Overview of SAP Procurement Solutions

Compera is an expertise SAP Silver Partner when it comes to Procurement Solutions by SAP. We gladly present to you an easy overview of the SAP procurement solutions that are available.

Which solution direction is best for your organization depends on the current situation, the roadmap, and ambitions. The overview below shows a summary of each solution. More detailed information can be found on the respective landing pages. Let’s take a closer look.

 

SAP S/4HANA: next generation ERP business suite with Sourcing & Procurement

S/4HANA is SAP’s next generation ERP system. If you are an SAP ECC customer you will likely move to SAP S/4HANA anytime between now and a couple of years. SAP S/4HANA is perfectly capable of supporting your procurement processes. SAP S/4HANA covers all source to pay processes from purchase requisitioning, catalog buying, order processing, receiving, invoice processing, contract management and sourcing. The procurement process is further supported by real-time embedded analytics across all spend segments improving the performance and visibility.

SAP S/4HANA is also natively integrated with the SAP Ariba Network for supplier collaboration and purchase order and invoice automation. This integration enables you to digitally send PO’s to your suppliers, and conversely receive their invoices. You can establish rules on the network that ensure invoices won’t exceed the ordered amount or values, or allow for tolerances, as the case may be. You can read more about this integration on our S/4HANA with SAP Ariba page.

SAP S/4HANA can be delivered on-premise or in the cloud. Compera offerings SAP S/4HANA implementations, with special attention to the Sourcing and Procurement processes. You can read more about this on our S/4HANA Sourcing & Procurement page.

SAP Ariba: Source-to-Pay

SAP Ariba is the most advanced, state-of-the-art, procurement solution of SAP. This cloud procurement suite covers all processes from Source-to-Pay and beyond like Supplier Lifecycle & Performance, Supplier Risk, Supply Chain Collaboration and Financial Supply Chain.

Key to SAP Ariba is the SAP Ariba Network, enabling collaboration with Suppliers around PO’s, invoices, timesheets, contract negotiations, supply chain, etc. The image below depicts the various commerce applications of SAP Ariba. These can be acquired modularly. On the right side, you can see how the SAP Ariba Network supports various supplier collaboration scenario’s.

Operational Procurement with SAP Ariba is also easier than ever before due to the very intuitive user interface of Guided Buying. With SAP Ariba Buying you manage your PO’s in the cloud and your invoices in SAP ERP (P2O). With SAP Ariba Buying & Invoicing you manage both your PO’s and Invoices in the cloud, and send the ok-to-pay file to SAP ERP (P2P).

Compera is SAP Ariba Partner and experienced in implementing SAP Ariba solutions at medium to large enterprise customers. For medium to large customers we have a special SAP Ariba SNAP! offering with a quick deployment (< 3 months) based on best practices. You can read more about this on our SAP Ariba SNAP! page.

You can learn more about all SAP Ariba modules on the SAP Ariba website.

SAP SRM usability and placing directly on SAP ECC with SRM OneClient

SAP SRM is an e-procurement solution that was introduced in 1999. It supports Operational Procurement processes, Strategic Sourcing and Supplier Enablement. SAP will provide mainstream maintenance for SAP SRM 7.0 until 2025.

If you are currently an SAP SRM user there are various strategies ahead. You can improve SAP SRM in usability and functionality or you can consider replacing SAP SRM with its logical successors SAP Ariba or SAP S/4HANA. In this section, we are looking at improving SAP SRM.

  1. Improve the user friendliness: you can improve the usability by taking advantage of the SAP SRM UI5 Add-on that is available from SAP free-of-charge.
  2. Catalog management and cross-catalog search: you can enrich SAP SRM UI5 with an embedded catalog search engine. This means one cross-catalog user interface for all supplier catalogs, MM-materials and punch-outs. This Cloud Catalog Services solution can be used also for SAP ECC and S/4HANA. (hier komt later nog een link naar de BeNeering pagina)
  3. Achieve savings by placing SAP SRM directly on SAP ECC: typically SAP SRM is hosted on its own servers. These can be quite expensive. By placing SAP SRM directly on top of SAP ECC with SRM OneClient you no longer require the additional servers. SAP SRM OneClient is available free-of-charge for SAP SRM or SAP Business Suite licensed customers.
  4. Streamline your PO-to-invoice processes: SAP offers standard connectors for connecting SAP SRM with the SAP Ariba Network. Accounts Payable will be 3-5 times more efficient by automating the PO- and invoicing processes and realizing ‘touchless invoicing’ processes leveraging the SAP Ariba Network. Read more about this here.

These improvements make a lot of sense for existing SAP SRM customers. They deliver quick time-to-value. For new customers that do not have SAP SRM or SAP Business Suite licenses we would advise to consider SAP Ariba or SAP S/4HANA.

SAP MM usability and cross-catalog search

At the core of SAP ECC is SAP Materials Management (MM). This contains functionality on all the materials that your company purchases. There are still organisations that have SAP MM at the core to support their request-to-pay processes. Some companies even moved from other solutions back to SAP MM (e.g. to get back to standardized processes and go from there). SAP will provide mainstream maintenance for SAP ECC until 2025.

Usability is however not the strongest feature of SAP MM. For the end user, it is not easy to navigate through SAP MM and find the right materials to order. SAP MM also does not offer easy catalog management and cross-catalog search functionality. Procurement departments consequently typically deal with many purchase requisitions based on text.

The easiest way to improve the user experience in SAP MM and enrich its functionality with amongst others a catalog engine, dynamic web forms, enabling cross-catalog search, is by integrating the BeNeering Cloud Suite. This is a SAP supported cloud product, offered only by Compera in The Netherlands. More information here.

Please note that SAP ECC can also be connected with the SAP Ariba Network for digital communication with suppliers. Ariba Network makes it easy for buyers and suppliers to collaborate on transactions, strengthen their relationships, and discover new business opportunities. Read more about this here.

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