According to research performed by A.T. Kearney, procurement organizations spend up to 85% of their time on answering supplier questions and processing return and purchase orders. These activities are performed at the expense of the business. SAP SRM allows a business to reclaim this wasted time & money through enhancing supplier relationships, and ultimately, streamlining the procure-to-pay process.
Companies using SAP SRM benefit from capabilities such as real-time purchase status tracking, which removes the need to contact a purchasing department for an updated purchase status report. Instead, requisitioners can utilize the Check Status application within SRM and receive a real-time status update on their order. Suppliers can also view up-to-date invoice detail with the Biller Direct application within SRM. The end result is significant time & money savings within the company’s purchasing and accounts payable departments.
The utilization of SAP SRM has the following impact on adopting businesses:
- – Reduced cycle time in areas of requisitioning, order processing and supply management.
- – Increased quality controls resulting in reduced costly errors
- – Replacement of manual requisition and approval processes with automation
- – Improved ability to search for negotiated goods, services, and prices based on requirements through web-based catalog functionality
- – Enhanced RFP / RFQ processing through web-based portal
- – Improved visibility of historical data, resulting in improved future decision making
- – Seamless integration with SAP and non-SAP backend systems
- – Improved monitoring and controls surrounding contract compliance and corporate governance
- – Improved on-demand / real-time reporting
It’s evident that improved supplier relationship management can have a significant impact on a company’s continuous journey towards improved value chain visibility. Business utilizing SAP SRM are choosing to compete through the automation and optimization of their supplier relationship management processes.