SAP Korea, led by CEO Eunyoung Shin, played a crucial role in the successful implementation of the SAP Ariba Source-to-Contract Suite and SAP Business Network, enabling KD Navien to achieve digital transformation across its entire purchasing business. According to Eunyoung Shin, KD Navien’s decision to adopt SAP solutions was driven by several key factors. (InsideSAP Asia often references articles from websites in other languages to bring you as much information as possible.)

Firstly, the gradual module scalability offered by SAP’s solutions aligns perfectly with KD Navien’s plans to expand its global business. As the company grows and enters new markets, the SAP Ariba Source-to-Contract Suite can be scaled up to accommodate the increasing complexity and volume of procurement activities.

Secondly, the SAP Business Network, which is the world’s largest B2B network, provides KD Navien with access to a vast global supply chain. This network spans 190 countries and handles over $5.3 trillion in annual commerce, enabling KD Navien to connect with suppliers worldwide and streamline its procurement processes.

Lastly, SAP’s solutions offer continuous upgrades and a user-friendly experience, ensuring that KD Navien can stay up-to-date with the latest procurement technologies and best practices. Additionally, as KD Navien plans to implement SAP S/4HANA in the future, the seamless integration and connectivity between SAP Ariba Source-to-Contract Suite, SAP Business Network, and SAP S/4HANA will provide a cohesive and efficient procurement ecosystem.

Kyungdong Navien Implements SAP Ariba Source-to-Contract Suite

KD Navien collaborated with Zen Consulting, a consulting company specializing in cloud purchasing solutions, to implement the SAP Ariba Source-to-Contract Suite. This suite provides comprehensive supplier lifecycle and performance management functions, enabling KD Navien to access and manage various supplier information within a single system. This centralized approach to supplier management facilitates strategic purchasing decisions and enhances overall procurement efficiency.

The SAP Ariba Source-to-Contract Suite also supports the creation of sourcing documents (RFx) in various formats, allowing Kyungdong Navien to request information, quotations, and prices for products and services from suppliers. This streamlined process increases the transparency of the quotation work and improves work efficiency, ultimately leading to better procurement outcomes.

Leveraging SAP Business Network for Advanced Strategic Purchasing

By integrating the SAP Business Network with the SAP Ariba Source-to-Contract Suite, KD Navien has unlocked advanced strategic purchasing capabilities. The SAP Business Network, being the world’s largest B2B network, connects KD Navien with a vast pool of suppliers across the globe. This access to a diverse range of suppliers enables KD Navien to identify the best sourcing opportunities and optimize its procurement strategies.

To further enhance the efficiency of the procurement process, KD Navien has organized the standard processes of its four corporations into predefined templates within the SAP Business Network. This templated approach allows for quick and easy quotation work, reducing the time and effort required to obtain quotes from suppliers.

Moreover, the digital strategic purchasing process facilitated by the SAP Business Network significantly improves contract information management. By unifying the process and ensuring compliance, KD Navien can strengthen its contract cycle management capabilities and gain greater visibility into procurement data. This enhanced visibility enables better decision-making and risk mitigation throughout the procurement lifecycle.

With SAP’s ongoing innovations, such as the integration of natural language generation AI co-pilot solution Joule into SAP Ariba, and strategic collaborations with organizations like Hana Bank and LG CNS, the future of procurement looks promising. As Kyungdong Navien continues to leverage SAP’s solutions to drive its global expansion and maintain its competitive edge, it sets an example for other companies seeking to transform their procurement processes and thrive in the global marketplace.

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SAP Sapphire 2022 has officially kicked off in Orlando City on the 10th-12th of May 2022 with SAP CEO Christian Klein and Chief Marketing Officer Julia White opening the floor with the inspiring keynote “Realise the Power of Becoming an Intelligent, Sustainable Enterprise”.  More than ever, the conference is putting its customer and partners in more than 140 countries at the core of the global series, paying both an homage and encouragement for demonstrating agility and success amidst the pandemic disruptions. 

In his keynote, SAP CEO Klein expressed SAP’s continued commitment to support its customers’ modernisation journey to becoming intelligent, sustainable enterprises. He said:

“For 50 years we have revolutionized together the way businesses are run, and in the next 50 years, together we will continue to deliver market-making innovation. While the world around us has changed significantly, our purpose is more relevant than ever: to help the world run better in times of geopolitical tensions, disruptive industry transformation, and supply chain disruptions, and to improve people’s lives in times of war and climate change.”

Throughout the three-day hybrid conference in Florida, SAP announced multiple cloud and product innovations and collaborations across the supply chain, sustainability, business process transformation, and no-code application development domains. The event also showcased the tech giant’s contributions, achievements, and vision for the intelligent, networked, sustainable enterprise.

SAP Sapphire 2022 Highlights

Cloud and Product Innovations

Helping customers achieve a resilient supply chain and harness intelligent business networks, SAP launched a suite of new apps centred on supply chain management made available on the Apple App Store on the 10th of May. This includes mobile apps SAP Warehouse Operator and SAP Direct Distribution, making SAP apps accessible to iPad or iPhone users. Klein compared SAP Business Network, the world’s largest B2B network that connects buyers, suppliers, manufacturers, and logistics providers, as the LinkedIn of the B2B space.

Acknowledging the increasing demand for no-code/low code development platforms, enhancements on SAP AppGyver and SAP Process Automation– both part of the free tier model for SAP BTP– were also announced. In addition, SAP is also including in its pipeline free learning journeys in the SAP Learning portal designed for citizen developers to prepare them for new no-code/low-code certifications skills.

New capabilities in the SAP Cloud for Sustainable Enterprises and SAP Product Footprint Management solutions were highlighted to help enterprises better manage their green line. The SAP CEO mentioned other solutions that help organisations measure environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors such as SAP Concur, SAP SuccessFactors, and SAP Sustainability Control Tower.

Driving Customer Success

RISE with SAP, the company’s concierge, Business Transformation as a Service offering, was also highlighted throughout the conference, featuring customer success stories and solution collaborations with partners. Several SAP partners including Philips, AMD, and Accenture shared how they maximised business value in their digital transformation journey by leveraging the BTaaS offering. Klein stated:

“We want to transform each and every enterprise into an intelligent enterprise. RISE with SAP takes you on a transformation journey that’s tailored exactly to your needs. Over 2,000 customers have selected RISE with SAP; more than 60{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} are new customers to SAP.”

SAP CMO White led a series of innovation demonstrations featuring SAP SuccessFactors and SAP Fieldglass that helped companies deliver excellent, digitalised employee experiences such as the success story of Vodaphone Group.

During Day 2 of SAP Sapphire, keynote speaker Scott Russell, SAP Executive Board Member and Customer Success lead, shared that customers recognise leadership and transformation as critical success factors. He invited Melissa Goldman, Vice President of Engineering at Google, to detail how SAP enabled the tech company’s digital transformation journey.

“Google is a data-driven company, and SAP is the foundation. There is a lot of complexity around change,” stated Goldman. “Google has the best engineers in the world, but SAP is the industry leader in this domain and has the best practices for bringing change to an enterprise from start to end. If you want rigor and discipline and the right data model, get SAP.”

Russell acknowledged the 2,200 partners in the SAP ecosystem that ensures customer success including his final guest Geoff Scott, CEO of ASUG, who highlighted that establishing trusted, collaborative partnerships increase the chance of a company’s success during these unprecedented times.

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German enterprise SAP has earlier expressed its stand on the war in Ukraine, stressing support to the people of the country through several initiatives– from halting its cloud operations in Russia to implementing international sanctions without exception and providing technology support on top of humanitarian aid to Ukrainians. 

SAP Business Network for Humanitarian Aid

SAP Business Network, strategically designed to champion business collaboration amongst trading partners and unify fragmented supply chains, has been utilised by SAP to contribute to the ongoing turmoil in Ukraine. Since the 9th of March, SAP has been encouraging the suppliers on SAP Business Network to extend their services to deliver humanitarian aid and about 1,500 partners have already committed to this initiative. The software enterprise also utilises the network to expedite the hospital supplies and equipment needed by the Ukrainian government. 

Access to SAP Ariba Discovery, powered by SAP Business Network, has also been opened to support the people of Ukraine. The business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce solution allows buyers to post immediate sourcing needs and connect to suppliers that can offer the humanitarian aid needed for free. SAP Ariba Discovery ensures swift delivery of needs with its network of 8 million connected companies across 190 countries. In Japan, the Small and Medium Enterprise Agency (SMEA) of the Ministry of Economy have tapped SAP Ariba Discovery in 2020 to propel the growth of SMEs in the country amidst the pandemic.

SAP Japan and Qualtrics Collaboration

Starting 21st of April, SAP Japan and Qualtrics have offered free access to the Ukrainian Refugee Support Platform to allow refugees from Ukraine to seamlessly connect to Japan– including those who wish to evacuate to the country– and corresponding organisations that provide aid. (InsideSAP Asia often references articles from websites in other languages to bring you as much information as possible.) 

The platform launched and operated by Experience Management (XM) company Qualtrics in collaboration with public and private organisations facilitates evacuation requests from refugees via their smartphones or the Internet. Moreover, the Ukrainian Refugee Support Platform, which supports English and Japanese languages, acts as a hub for information exchange to provide integrated support for evacuees before, during, and after their stay in Japan. 

Qualtrics also launched a QR-code-based solution–available in Ukrainian, Russian, Lithuanian, and English– that can be distributed across refugee registration centers, local media, and other channels. The solution connects nonprofits and regional governments with the people to provide them with their urgent needs– from food supplies to medications and financial aid – by routing them to corresponding local relief coordinators. The platform features a dashboard to enable non-profit leaders to make informed decisions on resource allocation to ensure relief efforts are given urgently and accordingly.

Beyond technology support, SAP and its employees’ total donations have surpassed €3 million and more than 4,000 employees have extended housing support and other aid to refugees.

“The SAP family stands with everyone affected and horrified by the events in Ukraine. There are no winners in war, and we join others in calling for the restoration of peace,” SAP CEO Christian Klein wrote on LinkedIn.

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This year, SAP Ariba has been given the Top Rated Award in the Procurement Software category by TrustRadius. According to the review site for business technology, customer references take into consideration the product’s invoice tracking capabilities, catalog management features, and integrations with ERP systems. Commenting on the award, Tamara Braun, Chief Customer Officer for Intelligent Spend Management at SAP, said:

“We view this recognition as a testament to our customer-first approach, validating our procurement solution strategy and vision while further fueling our commitment to invest in SAP Ariba solutions to deliver next-generation spend management capabilities for our customers.”

Clients that have optimised SAP Ariba solutions for their digital procurement transformation include major businesses such as HH Global, a pioneer in global print management with a market footprint across 50 countries. Driven by the need to remove inefficiencies and redundancies due to disparate systems, processes, and policies, global resorts and casino operator Genting Malaysia Berhad (GENM) has also undergone a year-long implementation of SAP Ariba solutions as part of the digital transformation initiative at its procurement department.

During a session at the annual business and technology conference for SAP customers, partners, and users, GENM Assistant Vice President of Procurement Darrel Lim said:

“Our business strategy was based on our digital transformation initiative to digitise the manual work that we were doing, before turning to a system to do the work for us instead.”

Genting Malaysia Berhad Achieves Transparent Processes with SAP Ariba Procurement Solutions

GENM decided to migrate its on-premise solution to the SAP Ariba suite, which is hosted in the cloud, after the team concluded that the manual tasks of preparing data, reports, and documents, as well as obtaining approvals were slowing down their productivity. According to Lim, the team had to spend so much time managing these manual procedures since some of its SAP Ariba on-premise modules were not integrated.

“Our headquarters, where 80{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} of our team works, is based in Kuala Lumpur while the majority of our end-users reside in different states. In order for us to get sign-offs, it would require a number of couriers for the physical document which takes up a lot of time,” he added.

SAP Ariba aims to help both large and medium-sized companies achieve digital transformation — from source to pay — and realise the fast time-to-value with e-procurement and supply chain cloud solutions. By utilising the suite that contains SAP Ariba Sourcing, SAP Ariba Supplier Info, Performance Management, SAP Ariba Commerce Automation, SAP Ariba Contract Management, and SAP Signature Management by DocuSign, GENM was able to:

• Upskill employees within the supply chain to provide value-added services.
• Resolve IT audit issues and retire other satellite solutions to a single platform.
• Achieve transparent processes to manage all types, sizes, and volumes of procurements.
• Improve the approval process time for tender write-ups, reducing it by 80{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22}.
• Prevented the loss of documents and full-time equivalent employee (FTE) savings for the team to manage and follow up on approvals.

“By relying on the system to manage that activity for us, and using e-signatures, we are now able to record a seven-day average turnaround time to get all the necessary approvals,” he emphasised.

Moreover, Lim also disclosed that they have established a Vendor Management team to boost vendor engagement operations and identify potential business partners who may help the company stay ahead of its competitors. The company also set up a Strategic Sourcing team tasked with focusing on critical contract engagements and adding value, whether from a technical or commercial aspect.

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In August, SAP forged an innovation partnership with Amazon Business through the launch of Amazon Business Integration for Concur Expense. Offered for free at SAP Concur App Center, the solution simplifies the creation of expense reports from Amazon Business purchases and increases the accuracy of data captured on purchases.

The strategic alliance of SAP and Amazon Business is pressing forward, this time with the integration of Amazon Business into the Spot Buy capability of SAP Ariba to streamline the process of purchasing general business goods while providing users with a plethora of items to choose from and ensuring compliance with corporate purchasing policies.

Alexandre Gagnon, Vice President Worldwide at Amazon Business, expressed:

“We’re excited to be working with SAP. Making online procurement easier for customers of all sizes and industries is among our top priorities and one we share with SAP.”

SAP and Amazon Business Backing SAP Business Network

The joint innovation aligns with SAP’s strategy of expanding the SAP Business Network. Unveiled during the SAPPHIRE NOW in June, SAP Business Network is the German software giant’s initiative in creating the world’s largest business network by bringing together Ariba Network, SAP Logistics Business Network, and SAP Asset Intelligence Network to benefit over 5.5 million organisations.

“Partnering with Amazon Business is a bold step aligned with our strategy to make SAP Business Network more open so that users can more easily and compliantly buy the goods required to do their work and keep their businesses running,” said Tony Harris, Global Vice President, Business Network solutions at SAP. “Customers want choices, and SAP is continually evaluating and onboarding new content sources for our Spot Buy capability to provide the most value to them.”

In similar ways, both Amazon Business and SAP Ariba’s Spot Buy offer a seamless, customer-centric shopping experience. Amazon Business is a purchasing solution that allows businesses of all sizes access to a vast network of suppliers, scale growth and utilise advanced analytics and spend management tools. In like manner, the Spot Buy capability, available with SAP Ariba Buying and Invoicing and SAP Ariba Catalog, delivers a cost-saving, single source for buying indirect goods and offers employees over 100 million items sold by suppliers within marketplaces like Ariba Network, Mercateo, and Mercado Libre.

Enhancing the Buying Experience

With the SAP Ariba and Amazon Business’ integration that utilises a real-time search API, users can expect an enhanced guided buying experience. The innovation enables them to search for items and receive results from Amazon Business, along with other online stores, e-commerce providers, and direct sellers, directly within the SAP Ariba solution– simplifying the checkout process. SAP plans to roll out the integration to customers later this year starting with early adopters in the US then followed by a global release.

Nick Heinzmann, analyst team lead at Spend Matters, explained that employees expect to experience the convenience of online shopping in their work lives, which includes finding everything in one marketplace, under a familiar interface. He explained:

“The Spot Buy capability within SAP Ariba solutions is moving toward exactly this kind of experience in B2B, building on top of its current global integrations for external content to now include Amazon Business. Allowing end buyers to find and select Amazon Business content in the same native shopping experience they use for their internal catalogs is a logical step toward delivering the needed balance between the consumer-like experience today’s employees expect and helping improve the compliance and financial results that procurement can deliver.”

In B2C e-commerce, Amazon has been known to deliver a consistent, consumer-centric buying experience. In India, the e-commerce giant kicked off the annual autumn festival sales, the “Great Indian Festival”, on October 3 and tied up with HDFC Bank to offer 10{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} automatic discounts on purchases made during the sale period. Amazon is reported to have over 30{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} market share in the country’s online retail market.

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The next steps in establishing an intelligent enterprise, according to SAP, are to develop strong business networks and to place a strong focus on sustainability. One of the tech giant’s biggest initiatives unveiled at the SAPPHIRE NOW 2021 online event for partners and customers is the SAP Business Network, a business-to-business (B2B) social network made up of 5.5 million connected businesses.

In his global keynote speech, SAP Chief Executive Officer Christian Klein shared:

“While we have all seen the power of networks in our personal lives, this networked ecosystem for businesses doing business together is unique. Members of the new SAP Business Network will be able to access a single, unified portal to gain a holistic view into their supply chain ecosystem, logistics and traceability, and equipment management and maintenance.”

Furthermore, the SAP Business Network brings together three current SAP networks to help businesses easily locate and connect with new partners who satisfy particular requirements. Under a unified user portal and shared data model, the SAP Business Network incorporates the Ariba Network for procurement, SAP Logistics Business Network for logistics and supply chain management, as well as the SAP Asset Intelligence Network for asset performance monitoring and equipment tracking.

Moreover, SAP has also launched a portfolio of new sustainability-specific products that aims to enable businesses to foster environmentally conscious initiatives and new business models. The portfolio includes the SAP Responsible Design and Production solution, ensuring that product designers can make sustainable decisions from concept to production; the SAP Product Footprint Management solution, which tracks sustainability throughout the product lifecycle; and the SAP Sustainability Control Tower solution, which provides end-to-end visibility.

Transitioning Towards the Intelligent Enterprise with SAP

Meanwhile, the enterprise software giant has also introduced RISE with SAP for Human Experience Management (HXM), a new HR module aimed at strengthening operations and planning and improving engagement and productivity. It is a rebranding of SuccessFactors, SAP’s existing cloud human capital management (HCM) platform, with new capabilities added on top of the company’s Qualtrics survey functionalities.

During the launch, Julia White, Chief Marketing and Solutions Officer and Member of the Executive Board at SAP, said:

“With the integration of SuccessFactors and Qualtrics, employee understanding is available any time. Employee experience data identifies what is going well, and areas for improvement, in a data-driven way.”

On the other hand, several companies have already made the leap to become intelligent enterprises. Bank Islam Malaysia Berhad is one of the numerous customers utilising SAP SuccessFactors to transform and modernise their HR operations in Asia. As Malaysia’s biggest standalone Islamic bank, it aims to further boost employee productivity and step up its human capital management (HCM) efforts with the installation of SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central.

According to Bank Islam Malaysia Berhad CEO Mohd Muazzam Mohamed, the company is committed to investing in the latest innovations to help employees gain their fullest potentials. He further stressed in a Bernama report:

“With the SAP SuccessFactors cloud-based solution, it empowers the bank to use the various functions that align with business priorities and get immediate commercial value. The solution’s seamless, mobile-friendly user experiences and social collaboration capabilities mean that employees can access information anywhere, anytime.”

Similarly, SAP Korea has also revealed that businesses across different sectors in the country — from large companies to small and medium-sized enterprises, not-for-profit organisations, and start-ups — have already introduced human resource management solutions from SAP Successfactors. This includes Doosan Group, KB Kookmin Bank, Hyundai Mobis, Amorepacific, Lotte Chemical, and Kakao Enterprise.

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