ariba URL in the browser

Validate the SAP Ariba SSO via Intelligent Configuration Management

Prerequisites:

SAP Ariba user with Customer Administrator group membership

To review existing SAP Ariba SSO setup:

enter the SAP Ariba tenant
navigate to Manage -> (Core Administration - for SAP Ariba procurement tenant or Administration for SAP ariba sourcing tenant) -> Intelligent Configuration Manager -> Manage Configurations -> [Continue] -> Authentication
check the SAP Ariba SSO configuration for Test or Production

Validate the SAP Ariba SSO by accessing the SAP Ariba URL in the browser

Validate the SAP Ariba SSO setup by accessing the SAP Ariba URL via browser - accessing the business user access URL (e.g. for US DC https://<SAP Ariba tenant id>.sourcing.ariba.com).

Below tests will not work in case browser certificate is used and the business user is logged in to SAP Ariba without entering credentials.

SAP Ariba without SSO

Reaching below SAP Ariba Login screen means, SAP Ariba SSO is not setup and SAP Ariba site requires the user credentials to be entered as stored in SAP Ariba

SAP Ariba with SSO to SAP IAS

Reaching below SAP IAS Login screen means, SAP Ariba SSO is setup with SAP IAS (directly, without further identity federation) and SAP Ariba site requires the user credentials to be entered as stored in SAP IAS

SAP Ariba with SSO to Microsoft Entra ID

Reaching below Microsoft Entra ID Login screen means, SAP Ariba SSO is setup with Microsoft Entra ID and SAP Ariba site requires the user credentials to be entered as stored in SAP Microsoft Entra ID

Note: You can achieve the usage of Microsoft Entra ID for SAP Ariba SSO via direct configuration to Microsoft Entra ID or via Identity Federation setup of SAP IAS, in case of Identity Federation, SAP Ariba SSO is setup to SAP IAS and SAP IAS delegates all the authentication requests to Microsoft Entra ID. Because of this we might not be able to recognize whether the SAP Ariba SSO is setup directly with Microsoft Entra ID or via SAP IAS Identity Federation.

See as well:

Overview: SAP Ariba SSO with SAP Cloud Identity Services - Identity Authentication

2024-04-10T15:19:19.410000+02:00

See as well:

Table of Contents:

Single Sign-On (SSO), Service Provider (SP), Identity Provider (IdP) and Identity Provider Proxy (IdP Proxy)
SAP Cloud Identity Services - Identity Authentication (SAP IAS - SAP Identity Authentication Service) Authentication Scenarios
- Identity Provider (IdP) - Authentication Scenario
- Identity Federation with Identity Provider Proxy (IdP Proxy) - Authentication Scenario
- Service Provider (SP) vs Identity Provider (IdP) Initiated Authentication
SAP IAS Landscape Review and Recommendations
- Review of Available SAP IAS Systems in Customer Landscape
- Review of SAP IAS System Customer Administrators
- Process of New SAP IAS System Provisioning

Single Sign-On (SSO), Service Provider (SP), Identity Provider (IdP) and Identity Provider Proxy (IdP Proxy)

Single Sign-On (SSO) is an authentication and authorization process that allows an User to access multiple enterprise applications with a single set of login credentials (username and password). Service Provider (SP) hosts a service (e.g. SAP Ariba Buying) that User wants to access. This Service Provider (SP) trusts the Identity Provider (IdP) (e.g. SAP IAS or Microsoft Entra ID), which controls the User access. SSO supports various protocols like Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) or OpenID Connect.

Identity Provider (IdP)

System responsible for User authentication
Uniquely Identifies the User
Contains User Store with and additional User Attributes (name, mail, group membership, ...)
Contains User Credentials (username/password)
Issues additional User Attributes (name, mail, group membership, ...)
Trusts one or multiple Service Providers (SPs)

Service Provider (SP)

System delegating User authentication to Identity Provider (IdP)
Relies on the User identity and User Attributes from Identity Provider (IdP)
Trusts single Identity Provider (IdP)

SAP Cloud Identity Services - Identity Authentication (SAP IAS - SAP Identity Authentication Service) Authentication Scenarios

SAP Cloud Identity Services is SAP product for authentication and Single Sign-On (SSO) in cloud referred as SAP IAS (Identity Authentication Service) as well.

To be compliant with the latest SAP Ariba "Next Generation" solutions (e.g. SAP Ariba Category Management, Supplier Profile Summary in SAP Ariba Supplier Lifecycle and Performance, ...) it is mandatory to have the SAP Ariba solutions' Single Sign-On (SSO) setup with SAP IAS (Test or Production).

SAP IAS can be setup as Identity Provider (IdP) or configured with Identity Federation to serve as Identity Provider Proxy (IdP Proxy) to another Identity Provider (IdP) -> Customer Managed IdP (e.g. Microsoft Entra ID IdP).

Identity Provider (IdP) - Authentication Scenario

This authentication scenario assumes the User Store and User Credentials persistence in Identity Provider (IdP) - SAP IAS. Thus the user information needs to be available, activated, with generated credentials in Identity Provider (IdP) - SAP IAS.

To establish the SSO:

Metadata needs to be obtained from Service Provider (SP) - SAP Ariba
Application representing the Service Provider (SP) - SAP Ariba needs to be created in Identity Provider (IdP) - SAP IAS using the metadata retrieved from Service Provider (SP) - SAP Ariba
Metadata needs to be obtained from Identity Provider (IdP) - SAP IAS
SSO needs to be configured in Service Provider (SP) - SAP Ariba using the metadata retrieved from Identity Provider (IdP) - SAP IAS

SSO execution (IdP initiated):

User accesses Service Provider (SP) - SAP Ariba URL
Service Provider (SP) - SAP Ariba will forward the authentication to Identity Provider (IdP) - SAP IAS
Identity Provider (IdP) - SAP IAS login window asking for User credentials is shown
User is authenticated by Identity Provider (IdP) - SAP IAS, based on the entered credentials and the response with User Identifier and User Attributes is send to Service Provider (SP) - SAP Ariba

For configuration details see:

Configuration: SAP Ariba SSO with SAP Cloud Identity Services - Identity Authentication

Identity Federation with Identity Provider Proxy (IdP Proxy) - Authentication Scenario

Identity Provider Proxy (IdP Proxy)

System responsible for User authentication, with conditional Identity Federation to Identity Provider (IdP)
Uniquely Identifies the User or delegates it to Identity Provider (IdP)
Can contain User Store and additional User Attributes or delegates it to Identity Provider (IdP)
Can contain User Credentials or delegates it to Identity Provider (IdP)
Issues additional User Attributes (name, mail, group membership, ...) or delegates it to Identity Provider (IdP)
Trusts one or multiple Service Providers (SPs)
Can trust one or more Identity Providers (IdPs)

Note: SAP IAS shall be configured as Identity Provider (IdP) also in case of Identity Federation authentication scenario, as Identity Federation as Identity Provider Proxy (IdP Proxy) is extension configuration of Identity Provider (IdP) itself.

This authentication scenario assumes the User Credentials persistence is outside SAP IAS in Customer Managed IdP (e.g. Microsoft Entra ID IdP). User Store (containing User Attributes) can be in SAP IAS or outside SAP IAS in Customer Managed IdP (e.g. Microsoft Entra ID IdP). No User Credentials needs to be maintained in SAP IAS as the authentication is forwarded outside SAP IAS in Customer Managed IdP (e.g. Microsoft Entra ID IdP).

Note: In case User Store is required in SAP IAS (e.g. for SAP Ariba SAP Task Center or SAP IAS Group membership access restriction), the users needs to be imported into SAP IAS. One possible way is using automated solution via Identity Provisioning (SAP IPS - SAP Identity Provisioning Service).

To establish the SSO with Identity Provider Proxy (IdP Proxy) :

Steps from above Identity Provider (IdP) - Authentication Scenario chapter needs to be in place to setup the SSO between Service Provider (SP) - SAP Ariba and Identity Provider Proxy (IdP Proxy) - SAP IAS
Metadata needs to be obtained from Identity Provider Proxy (IdP Proxy) - SAP IAS
Identity Provider Proxy (IdP Proxy) - SAP IAS needs to be created as Service Provider (SP) in Customer Managed IdP using the metadata retrieved from Identity Provider Proxy (IdP Proxy) - SAP IAS
Metadata needs to be obtained from Customer Managed IdP
Corporate Identity Provider representing the Customer Managed IdP needs to be created in Identity Provider Proxy (IdP Proxy) - SAP IAS using the metadata retrieved from Customer Managed IdP

SSO execution with Identity Provider Proxy (IdP Proxy) (IdP initiated):

User accesses SAP Ariba Service Provider (SP) - SAP Ariba URL
Service Provider (SP) - SAP Ariba will forward the authentication to Identity Provider Proxy (IdP) - SAP IAS
Identity Provider Proxy (IdP Proxy) - SAP IAS (based on optional condition) forwards the authentication request to Identity Provider (IdP) - Customer Managed IdP
Identity Provider (IdP) - Customer Managed IdP (e.g. Microsoft Entra ID IdP) login window asking for User credentials is shown
User is authenticated by Identity Provider (IdP) - Customer Managed IdP, based on the entered credentials and the response with User Identifier and User Attributes is send to Identity Provider Proxy (IdP Proxy) - SAP IAS
User authentication with User Identifier and User Attributes is further send from Identity Provider Proxy (IdP Proxy) - SAP IAS to Service Provider (SP) - SAP Ariba

For configuration details see:

Identity Federation: SAP Ariba SSO with SAP Cloud Identity Services - Identity Authentication

Service Provider (SP) vs Identity Provider (IdP) Initiated Authentication

User can access the resource represented by Service Provider (SP) via one of below approaches

Service Provider (SP) initiated authentication

Service Provider (SP) and Identity Provider (IdP) needs to have the signing certificates (part of the metadata) exchanged
User accesses the Service Provider (SP) URL
(e.g. https://<SAP Ariba tenant id>.procurement.ariba.com)
Service Provider (SP) forwards the authentication to Identity Provider (IdP)
Identity Provider (IdP) authenticates the User and redirects to Service Provider (SP)

Identity Provider (IdP) initiated authentication

Service Provider (SP) needs to have signing certificate of Identity Provider (IdP) (part of the metadata) configured
Signing certificate of Service Provider (SP) is not required to be configured in Identity Provider (IdP) in case of IdP initiated authentication
IdP Initiated Authentication needs to be enabled in Identity Provider (IdP)
User accesses the Identity Provider (IdP) URL with Service Provider (SP) identifier passed
(e.g. https://< SAP IAS tenant id>.accounts.ondemand.com/saml2/idp/sso?sp=<service provider name>)
Identity Provider (IdP) authenticates the User and redirects to Service Provider (SP)

SAP IAS Landscape Review and Recommendations

Review of Available SAP IAS Systems in Customer Landscape

Customer can review his SAP IAS landscape via S-User in SAP for Me (https://me.sap.com) -> Systems & Provisioning -> Systems -> Public Cloud Systems

Above means that SAP Ariba Test tenant SSO shall be established with SAP IAS Test and SAP Ariba Production tenant SSO shall be established with SAP IAS Production!

Review of SAP IAS System Customer Administrators

Customer can review his SAP IAS landscape via S-User in SAP for Me (https://me.sap.com) -> Systems & Provisioning -> Systems -> Public Cloud Systems -> navigate to specific system link

Process of New SAP IAS System Provisioning

Follow SAP IAS Tenants documentation to:

review SAP IAS tenant types
review SAP IAS licensing and usage
review SAP IAS data centers availability

Follow SAP IAS Initial Setup documentation to:

review existing customer SAP IAS landscape
request Test SAP IAS tenant creation
request additional SAP IAS tenant creation

See as well:

Summary: SAP Ariba SSO with SAP Cloud Identity Services - Identity Authentication

2024-04-10T15:25:47.836000+02:00

Root article grouping the individual topics related to SAP Ariba Single Sign-On (SSO) and SAP Cloud Identity Services - Identity Authentication (SAP IAS)

The Procurement Monthly - March 2024

2024-04-10T16:45:03.626000+02:00

Summary

Some quality reports this month, with the release of 3 staple reports that I look forward to, namely the trade in transition, the digital procurement report and the Sustainable barometer. What’s interesting is the trends reports all lead quite nicely to the deeper dive reports (suggesting that they really are trends!!)

Some quick takeaways, whilst supplier diversification is still in vogue, there are some areas where supply base reduction is re-emerging to improve relationships.

AI is a thing, no, really it is everywhere as Ardent states.

Environmental concerns (Scope 3, carbon footprint) are taking priority as focus areas, maybe as more legislation is driving this.

Cost management is still (and realistically always will be) a priority for many reasons, from funding the current and future business to providing alignment opportunities for procurement.

I hope you enjoy the summary and links are provided for downloads.

Ardent Predictions & Trends

To start this month, we have a couple of papers that identify mega trends and predictions, the first of which is from Ardent Partners. Ill discuss more about the trends than the predictions, but both are good reads.

To pull out some interesting and connected trends, Savings remain a top priority, and cost of capital making procurement more important. When cost of capital is high, it costs more to run a business, hence the importance of savings remaining key, even though one of the other trends is that inflation has stabilised.

The geopolitical tension, and deglobalisation will make supply chains interesting, which may drive the increase of friend shoring or at least duplication of supply chains. Finally, the explosion of contingent/external workforce spend is important, and as out study with Art of Procurement identified has the potential to return great value to organisations. Clearly the war for talent not just in procurement but across the organisation, driven by new technology and the changing nature of “core” means that there are many avenues which lead to the increase in the use of external workers, however you define them.

AI of course is, as the paper identifies, everywhere!

Procurement Mega Trends – Efficio

Hot on the heels of the Ardent report came this article from Efficio, that looks at the mega trends for the future of procurement. To summarise the 4 areas:

Digital Disruption, AI, Collaborative platforms, and cyber security. The report projects that AI will be critical for organisations by 2025 (39% of respondents to a Statista survey as opposed to 11% in 2022).
The war for talent increases – both for attracting new, but also for retention.
Sustainability – 70% of c suite members state the ESG topics are important strategic priorities for their companies, however the spend profiles on where the companies are directing efforts doesn’t necessarily match.
Geopolitical disruption – Being agile in the face of disruptions, becomes the new normal for procurement.

PWC Digital Procurement Study

This is my read of the month!

The 5th edition of the PWC digital procurement survey, has increased the responses to around 1,000 making it one of the largest procurement studies (though not the largest. Wait for the Economist Impact – sponsored by SAP).

Key takeaways

The top 5 strategic priorities identified in the report are: Procurement performance (Read cost control) 65%, Digital transformation 46%, CSR – 35%, Sourcing 35%, SRM 32%. There is a drop off post this in terms of %.

So, we see this continuing theme as outlined in several other start of the year papers around the importance of digital transformation as organisations seek greater efficiency and more speed to their operations and this is confirmed in the drivers and benefits section where 70% identified that efficiency gains were a driver, and 62% identified that they had seen the benefits of these efficiency gains.

The report also identifies that user experience is emerging as a new driver of digital, which is something that we have identified in the Economist Impact study over the last few years.

The expectation is that the digitisation rate for the next 3 years will increase to around 70% by 2027, this is despite the actual rate being quite static between the last 2 reports (2022 – 4). Data analytics, and source to contract are the top 2 investment areas by 2027, although the overall set of use cases seem to be consolidating together. Risers of use cases include Contract Lifecycle Management, E invoicing, and Gen AI (shocking!!)

There are a couple of deep dive areas, ESG, for example showed that 59% of organisations prioritised environmental risks (E, as opposed to SG) with carbon footprint management being identified as one of the larger areas of concern.

There are great focusses both from a region and sector perspective that make for interesting reading as well.

AI In contracting – World Commerce & Contracting

One of the mega trends we identified earlier was AI everywhere, so having this report from World Commerce and contracting that looks into the use of AI in the contracting process is timely.

This study draws from over 500 responses globally and sees an increase in those planning to implement AI in the contracting process by 25% over the last 6 months. However, whilst this rise may seem impressive it still only represents 20% of responses, with those not planning to implement also increasing to 61%. What is interesting is this stands in opposition to the personal enthusiasm for AI which has more than doubled and stands at 80%

The top reasons given for this apparent disconnect are concerns of data privacy and security (57%), especially since that AI systems process large volumes of data, the quality of the output and general lack of trust in the data (46%) which is dependent on how the large language models are trained.

I did find interesting that the authors asked ChatGPT for what they believed the benefits would be, and whilst similar in ranking, the number 1 reason by practitioners was to analyse risk and compliance which was number 2 for ChatGPT. Number 1 for ChatGPT was freeing up time for more strategic work which was number 4 for the practitioners. The other disconnect was the assisting in contract negotiations which practitioners ranked second, whereas ChatGPT ranked 5th, this could be a negotiating position by ChatGPT though………..

Sustainable Procurement Barometer – Eco Vadis

Similar to AI, Sustainability made it into the megatrend’s reports, and I always welcome the Eco Vadis barometer reports and there is a connection from the digitisation importance from the PWC (and other) reports. Only 6-25% of sustainable procurement programs digitally integrate ESG into procurement processes. As the rate of digitisation increases, then you would hope this would increase accordingly, however I think that this is a critical piece for ESG to truly solidify into becoming business as usual that its digitally integrated. The most mature area in terms of digital integration is spend analytics, closely followed by ordering systems and catalogues. Manual integration is at 53% for sourcing and new supplier selection.

Top drivers for running a program include delivering on corporate goals (I personally read this as aligning to the business, something always at the top of procurements agenda), compliance with regulations and reducing risks (which could be complying to legislation) and building resilience. Focus areas include Net Zero and scope 3 emissions (like the PWC Report) and human rights/social practices.

The report identifies certain practices which leading sustainable programs use at a greater rate than non-leaders, these include Risk and hotspot mapping, targeting both strategic and high-risk suppliers in activities such as self-declarations, use of 3rd party databases onsite audits and corrective action programs.

Trade In Transition – Economist Impact

This series starting in 2022, tracks how global trade and supply chains evolve in response to changing economic conditions. Its important to understand this, as the mega trends earlier identified that the geopolitical climates are driving some change.

Key findings from this report (for procurement) show that whilst supplier (and supply chain) diversification is still the most prevalent strategy for organisations, there is the early identification of the next wave of reconfiguration as organisations seek to balance, the increased in the number of suppliers with a concentration on creating better partnerships.

AI has become an indispensable tool for 98% of executives, impacting at least one aspect of their supply-chain operations. As the World CC report also identified reducing costs are a key expected benefit of AI and this report identifies that, 34% of companies are banking on AI to curtail overall trade expenses.

The favoured just-in-case models are being refined as companies strive to strike the right balance between building resilience and managing efficiency (costs).

In 2023, companies maintained 9.0 weeks of inventories, compared to 10.1 in 2022 and 8.9 in 2021. This signals a slight recalibration in 2023, likely due to the capital intensity behind higher inventories, and as we identified from the Ardent report earlier, the cost of capital is increasing.

In the face of geopolitical shocks, 'friend shoring' and the creation of parallel supply chains emerge as the go-to strategies for business resilience. Geopolitical shocks continually disrupt global trade, driving the restructuring of supply chains to centre stage.

Executive Perspectives – BCG

This BCG report looks at the c suite strategic priorities in 2024, and there are some important take aways for procurement and supply chain leaders to note.

A critical success factor for organisations to achieve success in 2024 is enduring cost management, i.e. building continuous improvement, organisation wide rather than the one and done cost reduction programs. This is viewed as the most critical strategic priority across all regions and industries.

Its all aspects of costs according to the report, direct and indirect procurement, labour and non-labour overhead, which will be firmly in focus. The report stresses though that its not the initial cost savings but the need to sustain these cost structures over time.

“There were cost reductions at the start, but the cost eventually crept back”.

This isn’t the rush for profit priority according to the report, but the need to incest further into specific programs for other priorities (in other words, procurement funds the organisational improvement programs), such as increased digitisation and AI, talent management, sustainability, future supply chains, and business expansion.

Everest –Procurement Transformation in the age of AI

We have mentioned several times in this and previous reports about the reemergence of digitalisation as a priority especially to access greater efficiency through AI. This report looks at how procurement transformation through the prism of AI and how AI will impact procurement transformations.

Discussing current levels of adoption, and AI use cases across source to contract, the report also compares AI capabilities with Gen AI capabilities. Of most interest to me was the framework identified for prioritising AI Implementation, using Impact and adoption as the 2 axes.

Impact includes, financial, operational and business. Adoption includes criticality, constraints and complexity.

I think overall this is a pretty good way to look at prioritisation of use cases. Overall, the top right quadrant (i.e. high adoption potential, and high impact, includes spend analytics, market intelligence guided buying support and supplier onboarding and ID. Which follows several AI use case reports I’ve reviewed previously. Obviously, each organisations impact and constraints will be different, but I think the concept is sound.

As always reach out to discuss more, links to the reports are included and always happy to hear your thoughts!

Identity Federation: SAP Ariba SSO with SAP Cloud Identity Services - Identity Authentication

2024-04-11T10:54:21.367000+02:00

See as well:

Table of Contents:

Setup SAP IAS Identity Provider Proxy (IdP Proxy) as Identity Provider (IdP) for SAP Ariba
SAP IAS Identity Provider Proxy (IdP Proxy) SAML Metadata Retrieval
Corporate Identity Provider (Corporate IdP) SAML Configuration to SAP IAS
Corporate Identity Provider (Corporate IdP) Metadata Retrieval
Setup SAP IAS Identity Provider Proxy (IdP Proxy) Identity Federation to Corporate Identity Provider (Corporate IdP)
Federate SAP IAS Identity Provider Proxy (IdP Proxy) Application to Corporate Identity Provider (Corporate IdP)

Setup SAP IAS Identity Provider Proxy (IdP Proxy) as Identity Provider (IdP) for SAP Ariba

SAP IAS Identity Provider Proxy (IdP Proxy) as Identity Federation is extension of Identity Provider (IdP) configuration itself. Therefore SAP Ariba acting as Service Provider (SP) Single Sign-On (SSO) needs to be setup as Identity Provider (IdP) with SAP IAS Identity Provider Proxy (IdP Proxy) as per the configuration described in the blog below:

Configuration: SAP Ariba SSO with SAP Cloud Identity Services - Identity Authentication

SAP IAS Identity Provider Proxy (IdP Proxy) SAML Metadata Retrieval

To retrieve SAML Metadata from SAP IAS:

enter the below SAP IAS URL into browser:
https://<SAP IAS tenant id>.accounts.ondemand.com/saml2/metadata?action=download
store the downloaded SAP IAS Metadata File

Corporate Identity Provider (Corporate IdP) SAML Configuration to SAP IAS

Using the retrieved SAP IAS Metadata File, the Corporate Identity Provider (Corporate IdP) authentication configuration needs to be setup.

See THIS blog (and SAP documentation) for reference of the setup of Microsoft Entra ID as Corporate Identity Provider (Corporate IdP) with SAP IAS Identity Proxy.

See Microsoft Tutorial for reference of the setup to be performed in Microsoft Entra ID.

Corporate Identity Provider (Corporate IdP) Metadata Retrieval

Once the Corporate Identity Provider (Corporate IdP) SAML Configuration to SAP IAS setup (referenced above) is performed, download the Corporate Identity Provider (Corporate IdP) Metadata File.

In case of Microsoft Entra ID, follow the step 9. from the Microsoft Tutorial to download the Corporate Identity Provider (Corporate IdP) Metadata File as Federation Metadata XML.

Setup SAP IAS Identity Provider Proxy (IdP Proxy) Identity Federation to Corporate Identity Provider (Corporate IdP)

To setup the Identity Federation for SAP IAS Identity Provider Proxy (IdP Proxy) to Corporate Identity Provider (Corporate IdP😞

enter the SAP IAS Administration Console via https://<SAP IAS tenant id>.accounts.ondemand.com/admin
navigate to Application & Resources -> Identity Providers -> Corporate Identity Providers -> [Create]

enter the Display Name and choose the Identity Provider Type

navigate to SAML 2.0 Configuration -> [Browse...] and upload the Corporate Identity Provider (Corporate IdP) Metadata File

SAML 2.0 configuration is pre-set out of the uploaded Corporate Identity Provider (Corporate IdP) Metadata File
hit [Save]

Federate SAP IAS Identity Provider Proxy (IdP Proxy) Application to Corporate Identity Provider (Corporate IdP)

Once the Identity Federation between SAP IAS Identity Provider Proxy (IdP Proxy) and Corporate Identity Provider (Corporate IdP) is established, the Application representing the SAP Ariba Service Provider (SP) in SAP IAS Identity Provider Proxy needs to be setup to federate to this Corporate Identity Provider (Corporate IdP).

(The SAP Ariba Service Provider (SP) Application was created as part of the first chapter of this blog and referenced to the steps in Configuration: SAP Ariba SSO with SAP Cloud Identity Services - Identity Authentication.)

navigate to Application & Resources -> Application -> application representing SAP Ariba e.g. Ariba Tenant: <SAP Ariba tenant id> -> Conditional Authentication -> choose the Corporate Identity Provider (Corporate IdP) name

hit [Save]

In case you are reading this line, you have successfully configured the Single Sign-On (SSO) between SAP Ariba as Service Provider (SP) and SAP IAS as Identity Provider Proxy (IdP Proxy) with Identity Federation to Corporate Identity Provider (Corporate IdP)!

See as well:

Working with SAFe Epics in the SAP Activate Discover phase

2024-04-23T14:37:46.773000+02:00

The second article in this series “Innovate Faster: The Power Duo of SAP Activate and Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) ” is explaining how the SAP solution implementation activities specific to SAP Activate Discover project phase should be executed in an organization using SAFe.

This is where you can find the first article in the series : Innovate Faster: The Power Duo of SAP Activate and SAFe.

Simply put, both the SAP Activate Discover phase and the creation of Epics in SAFe share a common goal: to thoroughly outline and endorse the business case driving the implementation of the SAP solution. Further elaboration on this point will be provided in the following lines.

The key activities in the Discover phase help to crystallize the organization’s vision about the SAP solution implementation. They cover the creation of the SAP solution adoption strategy and the documentation of the Solution Implementation Value and Business Case as part of the customer organization's digital transformation roadmap.

During the Discover activities, SAP Solution adoption paths are identified. In an SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition solution context, for example, a company should decide which of the three possible paths is bringing the most value: system conversion, selective data transition or new implementation scenario.

Refinement for the chosen implementation scenarios is conducted to answer SAP solution specific questions like, for example:

How many systems are ideal for the to-be business scenarios?
Is Co-Deployment preferred, or should we deploy standalone?
What about IT-Security Requirements?
What will be the sequence of co-deployment?
What business processes should be covered by the solutions?
What benefits will the business realize by deploying the new solution with standard processes?
What do we need to do to keep the system ready for innovation? etc.

Let’s see now how the SAP solution implementation vision, roadmap and adoption strategy generated by SAP Activate activities in the Discover phase are used by Lean Agile organizations that are implementing SAFe. In such organizations, technology efforts that were traditionally organized as projects are turned into a continuous flow of product-centric features in a value stream which timeline is exceeding the implementation project time and continues with improvements and product life cycle management activities until the product’s end of life.

SAFe provides practices for managing that flow using a construct called ‘Epics’.

An Epic, in SAFe, is corresponding to a solution implementation initiative that is supporting the organization’s vision and that will bring value to one of the organization’s operational value stream (OVS). You can see examples of such Epics in the European Medicines Agency published roadmap available in the references link.

In a project-oriented approach, the Epic from SAFe corresponds to a project although the two concepts are operating quite differently (see below figure). SAP Activate guidelines for the project implementation should therefore be mapped and converted to the corresponding Epic elements of a Lean Agile enterprise.

The obvious differences in the two approaches can be mitigated by adapting the scope, the sequence or the execution frequency of the activities recommended by SAP Activate Methodology. All the other differences illustrated in the below picture are not manifested in the SAP Activate project methodology as Agile practices are used to measure the progress and to implement the SAP solution that will be covered in the future articles in this series.

In SAP Activate Discover phase tailoring is needed for the Business Case activities covering committed scope identification and cost estimation.

Looking at typical the Business Case creation activities, if, for example, an organization implementing SAFe evaluates the opportunity to support the operational value stream that includes Procurement processes with the implementation of the SAP S4/HANA solution, an Epic that details this opportunity will be defined by the owner of the initiative, the Epic Owner, to cover:

the value statement,
the business outcomes,
the leading indicators, and
the most important nonfunctional requirements associated with this initiative.

Due to their considerable scope and impact, the Epic requires the definition of a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and the approval by Lean Portfolio Management (LPM) which is the approval and funding entity in an organization implementing SAFe.

There are many similarities between the Epic Lean Business Case and the SAP Activate Value Case for solution implementation statement that is created during the Discover phase, as you can see in the figure below.

The SAP Activate Value Case documentation includes:

the expected business outcomes and business success measurements (both predictive and lagging) are nothing else but the business outcome hypothesis and the corresponding leading indicators in the Epic’s Lean Business Case.
the functionalities in scope and out of scope for the SAP solution as well as other solution level requirements like security, compliance, response time and data volumes etc. with a clear correspondence to the Epic’s Lean Business Case components.
business capabilities that will be implemented by the SAP solution, expressed as SAP L2/L3 business processes in the solution scope; in an organization using SAFe, these processes correspond to the Features that will implement the Epic MVP.

While SAFe is giving general recommendations for building the Lean Business Case, SAP Activate is detailing concrete, SAP solution-specific elements and activities for the business case creation. It also provides tools and usage guidelines to perform the analysis necessary to fundament the Lean Business Case and helps to create a high-level design, through the design principles identified in the Value Case for SAP solution implementation.

The activities in the SAP Activate Discover phase necessary to document the Value Case for solution implementation are showing how to decide and measure the benefits of adopting the SAP solution, like, for example, the organization of a Digital Value Discovery Workshop, in the scenario of an SAP S4/HANA solution adoption, that helps to document the expected Business Outcome of the Epic.

Solution Discovery Workshop is another example of Discover activity that serves to the Epic MVP identification. In this workshop, the Epic Owner, the Business Owners, the Product Management, and the System Architect from the SAFe organization work together with SAP solution experts to:

select the business capabilities available in the SAP solution that must be part of the MVP and of the MVP extension,
identify integrations, and extensibility needed in the customer’s landscape,

document any other requirements specific to the customer’s journey to SAP S/4HANA Cloud.

For the Epic leading indicators and business outcome proper specification, SAP Activate provides solution-specific tools and accelerators like, for example, the use of SAP Signavio Process Insights application that helps customer organization to discover the value of moving to SAP S/4HANA, better understand their current business process performance and provide continuous monitoring, assessment, and improvement of their business processes. For further information about this application please check the article in the references.

Based on the implementation scope elements included in the Epic Lean Business Case, a forecast estimation of the Epic duration is made by the organization in which is considered, if the case, the costs with Suppliers if they are participating in the Epic MVP implementation.

Lean Agile Enterprises that implement SAFe evolved from the project funding model to the Epic funding model. When an Epic is created, the focus is set on the identification of the MVP functionalities expressed as Features, and on the MVP cost estimation. The Features in the MVP typically correspond to the minimalistic list of business processes to be implemented in the SAP Solution to support the Operational Value Streams (OVS). For the estimation of the implementation costs, as the level of details for the initiative is quite high at the Epic approval moment, the cost estimation is given as monetary range, as for example, between 1M and 1.5M for the Epic MVP. The range varies depending on the Epic and can be within hundreds of thousands or within millions or even tens or hundreds of millions. The same type of cost estimation is made for the Epic full implementation.

The Epic investment often includes the contribution and cost from Suppliers (e.g., the team with deep expertise on SAP solution implementation), whether internal or external. Ideally, enterprises engage external suppliers via Agile contracts, which supports estimating the costs of a supplier’s contribution to a specific Epic. As only high-level scope definition is available at the Epic definition moment, a cost range estimation is expected from the Supplier as well, that is a lot different from the traditional project budgeting approach with fixed cost and scope.

The implementation of an Epic follows an iterative approach and manages investment and risks in an incremental way. The Epic Owner will incrementally refine the total Epic implementation costs for the organization as the MVP is built and learning occurs. Once the Epic MVP implementation is finished, if the Epic benefit hypothesis is not proven, the investment into adding further features to the MVP and the corresponding investment (additional budget) is stopped. If the benefit hypothesis is proven, the Epic Owner works with the Agile teams to add functionalities to the solution using the WSJF (Weighted Shortest Job First) Feature prioritization technique until WSJF decides otherwise.

In a project-based approach, the SAP solution implementation scope and effort estimation and, as well, the high-level solution implementation plan are attached to the project's contract and make possible the start of the implementation project.

For an organization implementing SAFe, the SAP Activate Discover phase’s result corresponds to the Epic approval (Go/No-Go) decision.

In the next article in this series, we will cover the execution of the activities corresponding to SAP Activate Prepare and Explore phases in a SAFe organization context.

References:

Network Portfolio Roadmap 2023-205 (europa.eu)

SAP Signavio Process Insights - The fastest path to process improvements

Create an Innovation Strategy and a High-Level Road Map - Roadmap Viewer (sap.com)

Advanced Topic - Innovation Accounting in SAFe - Scaled Agile Framework

Executing a SAP Digital Discovery Assessment - Roadmap Viewer (sap.com)

Review and Request SAP Process Insights - Roadmap Viewer (sap.com)

Government - Transitioning from Projects to a Lean Flow of Epics - Scaled Agile Framework

Operational Value Streams - Scaled Agile Framework

Epic - Scaled Agile Framework

Advanced Topic - Agile Contracts - Scaled Agile Framework

WSJF - Scaled Agile Framework

Main Reviewer : @Seb_Ziegler

Are you ready for Scope 3 reporting? Procurement in an ESG regulated world

2024-04-29T10:54:05.915000+02:00

Previously thought to be a voluntary responsibility, companies operating across the European Union (EU), Australia, Singapore and listed companies on China's three major stock exchanges are no longer immune to averting Scope 3 reporting obligations.

The EU's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) since January 2023, and Australia's phased implementation of mandatory Scope 3 emissions reporting starting from the 1st of July 2024 - is expected to challenge many existing procurement professions both directly and indirectly worldwide. CSRD is estimated to impact approximately 50,000 European companies.

When we talk about procurement as a service and operating function, preconceptions are evoked about the role of supply chain management purely being about spend control, supply chain resiliency, cost minimisation and compliance.

Indeed, procurement plays a significant role in asserting compliance and cost control. But what would this look like in an environmentally regulated landscape? One where environmentalism is no longer voluntary, but compulsory?

With the rollout of CSRD in the EU, environmental, social and governance (ESG) principles are no longer about branding a company's tolerance and support for sustainability to appease stakeholders.

We're now entering an era of sustainable procurement compliance which is profoundly challenging our conventional presumptions on the role of procurement beyond simply purchasing.

Procurement leaders are starting to find that spend control and sustainable procurement compliance are mutually inclusive and supportive of one another.

Picture this, you are currently running a sourcing event and your objective is to minimise procured costs. By using an EcoVadis carbon scorecard, you can select suppliers with verified credentials with a low emissions footprint, and therefore, potentially reduce your Scope 3 procured carbon tax.

Carbon taxes will force finance, auditing and procurement professions to work together to tackle spend on emissions. Demonstrating decarbonisation starts at the supplier selection level and can only be done using accurate, auditable carbon values and calculations. An invoice with a carbon value, can be a good starting point for documenting these emissions. Scope 3 emissions calculators will become a critical part of the procurement ESG toolkit to help users approximate the emissions intensity of that item. In most cases, actual carbon emissions are always preferred over estimated ones because let's face it...who wants to overpay their carbon taxes!

However, collecting and reporting Scope 3 emissions is a significant challenge. Deloitte cites that the poor holistic integration of emissions collection technologies throughout a business's ecosystem, lack of tools especially from small to medium businesses to report Scope 3 emissions, poor supplier engagement, poor data quality and reliability, and rapidly evolving regulatory standards - all discourage many business leaders from investing in Scope 3 collection and reporting solutions...or even championing the cause at all.

This was exemplified greatly in the SEC's recent policy backflip (March 2024) to make Scope 3 reporting voluntary. But bear in mind, that many of these SEC-listed, large companies will more than likely, still have to report their Scope 3 emissions if they have a major presence in the state of California (SB-253 Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act) or the EU.

The Boston Consulting Group survey found that companies using automated digital emissions solutions were 2.5 times more likely to report their emissions comprehensively. Technology, therefore, is a huge enabler of sustainability compliance.

Despite policy setbacks from the SEC, non-EU companies with a significant EU presence (activities greater than €150 million revenue turnover) are expected to report their Scope 3 emissions to the authorities. Most large US companies with a presence in the state of California are already mandated to report Scope 3 emissions. The Biden Administration is currently proposing to enforce mandatory Scope 3 emissions reporting for its major federal contractors (annual contract values of >$US50 million).

With supply chains contributing up to 88% of a company's emissions and 11.4 times that of Scope 1 and 2 primary emissions, it is no wonder that Scope 3 emissions reporting has garnered huge attention among regulators and environmental groups.

Fortunately, at SAP Ariba we are making strides and efforts to ensure that our customers remain compliant to Scope 3 reporting obligations and other ESG regulations. For example, enabling supplier Scope 3 carbon submissions and third-party sustainability certifications.

Are you ready for Scope 3 reporting? Procurement in an ESG regulated world

2024-04-30T10:17:42.115000+02:00

We're now entering an era of sustainable procurement compliance which is profoundly challenging our conventional presumptions on the role of procurement beyond simply purchasing.

Procurement leaders are starting to find that spend control and sustainable procurement compliance are mutually inclusive and supportive of one another.

Picture this, you are currently running a sourcing event and your objective is to minimise procured costs. By using DitchCarbon carbon risk ratings, you can select suppliers with a low emissions footprint, and therefore, potentially reduce your Scope 3 procured carbon tax.