“Six months ago, Ariba painted a vision of a world in which spend management would be affordable and available to all types of companies, and released an initial set of integrated, on-demand solutions designed to make this happen,” said Craig Federighi, Chief Technology Officer, Ariba. “Today, we took another step toward making our vision a reality with the release of additional multi-tenant offerings that provide companies with the most comprehensive solutions available for managing the entire spend management process.”

When it comes to managing spend, more is better. The more dollars and categories the procurement function controls, the more efficient their operations. And greater efficiencies lead to greater savings, realized faster. With its latest on-demand release, Ariba provides companies of all sizes with more options to drive savings to the bottom line through aggressive management of the spend management process.

“With mandated corporate savings targets, enterprises are expanding their spend management initiatives to deliver the required results,” Federighi said. “With our latest on-demand release, Ariba is continuing its tradition of innovation and commitment to providing companies with leading solutions that enable them to achieve their spend management goals and increase their returns on investment.”

In addition to Ariba Sourcing™ and Ariba Spend Visibility™ on-demand solutions, Ariba now offers the following solutions in multi-tenant versions for its Basic and Professional customers:

Ariba Procure-To-Pay™– Designed to ensure that savings identified through sourcing actually reach the bottom line, Ariba Procure-To-Pay combines the functionality of Ariba Buyer™, Ariba Invoice™, Ariba Settlement™ and Ariba Analysis™ in a single, integrated solution. Embedded with the knowledge and best practices that Ariba and its customers have developed over the last decade, Ariba Procure-To-Pay enables companies to have visibility into and control the procurement process more efficiently than ever before. Delivered on demand, the solution can be rolled out in just a few weeks to not only buyers, but anyone in the company who needs to buy goods and services, enabling companies to quickly and cost effectively close the procurement loop and realize returns on their investment.

Ariba Electronic Invoice Presentment and Payment™ - With technology recognized by Forrester Research and Global Finance Magazine as industry-leading, Ariba Electronic Invoice Presentment and Payment provides robust invoice routing, reconciliation and payment processing for buyers while also giving suppliers real-time visibility into the buyer’s invoice and payment approval process via the Ariba Supplier Network™. With Ariba Electronic Invoice Presentment and Payment, companies can capture 100 percent of their supplier invoices electronically, and eliminate the paper invoices that clog accounts payable organizations by delivering them to the web browsers of accounts payable personnel. The end results are faster, more efficient processing and easy sharing across departments, significantly lower transactional costs, higher rates of negotiated and early-pay discount capture and improved internal controls. Delivered on demand, the solution can easily be deployed and drive a more integrated and compliant cash management strategy.

Ariba Travel and Expense™ - As the economy is truly global, companies of all shapes and sizes have seen their travel costs soar. Ariba Travel and Expense combines proven technology with spend management best practices to help companies drive bottom-line savings through a closed-loop process that covers everything from pre-trip authorizations and travel booking though post-trip reporting, reconciliation and audit. Ariba Travel and Expense is fully integrated into the Ariba Spend Management™ process, and includes expert services in travel programs and expense management. With the new on-demand delivery option, companies can realize process and compliance savings quickly, with minimal upfront investment

Ariba Contract Management™ - Embedded with best practices that allow companies to realize negotiated savings while also managing risk and compliance issues, Ariba Contract Management is a comprehensive solution companies can use to drive everything from authoring legal agreements to structuring pricing terms. Recently ranked among the industry’s leading contract management offerings by Forrester Research (The Forrester Wave™: Contract Life-Cycle Management, Q1 2006, Forrester Research, Inc., March 2006), Ariba Contract Management on-demand solution enables companies working to meet internal compliance goals to quickly get a system in place that can efficiently manage both.

Game-Changing Services
Spend management doesn’t just happen. Even with the best technology in place, many companies still struggle to enable their users and drive the broad adoption necessary to deliver results. Recognizing these challenges, Ariba wraps each of its solutions with commodity expertise and spend management services designed to help companies build the organizational capabilities needed to achieve spend management excellence. With the latest release, Ariba has enhanced several capabilities in its comprehensive portfolio of spend management services and enabled them to be delivered on demand, including:

Sourcing Capabilities – The benefits that online sourcing can deliver are clear: a streamlined supply base, dramatically reduced cycle time, substantial savings and ROI. But to reap these benefits, online projects must be properly executed. And this involves more than just plugging in a piece of software. Ariba’s deep sourcing capabilities help companies learn best practices that enable them to build sourcing as a core competency and drive sustainable bottom-line results. With Ariba’s sourcing capabilities, companies can tap the experience and expertise Ariba has built in online sourcing over the last decade and transfer it to their own team members to ensure the success of their projects on an ongoing basis. From category-specific strategies to supplier research and identification, RFx creation and event execution, companies will learn everything they need to know to plan and manage successful online sourcing projects from start to finish.

Event Engineering Capabilities – As savings targets continue to increase, so too must the amount of spend that procurement teams bring under management. With Ariba’s event engineering capabilities, sourcing professionals can increase their spend throughput by outsourcing the tactical execution of online sourcing projects to Ariba’s global operations team. With Ariba driving the building and testing of online events, enabling and training of suppliers, coordination of supplier participation and management of event-day activity, sourcing professionals can focus on finding additional opportunities for savings and creating projects to lock them in.

“The key to spend management success isn’t only automating the procurement process, but accessing knowledge and expertise that make organizations better and smarter,” said Kent Parker, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Ariba Global Services Organization. “By leveraging the commodity expertise and support services embedded in all of Ariba’s solutions, companies can quickly build their spend management capabilities and deliver results.”

Availability
Ariba’s on-demand spend management solutions are available and in use by customers today. To learn more about how your organization can leverage them to quickly and effectively bring more spend under management and realize substantial savings and returns on investment, visit the Learning Center at www.ariba.com

About Ariba, Inc.
Ariba, Inc. is the leading provider of spend management solutions to help companies realize rapid and sustainable bottom line results. Successful companies around the world in every industry use Ariba Spend Management software and services. Ariba can be contacted in the U.S. at 1.650.390.1000 or at www.ariba.com.

Source: Ariba

Source: Wired News