Here in the Sunshine State, the forecast for the future is all about the cloud. SAP announced major innovations to the line-of-business cloud applications today.
Designed around the themes of People, Customer, Money, and Supplier, companies can optimize their IT eco-systems across one platform that spans on-premise, managed and public cloud environments. For the Supplier component, the Ariba Network is the backbone that propels faster, easier collaboration within companies and across their supply chains.
Darwinism in Business: Survival of the Fittest and Fastest 
The volatility of natural selection was a springboard for Jim Snabe’s keynote talk. As Jim put it, survival in both nature and business relies on being better, faster and more adaptable than your competition. Today’s business success is not necessarily a predictor for the future. Companies must remain alert and agile, adapting their tools and thinking to stay ahead of the evolutionary curve.
Who better to talk about speed than McLaren Automotive Chairman Ron Dennis?
McLaren was looking for a solution that delivered scale, speed and simplicity to accelerate performance. Thanks to the HANA-based cloud applications, McLaren continually analyzes data that drives improvement.
No Borders or Blinders in the Cloud
Updates to the Ariba cloud-based applications enable companies to extend their enterprise collaborations further within their organizations and across their supply chains. At the Business Networks campus, the spotlight was on spot buying. The practice of one-off, urgent purchases can be a necessity to keep business running yet without the right resources it can also result in running up costs. And often, buyers rely on Google to start their supplier searches.
For companies like J.M Huber, Ariba Discovery is the answer to spot-buying woes.
Prior to Ariba Discovery, J.M. Huber had buyers staffed at each of its 27 plants who relied on personal contacts or search engines to find suppliers for one-off, uncommon needs. With Ariba Discovery, buying tasks are now handled by two staff members at J.M. Huber’s corporate office. Buyers quickly and easily locate qualified suppliers and can see past bid wins, ratings and recommendations, and transaction history with other buying companies. It’s also been a big productivity boost for J.M Huber now that plant buyers no longer spend hours searching for suppliers.
In the following video, Brian Bender talks about the advantages Ariba Discovery delivers to J.M. Huber.
There’s More in Our Forecast – Stay Tuned.
We’re forecasting a brighter future for business. Follow @Ariba for live tweets from Day 3 and join the conversation on business networks by using the hashtags #Ariba #SAPPHIRENOW.
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