Purchase requisition: SAP Ariba Guided Buying

Intelligent purchasing assistants help to ensure the quality of the requisition processes (purchase requisition), even in an already optimized SAP Ariba Buying System. Because even with the Ariba Guided
In terms of purchasing usage, the requisition topic harbors many pitfalls and time wasters. For example, requisitioners often cannot find the items they are looking for in the catalogs and have to ask the purchasing department for assistance. Or they invest a lot of time in free text descriptions, which often have to be laboriously corrected by the purchasing department due to imprecise wording, and in metadata such as the product group. This frustrates both sides and can lead to maverick buying on the part of the requisitioners, while creating unnecessary work for the procurement teams. In addition, the long processing times can mean that the ordered items are not delivered on time.

Integrated master data intelligence

Recently, however, intelligent purchasing assistants have become available in the Ariba environment, which can be used to significantly simplify and improve requisition processes. With AI support, users are guided in real time through every step of the order request and into the right purchasing channel. This begins with an accurate semantic search for possible catalog items. Product group-specific forms are suggested if no catalog items are found. When creating free text requests, the AI assistant also checks whether catalogs or framework agreements exist. 

If no catalog article is available for a specific requirement, the purchasing assistant supports the user in selecting the right requirement forms and creating meaningful free-text forms.
Descriptions. Possible errors are corrected immediately. In addition, the associated product group and cost center are automatically suggested, which saves an enormous amount of time compared to manual searches. If a purchase requisition relates to a specific supplier offer, the AI checks whether it complies with internal purchasing guidelines, such as payment terms. If the quotation is available as a PDF, it can be transferred directly into an Ariba purchase requisition with the help of the purchasing assistant. 

Particularly sophisticated tools offer FAQ bots. If the users have questions about the status of their inquiries, internal purchasing guidelines, processes or functions, the bot responds in natural language. As the AI has been fed with all the necessary company-specific information, it can provide compressed answers in a timely manner - in the exact language in which the question was asked.

Shorter throughput times

Practical experience shows that the processing times of free text purchase requisitions can be reduced from twelve to five days on average with AI-based purchasing assistants. Procurement teams are relieved of monotonous correction work and support requests and can process twice as many requisitions per buyer. Companies with 2,000 free text items per month save one full-time position for requisition processing and can use the resources freed up for strategic procurement tasks.

New copilot for Ariba 

One example of an innovative intelligent purchasing assistant is the Copilot for Ariba, which is provided by Lhotse, an expert in AI-based user guidance in purchasing, and the Ariba specialist Apsolut. As Lhotse's implementation and co-innovation partner, the SAP partner serves as a single point of contact for customers. The Extensibility Framework can be used to implement additional AI-based rules for customer-specific requirements. The Ariba user interface can also be customized. The first tool version focuses on user guidance in SAP Ariba Guided Buying. However, other Ariba modules will be supported in the future.

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