Pallavika Barthakur– Leader Marketing and Sales, Brainbox Consulting

Understanding the terms:

ChatGPT is a large pre-trained language model developed by OpenAI, it is trained on public data. It is capable of understanding and generating natural language, being trained on a large dataset of human language, allowing it to understand the nuances of conversation, and can be fine-tuned for specific industries or use cases to improve performance.

Company chatbots, on the other hand, are chatbots that are computer programs developed and designed to simulate conversation with human users and used specifically by a particular organization. They can extract data from specific private documents or inputs provided and are customized to the specific needs and requirements of the organization.

When comparing ChatGPT and internal company chatbots, it’s important to consider the specific needs and goals of the organization. In fact, ChatGPT can be used for chatbot development, where it can generate human-like responses to user input.

Now, let us understand the various cases where both of these can be used:

Uses:

Listing out the Pros and Cons

Listing out the cons

Limitations:

Cyber Security Threats:

Both like any other software or technology, are not immune to cyber security threats. Here are a few potential security risks that organizations should consider when using ChatGPT and ChatBots.

To mitigate these risks, organizations should take appropriate security measures such as using encryption, authentication, and access controls to protect data and models. Regular security audits and monitoring should be conducted to ensure that the system remains secure. It is also important to ensure that the data used to train the model is properly sanitized, to minimize the risk of sensitive information leakage.

Conclusion:

Thus, it is clear that ChatGPT is a powerful tool that can provide high accuracy and performance, but it may not be the best option for all organizations. Company chatbots can be a cost-effective and efficient solution for organizations with specific and limited needs.

Both ChatGPT and Chatbot have been developed to make the lives of users easier. Based on the need, target audience, and goals, the company needs to choose and gain benefits. Currently, ChatGPT is open for public use and individual users are starting to use ChatGPT for a variety of contexts which will keep evolving with time. Chatbots can be developed and implemented for specific target users in different domains and Chatbots functionality can be improved by developers through the use of ChatGPT.

About Brainbox Consulting:

Brainbox Consulting is headquartered in the Netherlands having a presence in India and USA with more than 5+ years of Procurement Industry experience in SAP procurement solutions with 20+ Ariba certifications with various models. We are a company that specializes in consulting services and manages the end-to-end spend management process with business, functional and technical expertise, thereby helping companies optimize and streamline their procurement processes, from identifying suppliers to making payments, and enabling better adoption of procurement technology especially SAP Ariba.

ChatBots as part of Innovation Garage

Brainbox Consulting also has an Innovation Garage where our experts and clients can come together to brainstorm, prototype, and develop new ideas or products based on business needs to support or supplement existing technology. Here we research and identify the needs, generate innovative ideas, develop prototypes, and test both internally and in the market to generate feedback. Finally, develop the application with improvements suggested during the testing phase.

Customized procurement Chatbots are a product of our Innovation Garage. These Chatbots can carry out small budget purchases, requisition creations, generate purchase orders, check the status of orders, generate invoices, and many such automated processes that can make work easier for procurement teams, while Procurement Leaders can strategically use their valuable time in critical & high-value orders. Brainbox Consulting Product Development team often collaborates with the client team and based on specific needs can develop chatbots with functions customized for individual clients.

To know more about our used cases of Innovative Chatbots, contact us today!

You can also send your queries to sales@brainbox.consulting or connect directly with our experts on LinkedIn.

An overview of the Asian market with a special perspective on SMEs in India

By Koen van de donk, Brainbox Consulting

Procurement leaders have experienced a harsh time when it comes to finding the optimal solution for the vastly changing world of suppliers. The Asian economy is slowly starting to recover from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. However, there is still a long way to go before they are back on the same growth levels as before. To help this process, it is important to look at business needs and trends. These can help procurement leaders to find the most effective ways to improve their procurement activities.  

Asian businesses are starting to gain more confidence in the economy, resulting in a higher will to invest and improve. The growth of digitizing procurement activities has been fairly slow over the last years. A 2021 survey by McKinsey however, has shown that 92% of the interviewed senior supply chain executives intend to invest in improving their procurement activities and supply chain resilience in the coming years. Asian governments have also introduced multiple nationwide promotion projects for e-procurement. While these are mostly targeted at the public sector, there are also organisations that target the private sector. SAP had noticed that the amount of users of their IT solutions was stagnating in Asia. For this reason, they introduced the Rise with SAP program in 2021. Since, they have gained over a 100 new users, proving that their promotion campaign was effective. The rise of the digital economy is one of the main reasons for the significant economic growth. India has the fastest growing digital economy in the world. They will be able to reach a digital value of 1 Trillion dollars by 2025.  

The new interest in digitization has resulted in a sharp increase in ERP usage. ERP systems provide a company with better oversight by implementing real-time data, automated reporting and remote access. Research by Allied Market Research has shown that India is forecasted to have the highest ERP adoption rate in Asia. Different sectors like the finance and HR sector are leading the ERP adoption, meaning that procurement is lagging behind. 

Since India has the highest potential, it is important to see what business needs their SMEs are experiencing. Problems like shipment delays, struggling with large amounts of data and accessibility are stopping Indian SMEs to perform at an optimal level. Shipment delays are increasing expenses and decreasing the credibility of the company. Combined with the difficulty of handling large chunks of data, this can result in a huge loss of efficiency and revenue. The next challenge is the accessibility of SMEs in India. While medium enterprises are often located in a favorable are, smaller enterprises or their direct suppliers are difficult to reach. As a procurement specialist, it is important to find a solution for these challenges. 

Procurement Technologies like SAP Ariba can tackle these problems by creating a clear environment for all procurement activities. It is a digital platform that is easy to access and easy to use. Shipments can be tracked, and data is stored and handled as efficiently as possible. For procurement leaders, it is important to optimize their digitization efforts to keep up with the competitors in the future. 

To read more about Asian Business trends with a special perspective on the Indian market,

Click here to download the report. 

And to begin your digitization journey in Procurement, Contact Brainbox Consulting today. 

You can also contact us via the SAP Partner portal. 

(a summary from a survey by SAP Insights Research Center) – by Pallavika Barthakur, Leader Marketing, Brainbox Consulting.

Supply Chain and Supplier Networks present innumerable challenges for a Procurement team namely sudden supply chain disruptions, loss of cost control, unexpected delays, inaccurate forecasting, demand for sustainable products and services, meeting compliance requirements, managing risks, and ensuring quality. Hence a Procurement Leader is hardly able to change priorities from optimizing profitability and growth while increasing efficiency and mitigating risks. However, the faster midsize companies are blooming up and pacing to achieve profits, a new trend is being observed as identified by a recent survey conducted by SAP Insights Research Center.

The following priorities for Procurement Leaders can be listed from the survey findings, highlighting them here in chronological order:

1. The introduction of New Products and Services brings in increased revenue and is often the priority to remain in the competition and to attract new customers. And steps to bring sustainability in existing offerings, making them environment-friendly and ethically usable helps to retain existing customers. This aid in boosting sales and beating the competition
2. Sustainability becoming a top concern in the Procurement Agenda of leaders, especially in midsize companies, strategies they create and the decisions they make for better revenue and risk mitigation are changing. Leaders are not just focusing on the creation and supply of sustainable products but are also looking for ways to bring in operational sustainability. Procurement has a major role to play here that can lead to business growth by increasing the bottom line.
3. Traditional goals of cost control and spend management were responded to as top priorities by only 44% of participants. Many procurement leaders are now focusing on empowering processes with automation and taking benefits from supplier and partner networks. Covid 19 pandemic-related supply chain disruptions were a major factor contributing to this transformational mindset. So, 36% of leaders now prioritize making operational processes more sustainable while 34% want to ensure they have dependable supply chains.
4. Risk-related evolving perspective is the line next to highlight. Traditional risk factors like rules and regulations of entry, new suppliers in the market, brand recognition, etc. are now being replaced by the importance of mitigating risks pertaining to economic stagnation (43%), employment and livelihood crisis (36%), natural resource shortage (34%), climate change (32%). Also, cybersecurity breakdown-related risks have been highlighted by 34% of participants while 32% highlighted risks due to adverse outcomes of advanced technologies.
5. The survey confirmed that leaders now understand that process innovation cannot fit into any stage but is a flexible requirement based on the identification of critical areas that need improvement to move the business forward, hence they now prioritize innovations necessary and implementation of the same depending on Industry and Automation maturity.
6. Digital Transformation in business functions has been recognized as a critical requirement to improve performance, remain in the competition, and prevent future risks. All leaders have indicated that they are either digitized fully, partly transformed, or ready to transform digitally in the next 2 years. The survey findings as a whole reveal that respondents favor Technological Innovation as a top priority in the years to come. They look forward to technologies to bring better adaptations in new models of hybrid workspaces reducing cybersecurity incidents, while automated business Intelligence needs have also been highlighted.

The research finding finally recommends steps for how procurement functions should transform themselves while keeping the changing top priorities in mind pertaining to Sustainability; namely, to protect supply chain continuity, gain better control of data, respond promptly to supply chain-related risks, adoption of cloud technologies that use enterprise data and developing strategies for critical areas of supply. Being Sustainable in the future can lead to better brand recognition, and reputation, and Procurement Leaders across midsize organizations have now understood that very well.

To read the survey findings in detail, click to download!

Contact your SAP partner to learn how SAP solutions can help your business transform. Submit your inquiry here.

By Ratha Ramanan N

The global chatbot market size was valued at USD 525.7 million in 2021 and is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 25.7% from 2022 to 2030.

Chatbots are gaining popularity as businesses continue to automate their sales and customer services deliver timely services at reduced costs.

What about B2B, supply chain-based functionalities, such as, procurement?

Well BOT can handle low value purchases, creating requisition , purchase orders, buyers can spend time in critical & high value orders

BOT can chase orders, follow-ups, supplier payment enquires , delivery delays, only exception can be handled by teams

BOT can clarify organization policies be it Travel, reimbursement, HR, Finance, procurement etc, only unresolved can be sent as a ticket to the teams

Many such use cases can be stacked upon AI conversational platform for procurement & supply chain

What’s the value, why should leaders consider investing?

BOT in supply chain can speed up process efficiency
Boost self service and user experience
Teams’ nature of work moves from operational to tactical to strategical!

By Ratha Ramanan N

Why shouldn’t procurement & supply chain users have fun with better UX design, not only it brings satisfaction but also, they become ambassadors to the product itself !!

Growth in demand for UI/UX

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the demand for UX designers is expected to grow by 13% between 2019 and 2029, faster than the average for all occupations, In a survey by UserTesting, 67% of companies said that improving the UX of their websites and applications was their top priority.

A simple LinkedIn search of UI/UX in India & US results in 18K job openings !!

And since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, more and more companies have expanded their operations to accommodate unexpected changes (like working remotely, ordering more services for delivery, etc.). “Remote” and “Virtual” will be the keywords, so demand for UX designers will only be in uptrend.

User experience in procurement software

Today procurement community has a strong and growing start up eco system that build application extensions, procurement leaders have no shortage to choose best of breed technologies, but the critical component is to bring harmony and offer better user experience for a user journey that cuts across system.

Though the improvement list is longer, a few UX design focus areas in procurement & Supply chain are ,

1. Unified user experience for an employee to buy a product or service, checking an MRO stock, checking delivery, it’s only an endless opportunity.

2. Supplier verification, registration and onboarding requires many hops of websites to check for fraud, sanctions lists, also keep it current and not to mention answering, reviewing Q&A.

3. If only a medium exists to collaborate, notify, follow up with all internal and external stakeholders for a status, emails will not be lost, follow up calls will never be missed, precious time is not lost.

We are constantly amazed by the impact that good and minimalistic design can have on many world class websites and applications we experience around, only a matter of time before procurement & supply chain UX designs will excite and making a difference in the user experience

By Ratha Ramanan N

Over the last decade, we have seen network-based startups like LinkedIn, and Airbnb also known as platform businesses create value by facilitating connections between buyers and sellers, this model fueled companies’ revenue growth and profitability.

In the B2B world, how a network-based business partnership on a platform can create a ripple effect in B2B collaboration? Let’s delve into SAP software, that manages business operations and customer relations, what they have in store!

SAP Business Network is one such technology platform that provides trading partners with far more effective cooperation to maximize mutual benefits and achieve operational excellence.

SAP business network has 3 distinct network collaborations, designed for different stages of the supply chain.

–> Procurement collaboration for Sourcing, contracting, purchase orders, invoices, payments

–> Logistics collaboration to track shipments, freight management, Track Sustainability like carbon footprint, emission footprint

–> Asset intelligence to collaborate among asset owners, operators, and service providers with seamless information sharing and feedback on performance.

Lets look into how below 4 factors are addressed in SAP business network

1. Diverse competitive network : One thing is clear, with such a network there will be the diversified supplier and customer base, it will deliver insights on capacity, demand, sustainability, ESG etc.….that provides competitive edge in the respective business.

2. With such a complex set up, can Onboarding partners really be simple ?

Well, the personas to be onboarded are indirect supplier, direct suppliers, carriers, freight forwarders , finance providers, the success of onboarding & continued engagement clearly reply on super simple UI and world class user experience.

3. In such complex setup, how one can tap into MSME network ?

If Covid really taught us anything, it is how MSME sectors really scaled up and produced & supplied the essentials, that saved many lives, if business network can really be simple and inclusive to tap into MSME sectors? will have to wait and watch how it unfolds.

4. Can we build application extensions to solve a unique business challenge in this business network.

This is where SAP BTP has a bigger role to help build cloud-based partner applications and provide seamless user experience with a business network that can solve complex use cases.

In Summary, there is a huge opportunity in the B2B business network for the customers, partners, software partners to leverage new opportunities and solve unprecedented supply chain disruptions and scale company revenue growth and profitability.

Here is a preview of how your life and work will be in the Netherlands.

Job market in the Netherlands

In the Netherlands, there are numerous employment opportunities for foreign nationals. Numerous multinational and international businesses call the nation home. The Netherlands’ economy is supported by a lot of foreign investment, which is encouraged by favourable tax regulations. If they meet certain requirements, expat employees are exempt from paying tax on up to 30% of their salary. Additionally, the holiday allowance accounts for at least 8% of the gross salary. The population of the nation is diverse and educated, and nearly 26% of its citizens are immigrants or members of ethnic minorities.

In the Netherlands, several job sectors are flourishing and expanding. Agriculture and food, the creative industries, chemicals, energy, information technology, the health and life sciences, logistics, and the service sector are a few of them. At 3.7% in 2022, the unemployment rate of the country is one of the lowest in the EU. This is significantly lower than the 6% average for the EU.

Work culture in the Netherlands

Typically, Dutch people put in 36 to 40 hours per week, sometimes in just four days. Organizational structures at work are generally very well-organized in the Netherlands. However, shift work and work outside of regular business hours (between the hours of 9 am
and 5 pm) are also frequent. Employees are rarely required to work overtime, unless they are in management. The workplace in the Netherlands reflects Dutch society’s relative egalitarianism. In fact, horizontal organisational structures are typical in Dutch businesses, and step-by-step plans are typically followed.
Workplaces in the Netherlands can be surprisingly casual. The workplace culture in the Netherlands frequently reflects the values of equality and tolerance of difference. It is common to ask your superiors questions on a regular basis, and everyone’s viewpoints are typically welcomed, regardless of their position. Casual office get-togethers are common, such as the vrijmibo, or vrijdagmiddagborrel: a gettogether with co-workers on a Friday afternoon. Whether or not your boss is present, most people will be at ease and behave in the same manner. However, this does not imply that Dutch workplaces are completely unproductive. People in the Netherlands value hard work and want to do a good job. Contrary to popular belief, the workplace culture can often be more formal.

For instance, appointments are scheduled well in advance, ideally in writing. People rarely arrive late, so they count on you to arrive on time. In contrast to daily interactions, the tone of business meetings is more formal. The discussion will be highly structured and adhere to the agenda. This is also relevant to Dutch communication in general. The Dutch tend to speak in a direct, to the-point manner that may come off as harsh or blunt to some. But it is not meant in a mean way: in the Netherlands, it’s crucial to be practical and communicate effectively.

Work-Life Balance

The majority of Dutch people prefer to keep work and personal lives separate. Home time is sacred, so people won’t typically respond to calls or emails from co-workers or clients after hours. Some people might work fewer hours than you expect. Working parents frequently take some time off each week, usually on Wednesdays or Fridays, to spend time with their kids or families. In general, Dutch people prefer to work less (but better) than to work long hours for higher pay. And because of this, Dutch lunches are relatively brief. Don’t be surprised if there isn’t much time for conversation; expect colleagues to bring homemade sandwiches.

Requirements to work in the Netherlands

• Visa Requirements
The Netherlands does not require a work or residence permit for citizens of the European Union (EU), European Economic Area (EEA) (EU plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway), or Switzerland to live and work there. The Dutch authorities will require that you register. Brainbox consulting BV can assist you if you are from somewhere else. You and your immediate dependents’ visas are sponsored by us.
• Language requirements to work in the Netherlands
It is not necessary to speak Dutch in order to work in the Netherlands; in fact, English is frequently used as the primary business language. However, if you do, your chances improve.
Now that you are aware of the culture and work requirements in the Netherlands, you may wish to consider your child’s education. Here are some additional details:

Education in the Netherlands

Children in the Netherlands receive primary education for eight years and secondary education for four, five, or six years (depending on the type of school). After secondary school, they can pursue higher education or a vocational program. At all levels of the educational system, there are both public and private institutions; the private institutions are typically founded on religious or ideological principles.

• Primary education
Primary education is intended for children in the age group 4 to 12 and is compulsory for children from the age of 5.

Bilingual primary schools
Although there are some bilingual primary schools, Dutch is still the language of instruction in most primary schools. From the age of 4, students at these schools spend 30% to 50% of the school day receiving instruction in English.

• Secondary education
Children attend one of the following types of secondary education when they are 12 years old:
Preparatory vocational secondary education lasts for four years, senior general secondary education lasts for five years, and university preparation lasts for six years.
Bilingual Secondary schools
Secondary schools that are bilingual are expanding. At least 50% of the subjects are taught in English at these schools. For instance, during geography or history lessons or physical education, the kids speak English. The children must pass the Dutch school-leaving exams, and the schools still use the Dutch curriculum. Therefore, almost half of the subjects are still taught in Dutch.

• Children who attended school abroad
If you are moving to Holland from another country and are looking for schools, keep in mind that at bilingual primary and secondary schools, the students still speak Dutch for about half of the day. Additionally, the secondary school’s school-leaving exams are
administered in Dutch. A very young child who doesn’t yet speak Dutch will probably adjust and pick it up very quickly. However, it might not be a good option for older kids who don’t speak any Dutch. Hence, you can see if there are any international schools nearby that only teach in English.

• Higher education
Research-oriented and career-oriented higher education are both available in the Netherlands.
Research universities have traditionally offered education that is research-focused (wetenschappelijk onderwijs, WO).
University of Applied Sciences (UAS) offers higher professional education (hoger beroepsonderwijs, HBO) (hogescholen).
Programs at universities of applied sciences typically focus more on practise and prepare students for specific careers. A bachelor’s or master’s degree can be obtained through them.

• Admission to higher education
You need a VWO secondary school diploma to enroll in bachelor’s programs at research universities. Additionally eligible for admission are students who have successfully completed the first year of an applied science university.

A HAVO secondary school diploma is the minimal requirement for admission to bachelor’s programs at universities of applied sciences. The institution sets additional skill requirements as a requirement for admission for some programs, such as those in art education. There is a cap on the number of first-year students that some study programs can admit, which is known as a numerus
fixus.

Healthcare in the Netherlands

Chronic disease long-term care.
From GP visits to brief hospital stays, specialist appointments, and procedures, basic and necessary medical care is provided.
Supplementary treatment (e.g. dental care, physiotherapy, cosmetic procedures).
State-mandated insurance covers long-term care, including expenses for disabilities like wheelchairs. Private health insurance is required and pays for all routine (short-term) medical care. Depending on the policy, supplemental care may be paid for out of pocket or covered by health insurance.
• Dutch health insurance

Purchasing Dutch health insurance is the first step in receiving medical care in the Netherlands. Even if you already have a current policy that covers you in the Netherlands, you must purchase at least a basic level of insurance within four months of your arrival.

Applying for a job in the Netherlands

The procedures for applying for jobs are quite comparable across many nations, including the Netherlands.
Typically, you must submit your resume, which will undergo scrutiny. If you are successful at this first stage, an interview invitation will follow. Depending on the position you have applied for, a skills test might also be included with this.
If you are in process with Brainbox, consider yourself lucky because if you are called for an interview, we will prepare you and provide guidance as you move through the application process.

If you are fortunate enough to be hired in the Netherlands, Brainbox will help you transition smoothly from your current job and help you settle in, turning the country into your home away from home.

Ratha Ramanan

Partner – Product, Consulting & Customer Success

Brainbox Consulting BV

Best Practice # 2: Know your baseline

Have a clear understanding of where you are now, know how much it costs your business to process an invoice, raise an order, these data points help to build a business case for source to pay transformation or be able to track whether you are making progress and realizing value out of the investments.

Focus on delivering information to procurement professionals in a format that answers common procurement questions, such as “what’s the benefit of rationalizing tail spend?” and “is P2P process performance maximizing working capita.

Procurement Officer Survey 2021, found that 91.67% of “high performing” procurement teams are regularly and systematically measuring their ability to achieve cost savings more so than any other KPI.

Best Practice #3: Focus on business process, spend coverage, followed by technology

Most Organizations engage in business process transformation when they need to make a drastic update to existing processes. Using this process transformation methodology, you can modernize your processes, incorporate new technology, save costs, and better integrate your core systems.

Organizations should map out their existing procurement processes, policies, long tail spend categories and to-be requirements, so that an accurate assessment can be made before engaging with any technology providers.

Change management and business process reengineering remain the top two methodologies used to optimize processes on a departmetal or business-unit level, or for enterprise-wide reengineering for operational and customer excellence.

PEX 2021 Survey shows, organizations are looking to business process management at this time to prepare for the future as it will be very different than anything we have experienced so far.

Best Practice #4: It’s just not a tool’s implementation

Digital transformation is not simply about technology—it’s a business strategy that requires organizations to re-envision existing business models and embrace a different way of bringing together people, data, and processes.

Digital transformation is the idea that businesses should utilize new technologies and business models to motivate their employees to be more productive and to provide value for customers.

A comprehensive strategy is much more critical to the success of digital transformation

Digital transformation not only requires process knowledge, but the courage to change the process. Change management, workplace design and collaboration are required for successful transformations. These transformations are not changing at the speed of people, but rather at the exponentially more rapid speed of machines.

True procurement transformation strategies are a multi-facet that include category management, sourcing implementation, contract management, Risk management, buying, invoicing cash flow mgmt., supplier management, team collaboration, cultural alignment, Organization change management, Automation, integration and Spend Analytics, Dashboards for KPI’s and AI based actionable insights.

Best Practice # 5: Going live is just a start

True transformation journeys become successful, when the project momentum is kept alive to implement new features, improvements that adds value to really deliver against the business case.

Measure the success with periodic KPI’s against industry benchmarks to ensure your solution is continually improved and delivers onyour envisioned value.

Assess the implementation and identify opportunities to optimize system performance. Following a comprehensive analysis of data will provide you with a standardized Optimization Report which addresses issues that could be improved to ensure you are obtaining maximum value from your investment.

Best Practice 6: Supplier Collaboration program

The explosion of product customization and innovation, putting the pressure on companies to be fast and lean within their supply chains. Suppliers are such an important factor in the source to pay transformation, explain to suppliers, how this transformation will streamline processes and approvals and provide Real-time visibility into the supply chain operations.

No longer, the suppliers as simply an entity to manage, but one to collaborate very closely for mutual trust and value creation.

In today’s world, the supply chain must be flexible, resilient, and quickly scalable and are able to respond to disruptions in real-time.

There needs to be enough visibility into supply chain operations that companies can immediately respond to changing consumer demands and preferences. Visibility reduces errors, helps companies identify cost savings, find new suppliers when needed, and optimizes procurement.

Supplier collaboration results in mutually beneficial relationships. The more visibility you have into your suppliers’ activity, the better they can serve your business (not to mention, the better impact on your bottom line).

Best Practice #7: Scoping, timelines, people, and Budget

Right alignment with leadership, managers, and business teams to lock down on roadmap, timelines and requirements is required, as this greatly influences success of the transformation including delivering the transformation under budgeted amount.

Right people (employees, 3rd party) with right skillset in right time to handle appropriate roles are required, mostly people will be performing dual roles, hence it is critical to balance the critical milestones and people availability between regular work and transformation projects.

The most effective project management best practices that help manage the projects effectively can significantly improve the results are listed below.

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Previously team buying was only possible in Ariba Buying, as Guided Buying did not support the functionality. With this new feature, users do not have to deflect to Ariba Buying anymore. The feature is automatically on and can be easily accessed through the Guided Buying user interface.

In business collaboration is key. Hence, it is important that users can collaborate during purchasing to leverage the combined skills of colleagues. Teams can be created by administrators as well as users who work together in creating requisitions and receipts.

Users within a team can access requisitions marked for team buying, including requisitions in the composing state. Team members can easily perform any action such as: edit, cancel, submit, delete, or withdraw the requisition.

For receipts the approval process can be configured to include requesters and their team members to allow anyone from the requester’s team to receive the order associated with team requisitions or requisitions that are marked for team receiving.

Setting up a team in SAP Ariba Guided Buying

The first time you will log in after the release, a pop-up will show that introduces you to the new feature. If you click on “view teams”, it will take you to the “manage your teams” page.

Dismissed this message already? No worries. By clicking on the colored circle in the top-right corner, you will still be able to access your team configurations.

The “manage your teams” page is the place where you can create new teams, check the teams that you participate in, or to enable automatic team buying.

To create a new team you can press the “+”. This action will trigger a pop-up that lets you name a new team and asks you to provide a description of your new team. In addition, you can also choose to make this your default team.

In the next screen of the pop-up, you can add members to your team and assign them with a role. This can either be viewer or contributor. A viewer will not be able to perform any actions on requisitions and receipt. However, this role can be assigned to managers and other stakeholders that would like to have insight into what is happening with the status of requisitions or receipts. The contributor role allows these members to actively participate in the creation of requisition and receipts. As a team owner you will have similar authority as a contributor, with the additional capacity to make alterations to the team.

After this setup, your team is created and is ready to purchase. Notice the “PU_NL”? That’s right, the teams are specifically created within the boundaries of a certain purchasing unit. Different purchasing units will have different teams.

Purchasing with a team in SAP Ariba Guided Buying

To start purchasing with a team you need to initiate “buy with a team”, which can be found on the home screen of Guided Buying as part of the “quick links” menu. Once you selected this feature a pop-up will show, as displayed below. In this section you can select the team that you would like to buy with and if you would also like to enable team receiving for this requisition. After making the selection and clicking on “start”, a blue top bar will appear that will verify that you are currently in team buying mode.

The requisitioning process will not be different from the standard procedure. Simply add items to the cart and navigate to the checkout page. Within the checkout page you have the option to “save and exit” the requisition. This will save the requisition and maintain it in the “composing” state. Team members will now be able to see, and if they have the contributor role edit, the requisition.

Simply, navigate to the Guided Buying home screen and access the “your requests” tab. Within this tab you can switch to team requisitions by clicking on the drop-down menu “your requests” and change it into team requests.

Receiving with a team in SAP Ariba Guided Buying

Receiving can also be done in the “your requests” tab. Contributors of the team will have the option to perform receiving for orders that have been requisitioned for their team. Again, the drop-down menu can be switched to show team receiving only.

If you approach your job search with the mindset “I don’t care what kind of job I get — I just need a job!,” that desperate energy will radiate from you in waves and everyone around you will feel it.

Of course you feel needy and desperate when you’re job-hunting. When we are under stress, we’re in pain. It’s no fun. We want the job search to be over, and our emotions show in our words and actions. We are not machines.

Your ability to face adversity calmly and with trust in yourself is the most important factor in your ability to get the job you deserve.

Your confidence and composure are far more important to your job search success than your work history or education. Your attitude is everything! You will teach everyone you meet in your job search how to treat you — based on how you treat yourself.

If you show up as the desperate job applicant who will crawl over pile after pile of broken glass to please an employer, you will bring the wrong kinds of people into your sphere. Some of them will get mild amusement from tormenting you with additional interviews, tests, unpaid assignments and long, unexplained silences.

Hope this helps you in getting your new job 🙂 Good Luck

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