10 minute read
SAP Supply Chain Management Software
With SAP comprehensive solutions, users can manage their entire supply chain cycle in real time, including both internal to external aspects, asserts Carlos Mercuriali, Vice President & General Manager, SAP Ariba and SAP Fieldglass, EMEA South.
Global Supply Chain engaged Carlos Mercuriali, Vice President & General Manager, SAP Ariba and SAP Fieldglass, EMEA South, in an exclusive, wideranging, extensive interview.
Global Supply Chain: For the uninitiated, give our readers a brief, 30-second introduction / spiel on SAP Ariba and SAP Fieldglass? Carlos Mercuriali (CM): SAP Ariba and SAP Fieldglass are where the world comes to do business together. When companies connect to Ariba Network, they connect to millions of suppliers across direct and indirect expense categories. We are also the longstanding leader in external workforce management and services procurement.
We integrate the entire buying process across organizations. Our platform helps customers find, source, and strategically manage their multichannel workforce. GSC: Explain (in a nutshell) how SAP enables businesses to thrive with your proprietary signature supply chain management software? CM: Companies are increasingly realizing the competitive benefits of digitalisation. This includes digitalizing not only internal processes, but also connect digitally externally, with suppliers and customers for example. SAP’s end-to-end suite of applications and services, including supply chain solutions, allow businesses to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and compete effectively in the marketplace.
With our solutions, users can manage their entire supply chain cycle in real time, including both internal to external aspects.
GSC: How is ‘Rise with SAP’ impacting and benefitting procurement systems in companies (briefly)? CM: Rise with SAP can be described as a concierge service for companies’ digital transformation. It helps companies to transform in a way that is both holistic and customizable, so that they may become intelligent enterprises, enabling them to make impactful changes to run their business better by growing more resilient, more profitable, and more sustainable.
GSC: Overall, how is SAP overhauling and reforming supply chains and providing procurement solutions for real-time buyers and sellers? CM: In a nutshell, by facilitating oversight and management of each area of the entire supply chain including the end customer, SAP solutions are enabling companies to adapt to changing circumstances quickly and operate more efficiently, which also translates to costs savings for sellers and quicker time to market – in other words, quicker delivery – for buyers.
SAP Ariba and SAP Fieldglass
No matter the industry a business operates in, digitalizing its internal and external processes gives it a major competitive advantage over others. By using SAP solutions, businesses will be able to thrive in a highly technological environment that is evolving at a more rapid pace than ever before.
GSC: SAP’s ERP and software solutions is highly customised and cuts across multiple industry verticals—Retail, Manufacturing, Distribution, Transport, Logistics, Aviation, Food and Cold Chain…comment please? CM: SAP’s Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) helps run core processes in a single system for all departments within a company, including finance, manufacturing, HR, supply chain, services, and CARLOS MERCURIALI SVP & GM, SAP Procurement Solutions, EMEA South
Carlos Mercuriali is the Senior Vice President and General Manager of SAP Procurement Solutions for EMEA South. His team supports companies to digitally transform their procurement process to spend better, achieve savings and become more competitive and efficient.
Carlos completed Harvard Business School’s prestigious Advanced Management Programme in 2018.
Carlos joined SAP in 2012 as Chief Operating Officer where he fueled SAP’s growth in the Latin American market. He is an experienced business leader on cloud software applications and services and leads the Intelligent Spend Group for South EMEA.
He and his team have successfully guided many customers along the path toward becoming Intelligent Enterprises. Carlos is passionate about leading high performing teams. In 2019 his region was awarded “Region of the Year” and consistently strives for the best. Most recently, his Intelligent Spend Management team in EMEA South was awarded Line of Business of the Year.
Throughout his career, Carlos has advised many companies in the United States, Latin America, Europe, Africa and the Middle East. He has lived and worked in Chicago, Madrid, Miami, Buenos Aires and São Paulo.
SAP Ariba is the marketplace for modern business, creating simple, intelligent exchanges between millions of buyers and suppliers.
commerce transacted annually $3.75T
SAP Fieldglass provides the industry’s leading cloud technology for services procurement and external workforce management.
$54.7B in annual spend
5.3M
companies
190
countries
24
languages
207K
suppliers
179
countries
21
languages
business commerce transactions 200M
EVERY YEAR 212K new statements of work created
potential new business posted
new relationships created
$4.3M +115
EVERY HOUR 2.5K timesheets processed
505 new users added
procurement. As the systems are highly flexible, companies of any size can benefit from these intelligent technologies to help them transform their mission-critical processes and rapidly adapt to change.
We help companies scale their operations easily, cut costs, and gain new efficiencies. As we live in a fast-paced world, we use the latest technologies to build future-proof cloud ERP tools, and deliver these to clients via automatic updates, while also offering them the services of a support team 24-7 to help manage the system. GSC: How significant is Saudi Arabia and how important is the Middle East for SAP? CM: SAP Middle East and North Africa is recognized as one of the fastestgrowing markets for SAP globally and is a key investment area for the company. Moreover, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia continues to be a global leader in technology innovation and is therefore a very significant market for us, and we have offices in Riyadh, Jeddah and Al-Khobar. In line with the Saudi Vision 2030 and the rising importance of Industry 4.0, which includes the industrial internet of things and smart manufacturing, Saudi organizations and industries have been advancing their digital transformation agendas, and we are supporting these endeavours wherever possible. GSC: What are your short and / or longterm expansion plans for the region? CM: We have invested in people and infrastructure in the Saudi Arabia market, including setting up data centres for both SAP Ariba and SAP Fieldglass.
Our digital network called the SAP Business Network has growth exponentially in the Middle East and we will continue investing on bringing more buyers and suppliers into the procurement digital transformation journey. GSC: How is the surge of E-commerce
Nearly 5.3 million companies are connected to the Ariba Network, impacting your business? and more than $3.75 trillion in commerce flows through the Ariba CM: The surge in e-commerce is Network annually. Why? Because everything needed to manage enabling us to demonstrate the value commerce — from sourcing and orders through invoice and payment of fully digitalised networks and — is there for them, along with experts to help optimize the program. supply chains to our clients. They can see the value of efficient supply chain management and how this can save them costs and decrease ‘time © 2020 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. to market’. The latter is becoming increasingly significant as demand for quick delivery of products grows. GSC: What trends / breakthroughs do you foresee in logistics solutions for the region in the realm of Automation, AI, Autonomous Driving, Blockchain, IoT, 4IR and what is the SAP interface in these areas? CM: In addition to digitizing a business’s connections with internal and external parties, we can help them automate functions using artificial intelligence and machine learning. As I mentioned, speed is becoming increasingly important to the consumer, so getting items to market quickly is essential, and processes such as automated responses to shortages or
We help organizations find, engage and manage all types of flexible resources – including contingent workers, statement-of-work-based consultants, freelancers and more. SAP Fieldglass solutions connect customers with millions of external workers worldwide. More than 975,000 new external workers were added in Q3.
needs along the supply chain are vital to avoid delays and increase speed
GSC: What have been some of your recent major accomplishments in the region? Please elaborate? CM: SAP recognizes the MENA region as one of the fastest-growing markets in the world and invests heavily in this region. SAP MENA has 12 offices in the region: 16 countries, data centres, and a regional Training and Development Centre in Dubai.
GSC: What opportunities and corresponding threats do you foresee for SAP going forward and how is SAP equipped to take on and surmount these challenges? CM: Opportunities and threats in managing supply chains and intelligent enterprises arise from their need to continually adapt to changing environments and consumer attitudes. To give an example of changing business environments, the pandemic proved the need for all companies to be flexible and agile, and demonstrated how effective technology is in helping companies respond rapidly to market changes.
As for the changing attitudes of consumers, we can consider as an example the increasing emphasis being placed on environmental sustainability, and fair trade an employment practices.
Our research indicates that 80% of customers we surveyed said they were willing to pay a premium if the companies involved in the supply chain followed sustainable principles. In contrast, our research shows that 50% of companies do not have plans in place to tackle the issue of sustainability in supply chains, and this is where technology can help.
Companies need to be able to monitor their supply chains as the majority of their carbon emissions will lie here, which is where our tracking and monitoring solutions come in. The digitally enabled visibility of the supply chain means that companies could even use their purchasing power to push all members in their supply chain to follow sustainable practices, rather than try to trace and assess these standards retrospectively.
GSC: What is your long-term vision for SAP? Where do you hope to take the company hereon? CM: At SAP we say that futureproofing our customers’ business and building systems to provide a foundation for growth and innovation is in our DNA. As such, we will continue to evolve driven by the changing needs of our customers and help them to become better-run businesses for their industry, customers and environments.
GSC: Briefly, what are key takeaways / broad observations / general comment of the fallout of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic for SAP? CM: In a world where so much is now done online, every business understands the importance of digitalization to their success. Keeping abreast of the latest technology is no longer the preserve of a select few industries and offers a competitive advantage to any business that embraces it.
GSC: How is the onset of the pandemic impacting your local and regional operations? CM: We are seeing enormous growth in digitalization of companies around the world. While the benefits have long been known to many, the pandemic has been an impetus for more companies to start digitalising all aspects of their internal business as well as their external relationships and connections. They are embracing new technologies such as the internet of things and 5G networks, no matter what industry they are in.
GSC: How much of your professional work environment / ecosystem in the operations realm has changed as a result of the Covid-19 virus onslaught? CM: The pandemic created bottlenecks in supply chains, with demand initially slowing and then suddenly rapidly increasing as the situation began to normalize. Harnessing technology through SAP’s solutions can alleviate disruptions such as these.
The more digitalised and connected the end-to-end components of the supply chain are, the quicker the adaption to changing demands will be. Being connected to all parties including manufacturers and other suppliers, as well as customers, allows companies to make immediate adjustments based on changes in demand, and a company can track every aspect of ‘time to market’.
Companies are realising that increasing digitalization of the supply chain offers a competitive advantage, and no one can afford to be left behind.
GSC: How have your priorities been rearranged and what kind of new demands / pressures are being put on your business now? CM: Due to the nature of our business, we are always looking to the future, and updating, adapting and refining our products to keep abreast of changes in the world. This agile and flexible approach was ideal for the pandemic environment. Our priorities, remain the same – offering solutions to help people, businesses, and institutions achieve economic development, social progress, and environmental impact.
GSC: Talk to us (briefly) about the SAP fingerprint at Expo 2020? CM: At Expo 2020 Dubai, with its focus on innovation and technology, is an ideal home to showcase SAP’s solutions. Our 900 square meter SAP House at Expo demonstrates how realtime customer experience innovations can transform the economy, society, and environment.
Inspiring innovative customer experience solutions from SAP and its partners include: an immersive tunnel, an interactive gamification of equestrian sports, the PODway platform for people of determination, and SAP Customer Checkout for retail innovation.
