Collaboration. It’s the thread that connected this week’s keynote talks at SAPPHIRE NOW.
Bill McDermott focused on the fan experience. With sports as a metaphor, SAP plays an important role enabling its business customers to deliver more collaborative experiences to their customers. Ariba CEO Bob Calderoni explained how networked collaboration propels businesses to reach the next phase of productivity … a phase that will deliver tremendous value in cost savings and efficiency across the entire supply chain eco-system. And Jim Hagemann Snabe highlighted cloud-powered collaboration delivered through SAP’s nonstop stream of innovations.
Collaboration on Parade
SAP CTO Dr. Vishal Sikka’s keynote was a celebration of collaboration. The debut of Fiori spotlighted SAP’s collaboration with customers on shaping the strategy for this collection of consumer-style business apps. Google was profiled for its partnership on user experience and optimization of Fiori for Chrome.
HP COO Bill Veghte joined Vishal on stage to “unleash” Project Kracken, touted as a powerful and scalable server designed for processing big data.Additional SAP partners recognized during Vishal’s talk included Intel, IBM, Cisco and Adobe.
Network Collaboration Delivers Savings and Sales
Talks at the Business Networks campus detailed ways that companies who buy and those who sell are gaining value through networked collaboration. Ariba’s Sundar Kamakshisundaram demonstrated how buyers are reducing risks, saving time and money with sourcing by finding the right suppliers through Ariba Discovery. On the seller side, Leah Knight shared impressive sales results for Ariba Discovery users B&H Photo and MarkMaster. Case studies for both companies are featured at Ariba.com.
SAP Runs Ariba
SAP’s Martin Reichmann attracted a big audience with his overview of how SAP has implemented Ariba within its procure-to-pay processes. SAP has several goals in mind, including improving efficiency by 25% on the accounts payable side and capturing an additional 7.5% savings on the procurement side. The implementation took less than three months thanks to a collaborative effort between the SAP and Ariba teams. You can hear highlights from Martin’s talk in the following video.
The Compounding Value of Collaborative Networks
Ariba’s James Tucker delivered a persuasive talk on how e-invoicing can trigger powerful savings and efficiency for accounts payable and financial management processes. With the move to e-invoicing, companies can significantly reduce time spent handling invoices, invoicing exceptions, and lost savings when negotiated prices are not reflected in suppliers’ invoices. By activating business rules to “bounce back” incorrect invoices to suppliers, some Ariba customers have achieved up to 98% touchless invoicing.
SAPPHIRE NOW is over, but the Business Networks Story Continues
At SAPPHIRE NOW, Business Networks helped set the stage for SAP’s story of evolution, agility, speed and collaboration. Companies large and small are connecting to business networks to power productivity and profitability within their enterprises. The story continues at The Networked Economy blog.
