SAP Ariba and Zip for source-to-pay

When it comes to the source-to-pay process, the need for digitization is greater than ever. Companies seek efficiency, enhanced supply chain visibility, better vendor management, oversight of global spend, and a single view into all of their spend. Two procurement solutions stand out in this mission: SAP Ariba and Zip Intake-to-Procure.

In this article, we’ll take a quick look at how businesses use both Zip and SAP Ariba as complementary procurement software systems for gaining control over spend management and streamlining the procurement process.

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SAP Ariba: achieve digital transformation from source to pay

SAP Ariba provides cloud-based procurement and supply chain collaboration solutions. Their spend management capabilities include sourcing, contract management, guided buying and spot buy(e-procurement), plus supplier and catalog enablement.

Procurement teams use SAP Ariba to manage their end-to-end purchasing process, as well as control spending across global organizations and drive sustainable sourcing approaches. It is frequently used in conjunction with other SAP solutions, such as SAP Fieldglass for temporary labor and services, or SAP Concur for travel and expense management.

Benefits of adopting SAP Ariba for source-to-pay include:

• Achieve end-to-end business process integration
• Drive self-service buying while enabling employees to use preferred suppliers
• Enable compliant spot buying for cost-saving approaches to indirect goods
• Enterprise-grade content management tools to define and enrich catalog content
• Automate the entire purchasing lifecycle with one platform for direct and indirect goods/services
• Generate a more unified view of your company’s spending to reduce costs, mitigate risks, improve collaboration
  

The system is also powered by the SAP Business Network (which includes the supplier network formerly known as the Ariba Network). Customers using the SAP Business Network can transact with more than 6.7 million connected companies.

SAP Ariba helps a business implement comprehensive spend management processes across all spend categories, while delivering optimal control, visibility, and savings. In addition to procurement management, the platform also has support for contract management and integrates with other SAP solutions, most notably SAP S/4HANA. It’s one of the most widely used ERP systems in the world.

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Why businesses choose SAP Ariba

The SAP Ariba solution provides one of the most comprehensive sets of tools to manage the end-to-end procurement process. With a long history in the source-to-pay market, it provides complete coverage for upstream and downstream procurement, as well as for all types of spend — direct, indirect, and services.

Businesses choose SAP for its breadth, as well as for the strength of its supporting SAP networks. Many companies also choose to tap the benefits of working with a single provider for ERP and procurement applications, given the data and process overlaps between these two technologies.

Given SAP’s global coverage and experience working with complex organizations, it’s no surprise that some of the world’s largest companies use SAP Ariba to standardize procurement processes across subsidiaries and geographies. SAP Ariba’s unique direct manufacturing capabilities are also a differentiator, although the vendor has representative customers across all industries.

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Zip Intake to Procure: modern spend approvals

Zip Intake to Procure is a universal procurement intake solution that helps to increase employee adoption of procurement processes, while improving spend and risk management. The consumer-grade interface provides a single front door where employees can easily initiate a purchase or vendor request, which is then routed to the appropriate parties (finance, data, security, legal, etc.) for approvals. Zip requires 0 training.

Zip can integrate into many commonly used ERP, S2P, or P2P solutions, and works with popular brands like Canva, Databricks, Snowflake, Northwestern Mutual Checkr, and more. Popular features and benefits include:

• Automate request and approval processes to improve procurement cycle times
• Enhanced supplier management to avoid supplier record redundancy
• Spend less time manually tracking and updating on approval requests
• Automatically create purchase requests and purchase orders in your ERP or P2P
• Easily configure intake to guide employees and automatically loop in the correct stakeholders

Zip enables a business to build a better audit trail with greater spend visibility, easier spend management, and a more engaging user experience.

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Why businesses choose Zip

Zip was recently recognized as a 2022 ProcureTech100 Company for Its Modern Intake-to-Procure Solution. The procurement orchestration software provides a single source of truth for today’s decentralized purchasing processes. The consumer-grade platform enables any team member to easily initiate a purchase or vendor request with just a few clicks, creating a collaborative ecosystem that improves the employee experience.

The Zip procurement management solution automatically routes purchase requests for significantly faster approval workflows across every business sector. Zip is a solution provider that enables real-time visibility throughout the entire procurement process and is a solid system to help teams scale.

Scaling their legal function is one benefit HR company Lattice found with Zip Intake-to-Procure. Lattice uses Zip as an efficient notification system and they can easily navigate the platform anytime they want to look at a request. They can see where it is, who’s been commenting on it, and what the status of the IT or legal approval process is. Being able to answer all of these questions simultaneously means their company time is spent more efficiently.

Zip has a score of 4.8 out of 5 (37 reviews) on G2.

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Is there overlap between SAP Ariba and Zip?

Both SAP Ariba and Zip Intake-to-Procure are powerful procurement platforms that enable teams to focus on the procure-to-pay process. Both integrate well and work to create a more unified view of spending, that reduces costs and mitigates risks, while driving adoption of the procurement process.

When it comes to customer support, both systems have positive reviews. SAP Ariba comes with multiple options, with a standard support model for all customers. ZIP customer service has been reported online as “incredibly responsive and helpful.”

Additionally, the integration between both systems is straightforward and well-tested.

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Why do enterprises integrate Zip with SAP Ariba to modernize procurement?

As purchasing grows more complex and decentralized, stakeholders have a steeper learning curve when determining which tools to use for different types of spend, leading to risk of process failure and rogue spend. This puts a massive burden on procurement teams and approvers to get spend and risk under control.

Zip has created a world-leading procurement intake management system that integrates with SAP Ariba and SAP ERP offerings. Zip provides a single platform for any employee initiating a purchase request that connects to PO and invoicing processes in SAP Ariba. It works to eliminate emails from curious stakeholders on the status of requisitions, and automates cross-functional purchase approvals for finance, security, legal, and more.

Companies integrate Zip with SAP Ariba because businesses want to offer a centralized intake process while still using SAP Ariba to generate POs and act as a system of record for supplier data. Businesses can manage supplier risk with a central repository of vendor data and reduce rogue spend with increased visibility into their pipeline of requests and contracts.

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How fast-growing businesses use Zip to augment the ROI of S2P and P2P

Automation has historically led to customer success, and Zip is the first (and only) procurement orchestration solution that automates the entire intake-to-procure process. Unlike traditional S2P suites, Zip provides a single set of workflows for employees to initiate a purchase or vendor request.

The traditional purchase request can take 20–50 emails to complete and 7 or more approvals before a PO is issued. Stakeholders can also be routed through a variety of processes that touch every department from IT to legal. Requesters are often confused about the nature of the system and the lack of visibility. This can cause important deadlines and business opportunities to be missed.

Zip provides a single, centralized interface for clearer visibility into all parallel and serial cross-functional reviews, tying together your ERP or S2P suite with other enterprise tools like CLM and GRC.

Rather than be viewed as competitive, Zip and SAP Ariba actually work together increase spend under management, improve employee experience and deliver greater ROI from S2P and P2P solutions. Fortune 500 businesses are using Zip as the start button for their procurement intake and approval processes, integrating with systems like SAP Ariba to maximize value from the end-to-end procurement cycle.

Are you ready to see how Zip Intake-to-Procure can help your business manage spend, mitigate risk, gain visibility, and streamline operations? Click here to speak with an expert today.