Staff Augmentation for Ariba: Enhance Your Procurement Capabilities

Why Staff Augmentation for Ariba?

Staff augmentation is the practice of hiring external professionals, often on a temporary or project-specific basis, to supplement the existing in-house team. These external experts bring specialized skills, knowledge, and experience. They help companies overcome skill gaps, meet project deadlines, and achieve business objectives efficiently. However, specific to staff augmentation for Ariba, SAP and Ariba processes need almost constant monitoring.

That makes access to outside expertise even more valuable because it can cover any needs your company may have. Common uses are short-term help for vacations or leaves of absence and longer-term, embedded employees. It can also bridge the gap from go-live through hypercare until you have a fully functioning, independent team of internal experts. These ensure the ongoing success of your Ariba implementation

In addition, SAP makes small updates to Ariba on a monthly basis and releases a larger set of new features in their quarterly updates in February, May, August, and November. These releases often have hundreds of new features which combine ‘automatically on’ and ‘configuration required’ updates. Both of these scenarios can have a significant impact on your system and how it operates. 

What Ariba Staff Augmentation Offers

Staff augmentation can play a significant role in optimizing a company’s Ariba solution. It provides specialized expertise, additional resources, and focused efforts to enhance the implementation, configuration, and ongoing management of your Ariba system. These experts can analyze your current setup, identify areas for improvement, and implement advanced features or unused modules that have been fully utilized.

Here’s how leveraging the deep expertise of outside support can help your organization:

Configuration and Improvement

Ariba solutions require configuration to align with your company’s specific processes and requirements. Some organizations don’t have the in-house expertise to update the configurations that were deployed, especially shortly after go-live. It is also critical that the people who are making system configuration changes have the right experience to do so. That ensures that all impacts of change are properly identified, managed, and tested. Staff augmentation professionals can help to make minor or major configuration changes to the system to optimize workflows, approvals, procurement rules, and other aspects to match your business needs.

Integration

Integrating Ariba solutions with other systems (such as ERP systems or third-party compliance tools) is crucial for seamless data flow. Staff augmentation can provide technical integration specialists who ensure data consistency, accuracy, and integrity across different platforms.

Data Analysis

Data analytics experts can leverage Ariba’s reporting and analytics capabilities to provide insights into spending patterns, supplier performance, and other key metrics. They can help identify cost-saving opportunities and areas for process improvement.

Supplier Enablement and Adoption

This is one of the biggest challenges when migrating to a new system. Staff augmentation can help set up efficient communication channels, automate supplier interactions, and improve supplier onboarding processes.

User Adoption

It’s common for users to resist the type of automation that makes Ariba most effective for spend tracking and analysis. Helping to get users onboard with those automated processes streamlines procurement processes, reduces manual tasks, and enhances overall efficiency. Staff augmentation can help to create a comprehensive user adoption program tailored to your organization’s needs.

Training and Support

Implementing a new system requires a robust and successful training program. Staff augmentation professionals can work with your stakeholders to create a customized training plan and even help to deliver those training sessions for your employees to ensure they are proficient in using Ariba solutions. They can also offer ongoing support, troubleshooting, and guidance as your team navigates the platform.

Upgrade and Migration

If your company is transitioning to a newer version of Ariba or migrating from other procurement systems, staff augmentation can facilitate a smooth transition. They will ensure that data is cleansed and migrated accurately and that new functionalities are properly configured.

Best Practices Implementation

Ariba solutions come with industry best practices that can optimize procurement, sourcing, and supplier management. Staff augmentation experts can align your processes with these best practices to improve efficiency and compliance.

Change Management

Implementing or optimizing Ariba solutions often requires changes in organizational processes which will impact your key users and stakeholders. Staff augmentation can provide change management specialists to ensure smooth adoption. They are experts in addressing resistance, communicating changes effectively, and managing stakeholder expectations.

Performance Monitoring

To ensure the ongoing success of Ariba solutions, staff augmentation can help establish performance monitoring mechanisms and track key metrics. Along the way, they can provide recommendations for continuous improvement.

Project Management

If your Ariba optimization efforts are part of a larger project, or you need someone to act as an internal advisor during your implementation who has significant knowledge in both Ariba and your industry, staff augmentation can provide experienced project managers. That expert will oversee the project, coordinate activities, manage timelines, and ensure project goals are met.

Day One Expert Readiness

By leveraging staff augmentation, companies can tap into specialized skills and resources, ensuring that their Ariba solutions are configured, customized, and utilized to their fullest potential. This ultimately leads to increased efficiency, cost savings, and improved procurement processes.

Need more help?

Learn more about CCP Global’s full range of staff augmentation services, or email us for more info.

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Email CCP Global’s AMS managed support division.