Solutions
Share real-time information with all your direct spend suppliers, obtain their commits, and tap network-generated intelligence to achieve complete supply chain visibility.
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Network-based collaboration reduces inventory levels while increasing fill rates and productivity
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Achieve complete supply chain visibility with SAP Ariba Supply Chain Collaboration. Integrated with your ERP and supply chain optimization systems, this collaboration platform equips you to work safely and easily with multiple tiers of contract manufacturers and suppliers across key supply chain planning and execution processes.
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Share production forecasts, orders, quality, and inventory information with suppliers and obtain their responses in real time.
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Anticipate and resolve supply assurance problems quickly with collaboration dashboards that alert you to supply and demand mismatches.
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Onboard all your suppliers using our on-demand tools, multiple integration options, and supplier enablement teams with decades of onboarding expertise.
Supply Chain Collaboration: Product Features
Broad collaboration
Collaborate in real time, with suppliers and contract manufacturing organizations across multiple processes, systems, and geographies, on key supply chain planning and execution processes like ordering, forecasting, quality, and inventory management.
Actionable intelligence
Dashboards help you identify supply-demand mismatch and quality issues quickly, displaying supplier responses and status of their commitments to your forecasts, orders, quality notifications, and inventory pulls.
Improved compliance
With standards-based and secured electronic communications, as well as customized configuration of inter-company supply chain business rules, drive greater compliance with orders delivered correctly and on time.
Efficient onboarding
Multiple integration options ensure that sophisticated suppliers will participate. Use simple, on-demand tools to onboard the rest. Experts are available 24/7 to help you plan, prioritize, and execute.
Easy integration
Integrate this solution with any back-office system. Packaged integration is available with SAP ERP and supply chain solutions.
Fast time-to-value
Achieve fast time-to-value through efficient onboarding and quick deployment of this user-friendly solution, encouraging broad adoption by internal teams and external trading partners.
Add-Ons to Enhance Supply Chain Collaboration
Forecast Add-On
Get early visibility into supply availability with the forecast add-on, which helps you and your trading partners align on supply and demand planning over multiple time horizons.
Read about forecast add-on
Inventory Add-On
With real-time visibility into inventory managed by your trading partners, this add-on can drive down working capital, excess inventory, and carrying costs by optimizing inventory levels.
Read about the inventory add-on
Quality Add-On
Resolve issues quickly and boost customer satisfaction by using this add-on to gain visibility into quality issues and automate information exchange between you and your trading partners.
Read about the quality add-on
Success Stories
Supply Chain Collaboration Resources
Direct Materials Collaboration: Why it's vital today
Learn best practices from supply chain leaders across various industries who have delivered better business outcomes with best-run supply chain networks and critical collaboration.
Download white paper
Download white paper
Comprehensive Supplier Collaboration Reconnects Globally Distributed Supply Chains
Get this IDC Technology Spotlight for their insights on trends in external manufacturing and other outsourced supply chain functions and how supply chain visibility enables greater resiliency.
Download IDC report
Download IDC report
Watch a demo replay
Watch this replay of our live demo, including overview and Q&A, to learn how to collaborate with your trading partners on supply chain planning and execution processes.
Supplier Collaboration and Strategic Sourcing Inform Next Generation Product Design
How important is the new product development and introduction (NPDI) process at your business? In this new paper, IDC reveals why effective and efficient collaboration tools are more important to the process than ever.
Read IDC's report
Read IDC's report
4 Reasons to Embrace Cloud Technology for Real Time Supply Chain Collaboration
In this article from Supply Chain Brain, you'll read how the advent of business networks on cloud platforms enables real-time visibility into supply chain conditions.
Read article
Read article
Build a resilient supply chain
Watch this webinar series on demand to see how SAP Ariba customers are building resilient supply chain infrastructures for collaboration.
Learn more and register
Learn more and register
Frequently Asked Questions
Supply chain collaboration is the process of extending internal systems and processes to an ecosystem of trading partners. On the supply side, this ecosystem typically includes direct materials suppliers across multiple tiers, contract manufacturers, co-packers, shippers, carriers, and third-party logistics providers. Businesses can collaborate on order processes including purchase order transmission, order confirmations, advance ship notices, goods receipt notices, and invoices, as well as forecast and inventory. In addition, businesses can collaborate with suppliers during quality-related processes by digitally requesting quality data, documentation, and confirmation.
Supply chain collaboration is important because it helps improve supply assurance, reduce invoice exceptions, improve process compliance, and provide visibility into potential supply chain disruptions. Supply assurance is a critical requirement in a world impacted by COVID-19, labor shortages, and other supply chain disruptions.
Supply chain collaboration is also important because it involves trading partners in digital transformation initiatives. According to recent research from Oxford Economics, more than half of companies outsource at least 25% of their manufacturing. As reliance on external partners increases, companies must expand the focus of their digital transformations beyond their own internal systems and processes to involve their trading partners in improvements.
Enterprises and their trading partners both benefit from collaborative supply chain relationships.
Enterprises benefit from:
- Greater assurance of supply, which leads to higher customer satisfaction, more upside revenues, and fewer stockout penalties
- Higher inventory turnover and fewer invoice exceptions and disputes
- Faster and more compliant confirmation of quality of raw materials, manufactured components, final products, and more
- Fewer manual collaboration efforts that often introduce error and take too much time
- Improved ERP processes and greater planning data accuracy
- Reduced IT costs from not needing to manage their own supplier portals
Trading partners (including contract manufacturing organizations, suppliers, n-tier suppliers, co-packers, tollers, and others) benefit from:
- Better visibility into customer demand
- Increased customer satisfaction for a higher share of wallet
- Reduced IT costs from creating one harmonized point of connection with customers
Supply chain partners can collaborate more effectively by using technology to automate manual tasks, eliminate data silos, and enable innovative new ways of working together.
Automated collaboration replaces manual processes (such as spreadsheet-based collaboration) to improve accuracy and reduce costs. Using network-based collaboration, businesses can use business rules to create better outcomes. For example, companies can require that their suppliers provide advance ship notices and receive goods receipt notices before they invoice. The network can perform three-way matching that verifies that these documents were submitted and match. This means fewer invoices are rejected because validation happens before the invoice data enters the ERP.
Third-party technology for supply chain collaboration can replace homegrown software to provide modern capabilities and a road map for innovation. With the right third-party technology, suppliers gain multiple collaboration options, including to business-to-business integration, EDI, portals, downloadable spreadsheets, and more.