Source-to-pay is about more than just saving money…
Sustainability and social responsibility have been increasing in importance for several years now, but with climate summits and clear problems with the global supply chain due to Covid-19 it’s time to start tackling these issues today. Luckily, the evolution of cloud-based e-procurement solutions and big data have made it easier than ever for organisations to meet their sustainability goals.
The same technology can also make it easier to meet the demands of today’s consumer, as they increasingly demand supply chain transparency for all sorts of products. These days, it’s not just about being sustainable – for many organisations it’s also about being able to show your customers how sustainable and socially aware you are.
How can big data shrink your carbon footprint?
SAP’s tackles sustainability and social responsibility in a number of ways as part of their efforts to improve the planet and how we treat it:
- Improved reporting that helps you meet your Enterprise Sustainability Goals (ESGs)
- Reduce carbon emissions across product lifecycles – just one way SAP works to protect the environment
- A range of compliance offerings from fraud prevention through supply chain transparency reporting and automated optimisation to help businesses meet their social responsibility and compliance goals.
- In-depth supply chain monitoring and management solutions, from specialised agricultural sourcing solutions through to Integrate Business Planning for Supply Chain – a solution that leverages all of the relevant data to forecast issues and side-step them.
All of these options and more can be integrated with your existing SAP Ariba and S/4 Hana systems, or you can add them as part of a new cloud procurement build. Either way, SapienceS2P are experts in the procurement software field, and we’re ready to use our industry knowledge to help you.
What is sustainability, and how can software help?
Before we can improve it, we need to define sustainability. Most of us think we know what the term means without giving it much thought. Big topics like climate change, pollution, biodiversity, might be easy to remember, but they’re much harder to tackle effectively on both an individual and corporate level.
Being able to reduce emissions, monitor and check the source of raw materials, and minimise pollution are all essential parts of even the most basic sustainability strategy. However, managing the necessary data and actions to optimise for these things within busy procurement workflows is a challenge if you don’t have access to the right tools and data.
Luckily today’s cloud-based source-to-pay and procure-to-pay solutions make light work of meeting corporate sustainability goals. SAP Ariba and the data available from the SAP Ariba Network offer a particularly good example of how digital transformation can help in this regard.
And what about social responsibility?
Vetting vendors for both financial and social responsibility has been a major driving force behind the development of the Ariba Network. Historically, large enterprises used to have to pay inspectors on the ground in source countries to go in and inspect factories to make sure they were meeting legal and ethical requirements.
With the SAP Ariba Network, businesses of all sizes can join for free, making it easier for purchasers to instantly check that their suppliers are meeting standards. Additionally, it’s much easier for SMEs and social enterprises to become a part of the global supply chain for larger enterprises if they’re a part of the Ariba Network.
Improving the world with SAP
As a company, SAP strives to keep their business in line with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. This includes the tools offered to procurement software customers. In fact, many of the changes wrought as legacy software is rolled up into the latest SAP Ariba and S/4 Hana cloud offerings serve to make achieving these goals easier for every SAP customer.
For example, a user looking to procure resources for their business can now optimise for everything from emissions to social responsibility when searching for new vendors on the system. What’s more, if a small vendor has the capacity to supply a much larger company, they stand a much better chance of getting the contract as part of the Ariba Network family.
Not just sustainability – adaptability
The same tools and benchmarks that make it easier to specify parameters that improve sustainability also make it easier to bypass issues caused by disasters, pandemics, and other black swan events. Whether your purchasing department is trying to bypass the current semiconductor shortage, avoid pandemic laws that affect transit costs, or increase the percentage of resources sourced sustainably or from countries with good human rights records, the same powerful software makes it all possible at the press of a few buttons.
Conclusion
Today’s supply chain landscape is chaotic to say the least and is likely to remain so. Regardless, consumers and the planet itself continue to demand companies work to improve sustainability and social responsibility. However, without tools like SAP Ariba this can be an expensive and time-consuming prospect.
Whether you’re considering a new SAP Ariba deployment for your procurement department or want help getting more out of an existing deployment SapienceS2P is waiting to hear from you.
Get in touch
If you’re ready to speak to us, get in touch by calling +442080780820 or emailing info@sapiences2p.com. If not, we’ll be covering some key aspects of the decision-making process and how to help us pick the best procurement solution for you over the next few blog posts.