In the Explore phase, team members examine the functionality of SAP Ariba Strategic Sourcing Suite and your Functional Lead(s) conduct fit-to-standard workshops to identify key requirements. Even though the solution baseline is preconfigured to offer a foundation to your strategic procurement needs, an experienced Functional Lead and implementation partner can provide additional insights and guidance, maximizing the benefits of the solution.
Your Functional Lead will take you through key activities like:
- Solution demonstration
- Fit-to-standard requirement workshops where the team reviews customer requirements
- Data requirements and data collection templates
- Documenting the future to-be procurement process and configurations
In addition, the Explore phase also include activities such as:
- Identifying integration requirements
- Defining testing requirements and strategy
- Defining learning needs and change management requirements
- Defining supplier segmentation, communication, and integration requirements and preparing for pilot supplier engagements
Data includes more than master data. To get the most benefit from the solution and improve user experience, the customer can leverage SAP Ariba Strategic Sourcing Suite libraries. Libraries allow the solution to automatically build content for users, such as automatically adding paragraphs in sourcing events, questions in supplier questionnaires, or clauses in contracts.
Your SAP Deployment Lead can provide leading practice requirements and data collection templates. Once you’ve populated the data collection templates with your organization’s specific requirements, they should be reviewed with your SAP Deployment Lead for feasibility to ensure customer success.
The Explore phase concludes with sign-off of your design specifications and process designs specifications.
Summary
- Conduct fit-to-standard workshops to identify requirements and document future procurement processes and configurations.
- Define integration, testing, learning, and change management needs to support successful implementation and user adoption.
- Use SAP Ariba libraries to automate content creation and enhance user experience.
- Populate and review data collection templates with the SAP Deployment Lead to ensure feasibility and meet requirements.
- Conclude the phase with sign-off on design and process specifications to move forward with implementation.