Guided buying capability
Get this built-in capability with SAP Ariba Procurement solutions
Increased user adoption
The guided buying capability provides a single self-service gateway for procurement requests and low-dollar, high-volume purchases. You can configure tiles, categories, forms, and permissions for each user to make the guided buying experience intuitive and user-friendly. The capability makes collaboration simpler, too. Supplier collaboration and price quotes are facilitated through integration with other SAP Ariba solutions, and users can access category experts based on their needs and location.
What’s more, an exclusive help community channels targeted content to users and encourages knowledge sharing.
Improved compliance to reduce costs
Available at no additional cost with SAP Ariba Procurement solutions, guided buying helps employees intuitively follow procurement guidelines and best practices. Users can see immediately if a purchase would violate a policy, rather than finding out after submitting a request. In addition, you can set rules that either allow or disallow the exception.
Supplier-risk functionality highlights risk levels for noncatalog requests and requests for quotes. Meanwhile, with cost savings resulting from stronger compliance and supplier collaboration, you can allocate more funds to strategic initiatives.
Key Features
Real-time guidance
Users know while shopping when a purchasing or budget policy is violated, rather than finding out after submitting a request. You set rules that may allow them to proceed with the exception or require a different purchase.
Cost savings
Through greater compliance, less savings leakage, and easier supplier collaboration, significant savings can be allocated to more strategic organizational initiatives.
Supplier management and collaboration
Integration with other SAP Ariba solutions facilitates both supplier management and collaboration on one-off purchases, with the ability to select preferred suppliers as well as request quotes via SAP Business Network.
Internal collaboration
Based on what the user is buying and where the user is located, guided buying gives instant access to the category expert in that user’s purchasing unit.
Persona-based dashboards
The guided buying capability can be flexibly configured to align forms, permissions, and system behavior for each user, presenting them with customized tiles and categories to streamline purchasing.
Help community
Exclusive guided buying help community provides the framework to provide targeted help content to users and make it easy for them to collaborate efficiently during their purchasing process.
Explore more capabilities of SAP Ariba Procurement solutions
Spot Buy
Simplify and save money on one-off or emergency purchases previously considered too costly and time-consuming to source.
SAP Ariba Catalog
Provide user-friendly procurement catalog content to help employees buy from the right suppliers at the right prices
SAP Ariba Invoice Management
Increase the accuracy of invoices to speed up both processing and payments.
Frequently asked questions
Guided buying is a procurement principle that aims to ease the employee purchasing and employee spending process. Guided buying provides a one-stop portal for employees within an organization. It is a persona-based strategy. This means that an admin of the company can appoint certain profiles to various individuals throughout the organization as needed. These profiles have a certain amount of access and limitation based on users and their level in the organization, as well as the types of purchases they’ll be making regularly. Then, individuals can make preapproved purchases on a rolling basis with almost no involvement from the procurement team.
Guided buying increases compliant spend by steering users to preferred suppliers while incorporating guardrails so users follow procurement policies without having to know them in advance. The procurement department can also offer tailored help content in situations where users need more guidance.
Guided buying is a persona-based user experience that makes it simpler for users to find what they’re looking for. Users outside of the professional procurement group have one place to search for goods and services in a consumer-like way and can make purchases using a simple interface.
Guided buying in SAP Ariba solutions is a free capability that steers users to compliant procurement processes. Available with the SAP Ariba Buying or the SAP Ariba Buying and Invoicing solutions, it’s also integrated with the Spot Buy capability in SAP Ariba solutions.