Experience Management for Suppliers using Qualtrics + Ariba (XM4S)

Introduction

Qualtrics XM for Suppliers empowers procurement organizations to continuously improve the spend experience with real-time Supplier feedback and insights. By using operational data from SAP S/4 and Ariba Transactional Data (O-Data) and Experience Data flowing in from Suppliers feedback (X-Data), buyers get insights to secure critical supply chain, deliver resiliency, accelerate savings and innovate with speed. All these are enabled through the advanced intelligent features of Qualtrics Experience Management Platform.

How can Qualtrics SupplierXM solution help your organization?

1. Source to Order (RFx Event): During this journey, buyers select the best suppliers for their products/services, award and negotiate the contract, and onboard the suppliers onto its production systems. Valuable insights can be gathered from Suppliers on:
   1. Is the contract negotiation significantly higher in a particular region or category?
   2. Are suppliers constantly expressing concerns regarding contract language?
   3. If so, are there socio-economic or environmental reasons for the concerns?
2. Product/Service Delivery: Once contracts are in place and projects start, there are several factors that influence the success of the delivery. Typical problem areas include:
   1. Is there a region/category that has an unusually high number of change orders?
   2. Are there significant fluctuations in the number of on-time and in-full deliveries?
   3. How do the buyer’s PO processes compare to its competitors?

Other Business Problem areas from various use-cases can include:

1. Why Suppliers can’t deliver on time?
2. Why Suppliers don’t enroll in Early-Pay discounts?
3. Why Supplier Onboarding takes longer?
4. Understand Requisitioners feedback and sentiments for a Supplier.
5. Why TAT for a request is higher?
6. Why catalog spend is low for certain categories?

Thus, QUALTRICS helps answer the “Why” behind the “What“.

Technical Architecture:

An integration between SAP Ariba and Qualtrics can be established using any Middleware System that can consume both Ariba and Qualtrics APIs (and preferably work with JSON).
Although there are some third-party connectors available to connect Ariba with Qualtrics, due to various reasons like data security, custom solutions etc., we are recommending our customer to use their existing middleware infrastructure to connect Ariba with Qualtrics.

Below diagram showcases a typical connection and data flow that happens between Ariba and Qualtrics.

Technical Architecture

Solution Overview:

Once an event gets completed in Ariba, the Middleware pulls the Transaction Data (O-Data) from Ariba and pushes it into Qualtrics. A survey gets triggered from Qualtrics to the relevant recipient/s which then captures the Experience Data (X-Data). These O+X Data is then used for further analysis within Qualtrics and an Action Planning can be carried out accordingly to achieve the Pre-Defined Organizational Goals.

Setup in Qualtrics:

1. A Survey is created in Qualtrics to capture the Supplier Experience for a Specific Business Use Case:

2. A JSON Event is created in Qualtrics, which carries out the below tasks:
   1. Add an Interaction to the Supplier Contact in XM Directory
   2. Trigger relevant surveys to the recipients
3. Another Action is created to calculate the Average Satisfaction Score of a Supplier to send back to Ariba. This is achieved using combination of Webservice and Code tasks in Qualtrics:

4. Once we have the relevant O+X data, we can then utilize them to prepare the vocalize dashboard within Qualtrics to provide powerful insights to the Buyer Organization:
   

High-level overview of Middleware setup:

Below are the 2 setups that are required in Middleware system:

1. Receive Supplier Information and Transaction data from Ariba Analytical Reporting APIs and map it to Qualtrics. For this Middleware calls the relevant Ariba API for Transaction Data and then calls the Qualtrics JSON to map the Ariba Data to Qualtrics. This can be achieved by setting up a batch job in Middleware system.
2. Receive Average Supplier Satisfaction Score and send it back to Ariba. For this, Middleware provides a webhook that is registered in Qualtrics. Once the action to calculate Average Satisfaction score executes, the result is sent back to Middleware which is then sent to Ariba and stored in the relevant field in Ariba.

Summary:

Qualtrics XM for Suppliers empowers buyers to continuously improve the spend experience
with real-time supplier feedback and insights. Buyers can:

1. Secure Critical Supply
   With X and O data across the entire Intelligent Spend Experience:a. Remove gaps across the spend process with the most critical suppliers &
   strengthen relationships while improving overall Security of Supply.

   b. Stay in constant pulse with most critical supply base to better manage crises and
   strengthen collaboration to deepen resilience and accelerate reopening after a shut
   down.

2. Innovate and Optimize Spends Impact on Buyer’s Business
   With X and O data across the entire Intelligent Spend Experience:a. Buyers can collect actionable insights from supplier base real time to uncover
   tangible ways to innovate and optimize their business and operations.

   b. Uncover receptivity and obstacles to innovations to process or technology to
   drive greater program adoption and accelerate Return on Investment.

Thanks for reading and feel free to leave a feedback or post any questions you have in the comments sections!