Everyone wants a streamlined, simplified procurement process, right? Usually, procurement processes are geared toward professionals, and the actual buyer is often overlooked.
SAP Guided Buying provides an intuitive and easy-to-use solution for buyers outside of the existing procurement department, delivering a functional and intuitive experience for casual buyers.
Read on to learn more about SAP Guided Buying and how our expert SAP consultants can help your team make the most of the technology you already own.
What is SAP Guided Buying?
SAP Ariba Guided Buying, an integral part of the SAP Ariba Buying solution, provides users with an intuitive user interface that streamlines and simplifies procurement processes across business units.
Guided Buying from SAP Ariba was specifically created with casual users (i.e., infrequent buyers who are non-procurement professionals) and functional buyers (i.e., buyers who purchase services and goods for their departments) in mind. The Guided Buying platform provides users with a consumer-like shopping experience that allows them to make informed purchasing decisions while remaining compliant with company policies and industry regulations.
Even with Guided Buying Administration functionality, procurement professionals will still log into SAP Ariba Buying and Invoicing for invoicing, advanced purchasing, and other key administrative tasks.
Key Features of SAP Guided Buying
Let’s take a look at a few of the main features SAP Guided Buying offers users:
Minimized costs
The Guided Buying solution helps companies increase cost savings and distribute funds toward more strategic initiatives by improving compliance, facilitating better supplier collaboration, and reducing savings leakages.
Real-time guidance
With SAP Guided Buying, users are notified if a potential violation of purchasing policies occurs during the purchasing process. If an alternative item is required, SAP Business AI can recommend options that ensure compliance and meet critical business needs.
Internal collaboration
The Guided Buying solution provides immediate access to category experts within a user’s purchasing unit, considering their physical location and purchased items to streamline the purchasing process.
Supplier management and collaboration
Guided Buying provides pre-built integrations with other SAP Ariba solutions to enhance collaboration, improve supplier management for one-time purchases, and enable users to select preferred suppliers and request votes through the SAP Business Network.
Help Community
The ‘Help Community,’ exclusive to the Guided Buying platform, delivers a robust foundation that provides tailored help content and support from subject-matter experts to improve efficiency and collaboration across the purchasing process.
Persona-based dashboards
The Guided Buying platform provides personalized tiles and categories that streamline critical purchasing tasks and enable customization based on user permissions, forms, and system behavior.
Benefits of SAP Guided Buying
Improved compliance to lower costs
Guided Buying is available for SAP Ariba Procurement users at no additional cost and enables employees to instinctively follow best practices and guidelines for improved procurement. Users can set specific rules that allow or restrict exceptions and immediately assess the impact of a purchase on existing policies or business processes instead of discovering issues after a purchase request has already been submitted.
The supplier-risk feature identifies risk levels for non-catalog requests and solicits quotes from suppliers. Concurrently, cost savings achieved through improved compliance and supplier collaboration enable users to allocate more funds to strategic initiatives.
Boosted user adoption
Guided Buying offers a single self-service portal for procurement requests and low-dollar, high-volume purchases. It allows users to customize categories, tiles, forms, and permissions for each user, ensuring an intuitive and user-friendly experience and facilitating collaboration across teams.
By integrating with other SAP Ariba solutions, the Guided Buying platform enables supplier collaboration, efficient price quotes, and intelligent search functions for immediate access to category experts based on user needs and locations.
How We Can Help
Whether you’re looking for comprehensive support for key SAP implementation and integration initiatives or need help getting started on your journey with SAP, Surety Systems can help.
Our senior-level, US-based SAP consultants have the functional expertise and experience to understand your project needs, create effective action plans, and maximize value for your long-term enterprise management initiatives.
Contact Us
Are you interested in learning more about the SAP Guided Buying solution or where our SAP consulting services can fit in your organization? Contact us today.