Atos Gives ERP A Boost With Ariba

Online shopping isn’t just for consumers anymore. With increasing frequency, businesses are demanding the same experience. But creating and managing accurate, user friendly catalogs that are compliant with corporate purchasing policies can be a challenge – particularly when attempting to do it within an ERP system. With the help of Ariba, an SAP company, Atos, a IT services company providing high-tech transactional services, consulting, systems integration and outsourcing solutions, has overcome it.

By integrating Ariba’s cloud-based procurement applications with its SAP system, Atos has created a consumer-like shopping site through which goods and services can be quickly and easily requisitioned from preferred vendors – all within its existing procurement infrastructure and in accordance with corporate purchasing policies.

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“After replacing our home-grown procurement system with SAP, we decided it was also necessary to upgrade our catalog enablement and maintenance capabilities,” Hobday said. “Our chief objective was to move away from hosting Excel-based catalogs and create a more efficient system through which employees could access supplier-maintained catalogs or punch out directly to vendors.”

Leveraging Ariba Procurement Content, Atos has done just this. A cloud-based solution delivered via the Ariba Network, Ariba Procurement Content integrates with any ERP or procurement system and provides companies with a complete content source of approved goods and services through a single user interface. Using the solution, Atos can:

• Requisition of any type of good or service

• Create a consumer-like shopping cart to simplify search, comparison, and buying

• Rapidly enable supplier catalogs to maximise spend coverage and term compliance

• Consolidate management of goods and services and optimise spend control

• Automate catalog verification to speed catalog updates, reduce workload, and improve catalog accuracy

• Identify and more efficiently collaborate with suppliers

• Drive greater usability and increase adoption

“Just because you build it doesn’t mean users will come; and when it comes to corporate procurement sites, nothing is more true,” said John Lark, Director, Product Marketing, Ariba. “As Atos recognises, the key to user adoption is providing an easy-to-use tool with current content. Ariba Procurement Content lets companies deliver a simple and intuitive shopping experience, with up-to-date, reliable content so they can drive more spend through the system and realise greater savings.”
Atos joins a growing number of ERP users who are leveraging Ariba’s solutions to extend the value of their systems by driving process efficiencies, transparency and better collaboration with the systems of their external trading partners.