For the seventh consecutive time, SAP has been recognized as a Leader in the 2022 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Procure-to-Pay (P2P) suites, for demonstrating a “market-defining vision of how P2P technology can help procurement leaders achieve business objectives for managing compliance and controlling external spend.”
Gartner evaluated 16 procure-to-pay software vendors, naming SAP a Leader based on “completeness of vision” and “ability to execute” in procure-to-pay suites. SAP was also the only vendor to score in the top three of every critical capability use case described in the 2022 Gartner Critical Capabilities for Procure-to-Pay Suites research, a deep dive into procure-to-pay solution offerings.
Vision Taking Hold
We believe our improved overall position in this year’s Gartner Magic Quadrant is recognition of our complete solution suite, which enables customers and their trading partners to manage spend with total visibility across procure-to-pay. We especially appreciate that Gartner has recognized our “market defining vision.” Introduced about two years ago, our vision is based on extensive research and has, to be candid, forced us to change the way we approach development of our solutions.
We believe Gartner recognition is proof that this vision is starting to take hold on the solutions we deliver. Here are three key areas where changes to our approach are delivering significant value to our customers.
- We understand all personas across every spend category. Our vision has been to offer solutions that are complete and holistic, addressing the unique needs of every user – whether you are doing material requirements planning (MRP) for the procurement of direct materials, or if you are in the corporate office purchasing a laptop, or managing your contingent workforce.
- Our products are open to innovation across the ecosystem. Not long ago, it was fair to say procure-to-pay solutions from SAP were “closed.” The perception was that only SAP developed these solutions, and it was “hands off” for everyone else. Knowing this is not the best way to serve our customers, we have made the dramatic shift to offer solutions that invite ecosystem collaboration and innovation. We’ve launched important partnerships with leaders like Icertis and EcoVadis, enabling us to support specific, niche use cases needed by our customers.
- We are hyper-laser-focused on user experience. A person working on the shop floor will have very different experiences than the corporate office employee. We have made it our mission to dig into the all the personas involved in the procure-to-pay work processes and understand their unique experiences. Beyond that, user attitudes and priorities are constantly changing. For example, most users care more about sustainability than they did just a few years ago, so we are incorporating that into our end-to-end solution landscape. Likewise, many workers want the flexibility to work from anywhere, and the launch of the new SAP Ariba Shopping mobile app provides a best-in-class experience to this end.
Dominant Force in Procurement Innovation
We believe Gartner recognition also highlights SAP’s position as a dominant force in delivering innovations to address the procurement challenges of today and tomorrow.
With our SAP Procurement offering, consisting of SAP Ariba, SAP S/4HANA for Procurement, and SAP Business Network, we have a proven track record of providing innovative solutions to solve unique challenges at every point step in the procure-to-pay process. Many improvements to procurement processes originated at SAP — including things we now consider fundamental, such as electronic catalogs or MRP processes. In addition to that, SAP leads the way with integrating risk and diversity scores in the guided buying capability, or the work order integration from SAP S/4HANA into Guided Buying and SAP Fieldglass, allowing the maintenance persona to add items and services to its work order.
SAP Fieldglass and SAP Business Network help businesses gain agility and visibility into contingent labor spend and build relationships with trading partners. SAP was recognized for its SAP Fieldglass solution, based on its Ability to Execute and Completeness of Vision. SAP Business Network enables trading partners to connect and collaborate across procurement, supply chain, logistics and asset management to improve efficiency, mitigate risk and disruption and drive sustainability.
Additionally, the latest release of SAP Central Procurement helps customers enjoy a better user experience as they look to digitalize and simplify procurement. With SAP Central Procurement, customers can improve procurement processes in a multi-ERP (including non-SAP ERP) environment with greater visibility and control.
As we look to the future, customers can expect SAP to deliver next generation applications that enable personalization, predictability, and sustainability as the foundation for delivering value in the procurement process.
Bringing Procurement Professionals Center Stage
The last few years have proven that the procurement role is critical to operational success. Ongoing global supply chain disruptions make it imperative for enterprises to be proactive in implementing risk mitigation, process automation, and data-driven intelligence in procurement. SAP helps companies to be more resilient by equipping them with the insight and tools to react to unexpected shifts in supply chains. We do all of this while supporting environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals that organizations increasingly expect from their business partners.
Today, procurement professionals are in a strong position to take center stage in tackling the biggest challenges businesses face. You can seize the moment by helping your organizations tackle inflation, productivity challenges, and supply chain disruptions. And, as we strive to help you do this, SAP is also working hard to maintain our recognition as a Leader. First out of the box in 2023 will be important announcements about category management.
Our vision has taken us this far, and it’s set us on a path to deliver even greater things. The best is yet to come.
Baber Farooq is senior vice president of SAP Procurement Solutions.
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Gartner, Critical Capabilities for Procure-to-Pay Suites, by Lynne Phelan, Micky Keck, Balaji Abbabatulla, Patrick Connaughton, 28 November 2022
SAP was referred to as Ariba (SAP) in the 2015 report and SAP (Ariba and Fieldglass) in the 2016, 2018, and 2019 reports.
The Gartner report was renamed from ‘Magic Quadrant for Procure-to-Pay Suites for Indirect Procurement’ to ‘Magic Quadrant for Procure-to-Pay Suites’ in 2016.
