Oct 8, 2024

SAP Ariba Guided Sourcing: What It Is and What It’s Not

By Paul Baker

This is the first of a series of blogs on Guided Sourcing from CCP Global.

You know Guided Sourcing is coming but what does it fully entail? Why convert from SAP Ariba’s “Classic” Sourcing to Guided Sourcing?

shipyard cargo container sea port

What SAP Ariba Guided Sourcing Is

Perhaps you think, “my company has used Classic Sourcing for quite some time, we’re comfortable using it and don’t feel the need to do the conversion.” Well, there are several key features and functionalities you could benefit from by converting to Guided Sourcing as soon as possible.

  1. Guided Sourcing is a new user interface with improved usability: The user interface is more modern, user friendly and intuitive, so your newbies should ramp up quicker and your veterans should be able to execute RFx events faster and easier than they have been doing. SAP Ariba says you should see a 50% improvement in RFX creation time.
  1. Guided Sourcing includes machine learning which over time will help your Buyers identify suitable suppliers more easily and build out line items your company uses frequently.
  1. Guided Sourcing includes smart import, which makes building RFx questions, requirements and especially line items much easier via Excel uploading. This feature helps determine what type of information the upload contains and helps map line-item terms to your system’s Master Data structure. It learns from your usage, the more you utilize it the better it gets.
  1. Recommended Suppliers and content functionality helps your Buyers identify potential suppliers faster and easier based on past selections of commodity and locations.
  1. Multi-Round RFx’s in Guided Sourcing allows you to run an RFx then downselect the suppliers or line items, and then quickly launch a second RFx to help you get down to the best offerings and pricing suppliers want to offer.
SAP Ariba Guided Sourcing dashboard

What SAP Ariba Guided Sourcing Is Not

  1. Guided Sourcing is not all brand-new code from the ground up. SAP Ariba built it using the solid foundation of time-tested code from Classic Sourcing, then built the UI and new features and functionality on top of it. The result is a better user experience and usability, while still leveraging the stability and power of well-established code from Classic Sourcing. This also avoids the code defects often seen in ground-up applications.
  1. Guided Sourcing is not “set it and forget it.” Just as with Classic Sourcing, there is no substitute for building and maintaining good communications and partnerships both internally with your company and externally with your suppliers.

We hope this short article has provided you with insight into the value of Guided Sourcing. Our experts at CCP Global have helped numerous companies successfully convert to Guided Sourcing, some in less than two weeks.

If you would like to talk with one of our Guided Sourcing experts, please reach out to us at info@ccpglobal.com to setup a collaboration meeting.