Last week I attended Ariba live in Barcelona. This year the supplier finally got more spot light, then in the years before. There was a dedicated supplier appreciation night and a supplier track with sessions targeting suppliers.
A bunch of improvements was announced, such as multi AN-ID management, the new supplier experience on the portal and the mapping tool in CIG - just to name a few. There was also a dedicated supplier keynote on day two.
Even Mike Eberhard, the new president of the intelligent spend company said that there were will be more focus on suppliers. Looks like that SAP Ariba finally not only understood that there needs to be done more for suppliers but really wants to do something.
The future will show if and when they will be able to deliver the promised improvements.
Nonetheless, there is something which every supplier is encouraged to do - help SAP to improve the supplier experience by providing valuable feedback and ideas. There was a dedicated session on "New innovation model for SAP Ariba solution development" by Achim Voermanek and Tahir Virk. Check influence.sap.com for current and upcoming improvement opportunities.
Last but not least, the presentations of a lot of sessions are online and could be accessed without any registration or the need to have attended the conference.
You will find these dedicated supplier sessions there:
- An overview of catalogs for suppliers
- Supplier integration on Ariba Network
- New supplier experience - a unified network home page with buyer insights
- A suppliers view of all the crazy things buyers do get in their own way
- Invoice automation for fast and early payments
- Supplier solutions road map
- SAP Ariba Cloud Integration Gateway Solution for suppliers
Click here for the presentations
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