No matter how well-planned your purchasing process is, there always are a few unexpected requirements or purchase needs due to faster-than-expected consumption. Organizations need to be ready for such unplanned purchases because mostly, they are time-sensitive and vital.
Though unplanned purchases are low-value, they could cost very high and could possess several risks due to the unalterable timeline.
It is not practical to run separate category managers for such random demands. And if employees will be doing it manually, they might go against company’s policy to meet the deadline, causing economic losses.
If above problems are common for your business, you might want a solution that could handle such purchases while keeping the final purchase(s) adhering to the procurement process and policy of your business.
The solution to above scenario is – Making purchases through online marketplaces while complying with your organization’s rules for procurement and policies regarding the same. That’s where Ariba Spot Buying can help you.
What is ARIBA Spot Buying?
SAP Ariba has its own B2B online marketplace for your planned and unplanned needs. This portal has a Spot Buying facility, through which, buyers can access millions of live product listing across various business categories. You can ask for catalogue and filter, search through catalogues using filters, and see all related details too.
From pricing to delivery options, ARIBA Spot Buying lets you create filters as per your company policy and approve items that adhere to the policy. When coupled with cloud-based procurement applications or SAP Ariba business network, SAP Ariba Spot Buy lets enterprises leverage customer-like experience while providing the convenience of adding business controls to the process.
By using SAP Ariba, businesses can reduce their catalogue management and vendor costs. It helps suppliers in risk assessments when it comes to industrial goods. The solution enables a user-friendly interface for end-users that can be managed by experienced as well causal users alike.
Through SAP Ariba, you may quickly find out as many contracted, non-contracted and non-strategically-sourced items adhering to compliances as required. It lets you keep your purchases complying with local, state, national, organizational as well as ethical values.
Benefits of Spot Buying
It is obvious that purchasing non-sourced items faster, cost-conveniently, and as per business’s regulations is advantageous. By letting your enterprise do so, SAP Ariba lets you leverage many other potential benefits too. Here is the list:
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Increases Customer Satisfaction
By improving the quality and speed of your B2B procurement process related to non-contracted and non-strategically sourced items, SAP Ariba Spot Buying lets you meet customer requirement without hassles. It implies that you can sometimes fill their urgent demands without the need for extra time. Overall, this feature improves your user adoption as well as user satisfaction rate significantly.
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Reduces various Costs and Saves some
Generally, emergency spot buying can increase your indirect spend by 15 to 20 percent, but SAP Ariba won’t let it happen. It has a long array of suppliers that could help you procurement at a rate that complies with your business’s procurement policy.
For any unanticipated items, you will be able to buy economically, transparently and quickly. From office furniture to safety equipment and maintenance – you can find purchase anything through SAP Ariba.
Also, SAP Ariba can increase your savings through purchasing card rebates.
This means, Ariba Spot Buy can reduce purchasing and transaction costs without causing any troubles for you. -
Helps avoid troubles
Urgent purchases with strict deadlines are nothing less than trouble. Such requirements can lead your employees towards panic buying and cause flawed decision-making. However, SAP Ariba takes care that none of your employee makes a purchase which does not adhere to your business‘s procurement policies.
In addition to above-mentioned benefits, SAP Ariba Spot Buy also reduces your vendor management costs, automates risk assessment, simplifies the processes, increases your buying power and lowers the supplier cataloguing charges. It enables you to deliver quality, diversity and time-bound commitments through its reliable supplier network.
Spot Buying from non-sourced Suppliers – How it works?
You generally have your company catalogue with items listed by sourced suppliers. This list has suppliers which have supply contacts established with your business. If your company has no suppliers yet or have not configured details, you won’t have any company catalogue yet.
To initiate Ariba Spot Buying, look for Spot Buy Catalog or Spot Buy Home Page tab in the dashboard.
Now, there are 3 things that you can do:
An example Use case of Spot Buying
Let’s say that your office has a sudden need for 5 new chairs as one of your teams has to work from another area of the office for 3 hours a day. It could be your video production department making visits to help your web designers in a different project, or any other team.
Now, as you don’t have such furniture is your catalog and the purchase is crucial in order to make collaboration smooth, you can use Ariba Spot Buy facility. By doing so, not only will you be able to fulfill your need but won’t add any additional burden on your procurement department while they have enough backlog of the tactical purchases already.
Conclusion
Procurement process may require improvement time-to-time. Through Ariba Spot Buying, you can improve as well as automate a part for your non-contracted or non-strategically sourced items. This will reduce troubles for your causal as well as professional buyers, boosting the quality of purchases. It can also fetch rebates, reduce costs and save time for you.
Willing to know more about Ariba Spot Buy capability or you want to use it with your SAP Ariba Cloud solution already? Whichever is the case, Stridely Solutions can help you in this.