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The aim of SAP Mobile Start is to serve as native entry point to the Intelligent Enterprise for all mobile users. Since the launch of SAP Mobile Start in 2021, we are continuously collaborating with our customers and end-users to understand their mobile requirements and are working on improving their mobile experience by leveraging the capabilities SAP Mobile Start provides.
In order to provide this new mobile experience to even more users, we continue rolling-out various mobile personas.
Today, I would like to focus on the Purchaser and the Strategic Buyers as two personas within the procurement area. The following blog post shows you how the Purchaser and the Strategic Buyer benefit from using SAP Mobile Start.
The personas of a Purchaser and a Strategic Buyer are closely interconnected. Depending on company size, structure of the purchasing department and the individual skills and tasks of the end-users, those two personas can be represented by one and the same employee. For other companies however, there is a stricter distinction between the rather operational role of a Purchaser and the more strategic and analytical role of a Strategic Buyer.
This blog post will cover both personas, describing their requirements towards a mobile application and exemplifying how SAP Mobile Start could look like for them.
The Purchaser as a Mobile Persona
The Purchaser is a more operational user working on daily purchasing tasks, filling out required documents, working closely together with the requestors and communicating regularly with the suppliers. As a purchaser, you want to be notified of new tasks, approvals, purchasing requisitions, supplier documents and other important business updates as quickly as possible.
Being able to access all relevant business data and keeping an overview of all purchasing activities is important for the purchaser, regardless of the current location. Increasing the efficiency of the purchasing processes and minimizing delays are some of the main needs of a purchaser.
The Strategic Buyer as a Mobile Persona
Strategic Buyers, in contrast to the Purchaser, work primarily on strategic procurement tasks and act towards the achievement of the overall procurement goals. This includes the definition of the procurement strategy, the selection and analysis of suppliers as well as continuously maintaining good relationships with the suppliers. Also, the preparation and execution of supplier audits and supplier evaluations are part of the tasks of the Strategic Buyer.
The Strategic Buyer regularly visits suppliers to negotiate contracts, conduct audits or hold business talks. In addition, regular visits of exhibitions may be part of the mobile activities of a Strategic Buyer. Keeping an overview of all important processes as well as being able to quickly handle management requests, approvals and supplier-related topics is key for the Strategic Buyer to ensure the best possible results.
Introducing SAP Mobile Start
SAP Mobile Start is the new native entry point to the Intelligent Enterprise on mobile devices. It provides users with an enhanced mobile access to SAP applications, web content, data, and news feeds to quickly address their daily work – anywhere and anytime.
Users can benefit from persona-tailored content, which will be easy to consume and optimized for mobile situations. SAP Mobile Start can be set up and configured to user needs by IT administrators. It allows users to stay up to date on mobile devices and act immediately on critical business situations. The app offers integration with business applications, enabling higher productivity, and is a key asset to help ensure business continuity directly from mobile devices.
Furthermore, SAP Mobile Start offers a deep integration with native mobile device capabilities such as widgets, notifications or spotlight search.
Integration of SAP Task Center
With Task Center integration in SAP Mobile Start the user will have access to all workflow tasks in one screen. Tasks can be processed with just one click and now the user no longer needs to install numerous inboxes from various applications. This will reduce the time spent by approvers and improve the approval time for critical items. By providing a dedicated screen to access the tasks and notifications, the user has one place to easily process all their “to-do”s.
My colleague Ivan Chaushev describes all details regarding SAP Task Center in his blog post.
Improving the Mobile Experience for Purchasers and Strategic Buyers
SAP Mobile Start as the native entry point to SAP gives the Purchasers and Strategic Buyers the possibility to access all relevant purchasing tasks, information, and updates quickly.
Creating purchase orders, managing purchase orders or managing purchase contracts – those are only a few of the examples that are available to the Purchaser via Fiori applications through SAP Mobile Start. Combining the access to the most important purchasing applications with native features like widgets and push notifications ensures that the Purchaser will always stay informed on all important processes and updates – independent of the current location.
Also the Strategic Buyer will benefit from using SAP Mobile Start and the seamless access to all relevant applications from mobile devices. Accessing the procurement overview page in order to always stay informed about all relevant data and KPIs in the procurement area enables the Strategic Buyer to quickly answer management requests even when travelling or visiting suppliers.
Managing questionnaires for supplier evaluations before a supplier visit can be easily done on a mobile device now. Filling out the actual supplier evaluations and the documentation during the supplier audit directly on the mobile device will save the Strategic Buyer valuable time. Also looking up relevant supplier information or the latest scorecards can be done easily on the mobile device.
With SAP Task Center fully integrated into SAP Mobile Start, both the Purchaser and the Strategic Buyer stay up-to date on all workflows and approvals that are relevant for their daily business. Especially the feature of having all approvals available right on the mobile device will significantly improve the approval process and reduce the time requestors have to wait for the approval before they can complete the purchasing process.
SAP Mobile Start for the Purchaser
SAP Mobile Start for the Strategic Buyer
Lean More
For more information about the SAP Mobile Start app, check out the SAP Mobile Experience community page.
Downloading the App
You can download SAP Mobile Start free of charge from the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store and test out the features using the integrated offline demo.
We look forward to your comments. Stay up to date with latest news and post your questions or feedback about SAP Mobile Start in the Q&A area. Start by visiting your SAP Mobile Experience community page and click “follow”. We’ll be publishing more informative blog posts. Want to be notified? Check your #communications to ensure you have your notifications activated.
