On the second day of SAP’s Influencer Summit, the venerable ERP provider disclosed quite a bit about its broader On-Demand strategy, products, and pricing in the sourcing and contract management areas. But from a new-product perspective, it also unveiled an On-Demand supplier information management offering. (This “new” solution is really not so new; it leverages many of the capabilities already resident in the e- sourcing platform.) The result is an offering that companies can purchase independently of — or in conjunction with — SAP’s sourcing and contract management capabilities. On paper, SAP’s On-Demand supplier management capabilities seem to check a number of the boxes that companies are looking for in the supplier information management area.
These capabilities include the ability to onboard and enable suppliers (for SRM/P2P or generally) in a streamlined manner, using forms and workflow to automate as much of the process as possible. The product also lets companies manage supplier profiles, classifications, and a range of information types (e.g., insurance certificates, quality certifications, etc.) And like other solutions in the market, it provides a centralized application for monitoring, administration, and tracking. Central to this latter capability and focus is a supplier performance management capability that in SAP’s words, “supports best practice development of suppliers” and, in a not-so-original marketing line, “a 360-degree view of all supplier information.” The performance management capability resident in SAP On-Demand supplier management also includes KPI monitoring, tracking, and scoring.
