The SAP Business Network for Procurement supports a variety of scenarios to enhance procurement processes and collaboration between buyers and suppliers.
These scenarios include:
End-to-End Collaboration
- Creation and management of purchase orders (POs) in ERP systems.
- Suppliers receive POs and create order confirmations, advance shipping notices, and invoices.
- Buyers receive order confirmations, advance shipping notices, and process goods receipts.
- Monitoring of invoice and payment status to ensure transparency and compliance.
The network allows for near real-time information sharing and document collaboration.
Digital Collaboration with Suppliers:
- Suppliers are notified of new POs via the SAP Business Network Supplier portal or mobile app.
- Suppliers can confirm or reject orders, create PO and non-PO invoices, and service entry sheets.
- Invoices are validated against business rules to ensure compliance with processes and regulatory requirements.
Supplier Enablement and Integration:
- Proactive supplier outreach to assist with onboarding.
- Integration with additional ERP systems to expand procurement capabilities.
- Connection services for seamless integration between ERP systems and SAP Business Network.
Enhance procurement collaboration by offering suppliers a self-service portal for immediate document access, enabling them to convert orders into confirmations and invoices while facilitating communication to resolve fulfillment and payment issues.
Achieve faster time to value by leveraging the extensive SAP Business Network for Procurement, where a large number of suppliers are already transacting, thus eliminating the need for onboarding and allowing connections via trading relationship requests, while match and classification results inform priority categories for supplier enablement based on industry, spend category, and buy-process.
The automation of over 120 business rules enables touchless transactions, enhances process compliance, and reduces errors, while automating error detection to streamline procurement. It supports suppliers in 190 countries and 24 languages, ensuring global compliance with local tax and legal requirements for electronic invoicing.
Simplify Spend Compliance
- Configure business rules on the network to automate procurement processes and eliminate verification. Over 100 business rules are available.
- Ensure negotiated pricing and terms with suppliers are enforced and reduce maverick spend.
- Support for country-specific e-invoicing mandates and requirements is embedded into the network’s invoicing capabilities.
Digital procurement processes involve automating manual and paper-based tasks through standardized workflows to enhance regulatory compliance and provide improved visibility into orders and invoices on a single platform.
Improve Invoice Transparency with the Invoice Status Portal
Optimize your accounts payable processes by implementing a self-service portal that minimizes manual supplier inquiries. This portal provides suppliers with easy access to their invoice and payment statuses, along with notifications for any status changes. Track supplier adoption to align it with your network supplier enablement strategy, while configuring the portal to suit your specific processes, ensuring that each supplier has visibility tailored to their needs.
Benefits:
- Intelligent business rules and AI-ready data model
- Integration with SAP and non-SAP systems
- Many-to-many connections and interoperability with third-party networks
- Compatible with multiple data standards
- Dashboard, reports, and analytics capabilities
What's Ahead for the SAP Business Network for Procurement
The future roadmap for SAP Business Network for Procurement includes several key developments and enhancements:
- Enhanced Analytics and Visibility: Introduce advanced analytics for better visibility and recommendations in order management. Track and optimize KPIs to identify operational gaps, such as vendor SLAs.
- Optimized Sourcing and Availability: Develop an availability model to align merchandise availability with retail strategies, creating contexts based on geography, customer type, and profitability.
- Supplier Collaboration and Onboarding: Ongoing project to onboard more suppliers to SAP Business Network, considering SAP Ariba solutions like Invoice Management and Buying. Provide suppliers with immediate access to technical drawings and ensure high-quality, ethically sourced materials.
- Future Enhancements: Includes configuration management for site groups and multiple strategies, advanced simulation and analytics for decision-making, and extensibility concepts for custom attributes and strategy determination.
These developments aim to enhance the overall efficiency, transparency, and sustainability of procurement processes within the SAP Business Network.
An even larger vision is to make collaboration a default across your entire trading partner network. Delivering transparent, resilient, and sustainable supply chains and reinventing how the world runs as a network of intelligent, sustainable enterprises.
