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Developing an enablement strategy

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to collect all the required knowledge to start developing an enablement strategy

SAP Business Network Supplier Portal: trading partner enablement strategy

How do we Measure Success?

Defining a clear list of targeted objectives is the fundamental to measure and report progress, as well as to establish the governance structure.

Here are some questions to consider:

What is the desired outcome of the project?
What are the changes to the precedent system architecture and processes?
How will the change impact the current transaction process with trading partners?
What does success look like?
What is it based on and how will it be measured?
What are the quality gates that must be passed for the project to continue?

Click on the video to review all key prerequisites to establish a successful enablement team and process recommendations: Pre-Requisites for Trading Partner Enablement

We recommend for buyer organization to establish a regular governance for SAP Business Network Supplier Portal to:

Review the current project status.
Elaborate on the upcoming tasks.
Discuss any potential development.

The SAP Business Network buyer account dashboard information and available reporting options provide a display of current enablement and transactional status.

The Importance of Data Accuracy & Supplier Enablement Strategy

The availability and accuracy of trading partner data directly impacts the ability to onboard and enable trading partners on SAP Business Network.

Therefore, the preparation of any trading partner enablement process is to start with an analysis of the current trading partner data. The collected data is the basis for each subsequent step to develop, prepare and execute the start of any trading partner enablement process (overall or in waves approach):

The Vendor master data (full postal address, spend, document count and categories) is are required to receive a clear and conclusive SAP Business Network for Procurement Matching, Rationalization and Classification result. The matching output is the starting point to define a segmentation strategy. Further, the collection and validation of your trading partner contact data is mandatory before starting any further enablement activities.

The goal of the trading partner analysis is to develop a clear enablement strategy and to define all related details (timelines, communication templates, internal process definition).

Throughout this first preparation activities, buyer organization’s goals are:

Eliminate vendor data duplicates
Review accuracy of trading partner contact data with purchasing department.
Avoid additional re-work time due to inaccurate, unchecked or irrelevant contact data.
Ensure any enablement related communications are received by trading partners.
Define and optimize trading partner onboarding and enablement time.
Analyze each trading partner situation individually which is returned as "escalated"(either during onboarding or highlighted on the buyer account).

Supplier Enablement Strategy

Your trading partner enablement strategy presents how the goals will be achieved and when. A formal trading partner enablement strategy allows tracking and reporting progress against plan and the business case.

It defines:

Which trading partners are to be enabled based on strategic value and priority.
Which business case is applicable for each segmented trading partner group.
Which enablement methodology is to be applied for each trading partner group.
In what order and time frame onboarding is to be conducted (wave approach).
What are the (business or technical) consequences for non-compliant trading partners.

The Supplier Enablement Strategy segmentation will come through your vendor master data and the SAP Business Network for Procurement matching, renationalization, and classification activities. Finally, the combination of matching output with the targeted business goals on SAP Business Network result in the definition of an Enablement Flight Plan.

The goal of the spend data analysis is to develop a flight plan which will list all trading partner waves based on identified business case, The matching output and provides insight into trading partner’s status on SAP Business Network and helps buyer to select the right enablement methodology for each trading partner. The flight plan is creating the basis for the enablement lead to:

Define a clear business case for each trading partner.

Select between an ad hoc vs. waves enablement process.
Configure communication templates on buyer account for enablement methodology.
Start and go live date for each trading partner.

Once the flight plan is defined, the enablement lead is to use it as a basis to:

Develop a communication strategy (company internal and external to trading partners).
Review and execute prerequisites for each enablement methodology prior start of trading partner’s onboarding.
Identify and define necessary processes for an internal change management.
Coordinate with the change manager on required changes.
Identify potential resources needed to execute and support any trading partner enablement.
Identify post business go live trading partner relationship management and transactions oversight.

The AVATAR tool available to you for a faster and more consumable planning of your trading partner enablement. Review this video to see how AVATAR can help you visualize and analyze your spend data with SAP Business Network for Procurement.

Note

In case you do not expect suppliers to send invoices through SAP Business Network, the analysis of spend data should focus on purchase orders only.

Additionally, SAP Ariba Network has recently changed name to SAP Business Network for Procurement.

Supplier Matching on the Network

Collecting your trading partner Customers spend data is a critical step in the SAP Business Network Supplier Portal implementation process.

It is done in three simple steps: collect, submit, review & adjust the data.

Collect the Data

Customers and trading partners will have to provide some trading partner data that can be provided directly from the ERP.

To establish a clear view of your current business status, you want to collect the following information per each trading partner entity (= one supplier location per supplier country):

Business spend data of previous 12 months (purchase orders and/or invoices).
Trading partner postal address.
Trading partner contact data.
Business category (direct vs. indirect).
Buyer purchasing location per trading partner.

Keep in mind that the more data you provide in the spend file, the more accurate the matching and classification process will be. In case multiple vendor IDs (= supplier ERP ID defined by buyer organization) are used per one trading partner entity within one country, you should harmonize the spend data and select one "main" vendor ID.

Preview of the SAP Supplier Data Request Form.

Submit the Data

Once the data collection is completed, the data should be submitted to SAP. To do so, you would need to populate the spend data into a pre-defined SAP template form and share it through a defined SAP process. Our team will add the result in your AVATAR’s profile. The results are typically sent back in 5 business days.

Important:

Your collected and shared spend data is only applicable for your project. SAP does not reuse any buyer business data with other customers. If in doubt, please contact your SAP agent.

Review & Adjust the Plan

Analyze the information provided and sort trading partners into waves based upon the recommended criteria:

% of trading partners already transaction on SAP Business Network for Procurement.
% of Spend that is with trading partners already transacting on SAP Business Network for Procurement.
% of purchase orders and/or invoices that are with trading partners already transaction on SAP Business Network for Procurement.
Sort by number of purchase orders and/or invoices (highest to lowest) to identify the high-volume trading partners as it is probably of more strategic significance for your buying organization to transact with them via SAP Business Network.

Review trading partner data and classify the result based on a combination of matching output and business value.

Three Key Groups of Trading Partners

The SAP Business Network matching output provides detailed information about the trading partner current status on the network and the usage of the identified account. Based on the result, buyer enablement lead is to segment trading partners into three distinctive groups and to define the enablement strategy in more detail. Buyer can, in reference to any additional trading partner’s specific business requirements, adjust the proposed enablement methodology.

The trading partner is already using an account on SAP Business Network.
After the matching process, you will know which trading partners already use an account on the network. It will simplify the enablement strategy and onboarding process as the AN ID (trading partner account identification number) is already available.
The trading partner can register with a new account.
The matching output did not provide any information of an existing supplier account. In this case, the buyer has the opportunity to invite trading partners for a first registration and to connect on the SAP Business Network. Targeted trading partners might be either new or already known to the buyer organization.
The trading partner might need a full enablement registration.
A trading partner might require a full enablement connection with an enterprise account, due one of two reasons: either, the matching has identified an existing enterprise account or the trading partner might require to connect his ERP system (so-called trading partner integration) to the SAP Business Network for a full automated document flow because of a significantly high transactional volume (for example: over 200 purchase orders per year).

Note

SAP Business Network Outreach Services for trading partner’s enterprise account are not included per default. Onboarding support for out of the scope of the SAP Business Network Supplier Portal can be purchased additionally.

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