Buyer-Supplier Collaboration: The "White Space" Between Enterprise Applications

Did you know that despite extensive investments in business software, most companies still rely heavily on manual, paper-driven processes to manage the day-to-day "handshakes" and communications between buyers and suppliers? And no wonder. Business collaboration is not typically supported by customer relationship management, sourcing, procurement, and financial software. And this creates a virtual "white space" between enterprises. For suppliers, this white space leads to all kinds of problems, including:

• Lost negotiation history and nuances of bids and contractual terms
• Poor visibility into customer order histories and invoice and payment status
• Execution of orders that are not approved or were changed, resulting in returned goods
• Poorly executed early payments on negotiated discounts
• Costly requirements to integrate with multiple, disparate customer systems - or rekey orders and invoices to and from backend systems.

If any of these problems sound familiar - whether you are being asked by a customer to support their eProcurement and online invoicing initiatives, or whether you are looking to proactively expand your B2B eCommerce efforts - then you will recognize the benefits of signing up for a business collaboration network.

How Can a Business Collaboration Network Help?

When you participate in a business collaboration network such as the Ariba Supplier Network, it enables you to conduct business with your customers in a more cost effective, collaborative way that mitigates all of these issues. Think of the network as a "hub" of trading partners that enables collaboration across a variety of business processes using a common framework to discover new customers, connect electronically, and collaborate on key processes and business documents. The business collaboration network integrates with and extends your backend systems and processes - it does not replace them - so you can collaborate virtually, instantly, and without paper on bids, orders, change orders, confirmations, invoices, payments, and more.

As a supplier, you benefit from:

• Increased sales: You can increase sales by finding new customers on the network, as well as increase wallet share with existing customers. Your customers' eProcurement initiatives reduce maverick spend - which is spend on their end that is taking place outside of contracts with preferred suppliers. As your customer's preferred supplier, your sales to that customer will typically increase. Ariba supplier customers report up to 15% increase in new business attributable to Ariba and 30% increases in customer wallet share.
• Lower costs when servicing customers: You can decrease account receivables costs because automated processes mean less time spent chasing late invoices and payments. You can also reduce sales and order management costs while gaining greater visibility into customer orders. Suppliers on the Ariba Supplier Network have reported 40-75% reductions in process costs.
• Better cash flow: Online invoicing decreases days sales outstanding (DSO) because it enables faster cycle times and automates processes. Automation reduces errors so that customers are more likely to pay you on time and according to your terms. Suppliers leveraging the Ariba Supplier Network have reported a 15-20% reduction in DSO.

It's Easy to Get Started

Getting started with the Ariba Supplier Network is easy - all you need is a computer and an Internet browser. And when you're ready to evolve and grow your B2B eCommerce business, we'll help you evolve your strategies, processes and technologies.

Learn More

Learn more about Ariba Supplier Solutions, Ariba B2B eCommerce Marketing & Sales Solutions Ariba Order Collaboration Solutions, and Ariba Invoice & Payment Collaboration Solutions.

Ariba Supplier Network Brochure
Ariba Supplier Network Data Sheet for Suppliers
Ariba University Online Tutorial

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