One supplier account, many marketplaces
SourceSage, a market aggregator and an SAP Business Network supplier across the Asia-Pacific region, upgraded to SAP Business Network, enterprise account to support its needs as a growing supplier. The enterprise procurement leader has now automated its order-to-cash process, scaled transactions twentyfold, and unlocked savings for the buyers it serves.
| Industry | Region | Company Size |
| High tech | Singapore | 50 employees |
cost savings for its customers using SAP Business Network.
average increase in PO value.
increase in PO volume using the enterprise account.
CEO, SourceSage Pte. Ltd.
| Industry | Region | Company Size |
| High tech | Singapore | 50 employees |
cost savings for its customers using SAP Business Network.
average increase in PO value.
increase in PO volume using the enterprise account.
CEO, SourceSage Pte. Ltd.
Outgrowing manual order-to-cash workflows
Headquartered in Singapore and incorporated more than a decade ago, SourceSage Pte. Ltd. connects roughly 10,000 suppliers and distributors with 70,000 enterprise buyers across the Asia-Pacific region. The company plays two connected roles in enterprise procurement. First, it is a marketplace aggregator, giving buyers a single gateway to a broad network of suppliers and marketplaces. Second, it is an SAP Business Network supplier, a status it uses to plug its aggregation model directly into large buyers’ procurement systems. Its “supplier connect” program consolidates multiple supplier catalogs, streamlines onboarding, and unifies marketplace products under one vendor or purchase order (PO). Its “buyer connect” program links catalogs directly to buyer procurement systems through PunchOut or API integration.
While the company specializes in efficient procurement operations for its customers, it was using a manual order-to-cash process for its own operations, including managing supplier quotations through phone calls. As the business grew, manual order-to-cash workflows were becoming a bottleneck to onboarding new buyers, executing POs at speed, and collecting payment on time. SourceSage wanted to digitalize this process to improve efficiency in its operations.
Upgrading to the enterprise account for deeper integration and scale
SourceSage first joined SAP Business Network as a supplier to connect its aggregation model to large buyers’ procurement systems and create one touchpoint to cover the comprehensive procure-to-pay process. SAP Business Network helps create a single process and platform to transact with both direct and indirect materials.
To more efficiently serve its growing number of customers, SourceSage upgraded from a standard to an enterprise account. This allowed the company to unlock a set of tools and functionality to connect with customers through a single directory, shared workflows, and network intelligence to guide decisions that improve business.
Being on SAP Business Network helps strengthen the company’s credibility and allows it to be recognized and discovered by prospective customers. With the network, SourceSage can also actively search for and access new business opportunities and reply directly to requests for proposals and requests for quotes.
The enterprise account provides SourceSage with access to system-to-system integration in various formats, removing manual effort and enabling direct communication with its customers’ systems. Features include a guiding wizard, dedicated support, automatically generated cXML templates based on previous configurations, and wide-ranging connectors. These integrations free up resources for higher-value work, allow for faster customer onboarding, and support rapid, scalable business growth.
The technical infrastructure of SAP Business Network and features of the enterprise account enable straightforward and swift integration with customers, especially through the PunchOut feature in SAP Ariba solutions. This feature allows SourceSage’s customers to use its website as a single online catalog, removing the need to create separate catalog interchange format (CIF) catalogs for them. Using the PunchOut feature means that SourceSage doesn’t need to repeat the integration for each new customer, and the fast onboarding allows it to quickly scale transactions on its platform. Jian Min Sim, CEO of SourceSage, notes, “As a tech company, we’re accustomed to different forms of integration, but using the same standard makes it easy for us.”
The company also benefits from advanced supplier insights with the enterprise account that help to inform strategic business decisions. For example, it can generate reports with visual widgets that show real-time performance, data-based assessments that compare KPIs to market benchmarks, and network-wide data analysis that examines demand trends at a commodity level.
CEO, SourceSage Pte. Ltd.
Digitalizing order to cash to scale the business
By upgrading to the enterprise account of SAP Business Network and taking advantage of capabilities such as integration and digital catalogs, SourceSage has replaced manual, phone-based workflows with an automated, scalable order-to-cash process. Through automated processing, the company has seen a twentyfold increase in PO volumes. It now receives and processes roughly 20 POs per hour—up from one PO per hour when it used the standard account of SAP Business Network.
Using SAP Business Network rather than a traditional procurement or e-commerce channel enables buyers to be onboarded and start placing orders typically within a month. This includes integration setup and testing and complimentary user training. Sim explains, “The most prominent area of potential total cost of ownership and time savings is with new recommended vendors. For example, a company may want to cut down on its 100 suppliers, each of which takes 15 hours to onboard. That equates to 1,500 hours, so we could be saving the company thousands of hours in the first year.”
With its own operations now digitalized, SourceSage is able to pass efficiency gains directly to its customers, demonstrating roughly 5% to 10% in cost savings based on the average marketplace price across the Asia-Pacific region. The business finds the digital catalogs particularly helpful in streamlining tail spend, especially for customers with small-value purchases, and in gaining efficiency in executing POs and ordering quickly.
Customers know that SourceSage is also a single touchpoint for any issues with product service, onboarding, or the pay-on-behalf service—a service where SourceSage pays on behalf of the customer. This means that the customer doesn’t have to negotiate 60-day payment terms with individual suppliers.
The upgrade from the standard to the enterprise account of SAP Business Network has also enabled the product and engineering team at SourceSage to access more features and functionalities that drive deeper integration and collaboration with customers. Sim comments, “We believe in having an open mindset and taking a leap of faith with technology, which is why we tried out the enterprise account. Only then can we realize the gain in improving our processes while also reaping a return on our investment.”
CEO, SourceSage Pte. Ltd.
Scaling new heights in procurement
SourceSage is grateful to have a partnership with SAP and to be able to scale together. Sim notes, “Because of SAP’s belief in technology, innovation can come from anywhere, even from smaller players like us. It’s a great opportunity to tap into the experience, reputation, and huge number of suppliers, businesses, and customers on SAP Business Network.”
The marketplace aggregator is planning to adopt the intelligent invoice-error classification feature of SAP Business Network, which provides clear and concise reasons for rejected invoices. The business hopes that this will allow its finance team to rectify invoices proactively by uncovering and correcting mistakes instead of having to wait for a customer to identify an error. Resubmitting a valid invoice can help SourceSage retrieve payments from its buyers more efficiently and limit delays in cash flow while trusting that the information is secure.
In the long term, the company aims to lean into additional AI technologies, expand its buyer base across the region, and continue passing efficiency gains through to its ecosystem of suppliers and enterprise buyers.
Want to know more about SourceSage?
SourceSage on the Value of SAP Business Network (SAP Customer Quote)