Transition to Cloud SAP Ariba for business processes management

The LeverX team migrated the customer’s legacy system to SAP Ariba Cloud and helped resolve management issues by unifying procurement management and logistics processes

Customer

One of the largest forest products manufacturers with its own logging enterprise, specializing in the production of a wide range of high-margin products.

Challenge

Due to rapid growth, it became challenging to manage the company’s business processes.

Solution

With the LeverX experts, our customer addressed management issues by unifying procurement management and logistics processes. The LeverX team migrated the customer’s legacy system to SAP Ariba Cloud to achieve this goal.

Challenge

In October 2019, the customer faced the following issues: 

• Numerous errors and issues in procurement due to siloed processes
• Lack of unified standards in logistics management, which significantly reduced productivity and interfered with effective communication

By solving these issues and implementing SAP Ariba Cloud, our customer expected to:

• Improve its business productivity, leading to new commercial offers.
• Reduce human risk factors.
• Reduce labor costs and improve procurement process efficiency.
• Increase the number of suppliers to enhance the competitive environment. 
• Test the market to reach out to international customers by implementing SAP Ariba Network.

Our Contribution

• Deployment project including SAP Ariba Sourcing and SAP Ariba Supplier Lifecycle and Performance solutions integrated with SAP S/4HANA and SAP BW.
• Collaboration with the Customer’s key users and IT team on requirements gathering. 
• Solutions configuration according to the requirements.
• Integration between SAP Ariba and SAP S/4HANA via SAP PI for transactional and master data.
• Integration between SAP Ariba and SAP BW via open APIs to cover reporting requirements.
• Troubleshooting, testing, key users’ education, continuous support.
• Preparing training materials using SAP Enable Now solution.

Solution Description

We migrated procurement processes in 15 holding subsidiaries to SAP Ariba.

Deployment project included SAP Ariba Sourcing and SAP Ariba Supplier Lifecycle and Performance (SLP) solutions integrated with SAP S/4HANA, SAP BW and ERP legacy system procedures.

This system helped our customer improve the economic efficiency of business processes by:

• Standardizing, automating, and accelerating supplier selection and onboarding
• Delivering greater transparency and improving communication
• Centralizing control over suppliers’ activity and performance 
• Implementing advanced scoring, real-time event overview, and decision analysis
• Integrating SAP Ariba Discovery to find new suppliers

Milestones

LeverX team delivered the project in 12 stages:

Stage 1 — Concept

At this stage, our team worked out integration points with related project modules, planned project tasks, examined current processes and top-level architecture development, prepared materials (including materials for SAP Shared Services), discussed options and ways to involve suppliers, and developed business process diagrams.

Stage 2 — Design

This stage included collecting requirements, developing detailed design solutions for business processes, developing a design matrix in SAP Ariba format, describing integration architecture, defining requirements for master data, developing a supplier engagement strategy and a role model, and defining the specific regulations that require improvements.

Stage 3 — Realization

We set up the system and templates for procurement and qualification processes, performed spot testing, prepared and tested data loading, set up integration flows, prepared test scenarios, and set up a role model.

Stage 4 — Testing

The integration test stage was performed both with and independently from SAP S/4HANA. We fixed major bugs and performed certain activities for supplier engagement.

Stage 5 — Training and preparation for launch

We fixed minor bugs, migrated settings to a production environment, prepared and loaded production data, prepared a maintenance plan and training materials, and conducted the business user training.

Stage 6 — Initial support

Business users could start their work with the solution implemented. From that moment, our contribution included supporting SAP Ariba Shared Services and transferring the system to ongoing SAP support.

Stage 7 — Ongoing training

We delivered additional user training when required.

Stage 8 — Stabilization and development

This was the stage of user support. We changed the settings of procurement process templates, qualification requests, and the current system when required. We also added suppliers to the system and made some improvements.

Stage 9 — Integration

The LeverX team integrated the system with SAP S/4HANA, set up a single sign-on (SSO), and loaded delta with basic data.

Stage 10 — Training

At this stage, we delivered additional training on the SAP S/4HANA functionality.

Stage 11 — Support

Further, our team supported the integrated system, fixed errors when required, and transferred support to the customer’s specialists.

Stage 12 — Targeted support

At the final stage, LeverX supported the customer’s specialists in solving complex incidents upon request.

Technology Stack we used

Our team used four core solutions to achieve our customer’s case results.

• SAP ARIBA SOURCING
• SAP ARIBA SLP
• SAP S/4HANA
• SAP BW

Results

Integrating SAP Ariba with SAP S4/HANA helped the customer unify procurement data and processes across the holding.

Due to migrating to the SAP Ariba system, the company improved the efficiency and transparency of procurement processes.