Objectives Solution Benefits Quick Facts

SAP Solution Brief | PUBLIC

SAP Ariba Procurement | SAP Ariba Catalog

Increase Procurement Compliance and Control with

Rich Content and Faster Enablement
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 SAP Solution Brief Objectives Solution Benefits Quick Facts

Drive Adoption While Strengthening

Procurement Compliance
Procurement managers need greater compliance and control while driving down Drive Adoption While Strengthening
Procurement Compliance
costs and raising profit margins. To succeed, you need tools to make more-insightful
purchasing decisions. A simplified and centralized procurement catalog helps
companies realize the outcomes leadership wants and expects. With the
SAP® Ariba® Catalog solution, you can achieve these objectives and more.

All organizations need to have the right materials With SAP Ariba Catalog, you can increase
delivered at the right time with the right quality. procurement visibility and control while gaining
In today’s competitive business environment, greater operational flexibility, repeatable cost
© 2020 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.

tightening control of procurement processes and
sourcing the best supplies at the lowest cost are
necessities. Businesses must have an easier
way to limit purchases to preferred suppliers
and buying channels. What’s needed is a solution
that displays relevant, validated, and always
up-to-date procurement content.
savings, and compliant processes. This cloud-
based offering defines, validates, and enriches
catalog content with enterprise-grade content
management tools to give procurement profes-
sionals an easier way to get what they need. At the
same time, you can meet the expectations of
the C-suite, such as lower risk, lower total cost of
ownership, and a rapid return on investment.

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 SAP Solution Brief Objectives Solution Benefits Quick Facts

Transform Purchasing and Boost

Transparency
SAP Ariba Catalog displays the items available
for purchase from the suppliers with whom your
company has negotiated purchasing relationships.
The solution combines, consumer-like shopping
with a sophisticated procurement process. It gives
employees user-friendly catalog and shopping cart
functionality so they can easily buy what’s needed.
Advanced content management tools help your
purchasing agents efficiently validate and sort
the best of what your suppliers have to offer.
© 2020 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.
SAP Ariba Catalog simplifies even the most complex
catalog management processes. You can display
items ranging from regular goods, punchout items,
and collaborative items to catalog kits and inventory
items. It all begins with the catalog home page
(see the next page), which lets you search,
browse, and add compliant items to the catalog.
Transform Purchasing and Boost
Transparency
Manage All Types of Catalogs – From
Local to Multiple Business Units
Key Differentiators That Deliver Value
Enhancements to Transform the Catalog
Experience

Provide a rich buying experience for

procurement agents while ensuring
more-efficient procurement processes.
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 SAP Solution Brief Objectives Solution Benefits Quick Facts

Transform Purchasing and Boost

Transparency

Manage All Types of Catalogs – From

Local to Multiple Business Units

Key Differentiators That Deliver Value

Enhancements to Transform the Catalog

Experience
© 2020 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.

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Figure: Catalog Home Page
 SAP Solution Brief Objectives Solution Benefits Quick Facts

Manage All Types of Catalogs – From

Local to Multiple Business Units
SAP Ariba Catalog supports multiple approaches
to managing and accessing catalog content,
including the following.
Local Catalogs
Authorized users can load, manage, and access
catalogs and prices. SAP Ariba Catalog supports
catalogs in both the catalog interchange format
(CIF) and commerce extensible markup language
(cXML) format and allows loading of catalogs
from Ariba Network.
© 2020 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.
Remote Catalogs
Users can access and procure items from catalogs
hosted and managed by suppliers on selected
third-party provider platforms.
Multiple Catalog Formats
SAP Ariba Catalog supports a wide variety of
catalog formats such as CIF, XLSX, cXML, BMECat,
and punchout. Suppliers can upload catalogs
using Ariba Network, which buyers can then
access through SAP Ariba Procurement solutions.
Transform Purchasing and Boost
Transparency
Manage All Types of Catalogs – From
Local to Multiple Business Units
Key Differentiators That Deliver Value
Enhancements to Transform the Catalog
Experience

Upload catalog content from a single user interface

to help make catalog maintenance a painless process.

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 SAP Solution Brief Objectives Solution Benefits Quick Facts

Cross-Catalog Support Multiple Business Units Transform Purchasing and Boost

SAP Ariba Procurement solutions support cross-
catalog searches for buyer catalogs, supplier
uploaded catalogs, punchout catalogs, ERP
inventory catalogs, and spot buy catalogs.
A Google-like search bar allows purchasing agents
to search for items in company catalogs. You can
narrow your search across a category menu.
Depending on how the search functionality is
configured, you may be able to use “AND” and
“OR” search strings. SAP Ariba Catalog supports
© 2020 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.
With SAP Ariba Catalog, companies can manage
catalog content across business units. Using
SAP Ariba Procurement solutions, companies
can track spend and corresponding content by
business units, departments, and purchasing
organization. You can map different types of
data, such as suppliers or business-unit cost
centers, to corresponding purchasing units.
Certain common data, such as language, currency,
Transparency
Manage All Types of Catalogs – From
Local to Multiple Business Units
Key Differentiators That Deliver Value
Enhancements to Transform the Catalog
Experience

type-ahead searches, in which suggestions are
provided based on keywords, part numbers, and
supplier name.
unit of measure, and other company-wide
parameters, can be shared across business units.
You can also see catalog items associated with
specific purchasing organizations. When users
perform searches, run reports, or perform
management operations, the data they see is
restricted to specific purchasing units.

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 SAP Solution Brief Objectives Solution Benefits Quick Facts

Key Differentiators That Deliver Value

One of the most compelling features of SAP Ariba
Catalog is its ability to integrate with other
SAP Ariba solutions, enterprise software, and
other procurement tools. The solution offers open
API integration and catalog APIs to help automate
tasks such as uploading lookup data and updating
enterprise software systems.
© 2020 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.
API integration means your catalog content is
always up to date with real-time pricing and
inventory availability information. There is a direct
connection between your inventory system and
SAP Ariba Catalog. You can search and buy across
all catalogs in one interface, including items listed
in a material master database, inventoried items,
and maintenance, repair, and operations supplies
and spares, along with stock levels by plant location.
Transform Purchasing and Boost
Transparency
Manage All Types of Catalogs – From
Local to Multiple Business Units
Key Differentiators That Deliver Value
Enhancements to Transform the Catalog
Experience

Maverick spend is 50% lower for SAP Ariba solutions

customers that have 92% of PO line items originating from
catalogs and contracts produced by SAP Ariba solutions.
Source: SAP Ariba benchmarking, June 2018.

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 SAP Solution Brief Objectives Solution Benefits Quick Facts

Enhancements to Transform
the Catalog Experience
SAP Ariba Catalog offers several new features to
transform procurement processes and provide
an intuitive user experience, rich content, and
better catalog enablement.
Improved User Experience
Not only does SAP Ariba Catalog help simplify and
control purchasing processes, it helps make catalog
creation easier for suppliers as well. An intuitive
user interface provides a streamlined content and
catalog creation process. Your suppliers can simply
© 2020 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.
search results and provides users with rich content.
Content normalization increases the number and
quality of filters users can apply to their searches.
Catalog Enablement
SAP Ariba Catalog offers fast enablement for
catalogs ranging from simple to complex. Full
catalog enablement is provided as part of your
subscription to use SAP Ariba Catalog, which
includes comprehensive collection, validation,
enrichment, classification, and approval to enable a
Transform Purchasing and Boost
Transparency
Manage All Types of Catalogs – From
Local to Multiple Business Units
Key Differentiators That Deliver Value
Enhancements to Transform the
Catalog Experience

create master content on Ariba Network and
support tail spend generated by buyers.
Rich Content
SAP Ariba Catalog now features content normaliza-
tion, which improves the accuracy and relevance of
wonderful shopping experience. With the solution’s
content-management functionality, catalogs can
now be updated in minutes. Automated verification
functionality in SAP Ariba Catalog speeds updates,
reduces workload, and improves accuracy.

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 SAP Solution Brief Objectives
Gain Greater Compliance and Control
While Cutting Costs
SAP Ariba Catalog drives a culture of compliance,
which helps you reduce cost and risk while gaining
greater control over procurement processes.
From a single user interface, you can easily log in
and immediately see all available items from your
supply network in real time. Advanced content
management tools simplify the upload of catalog
content. Plus, collaboration tools for buyers and
suppliers make it easier to finalize the price or
specifications for goods or services, before an
© 2020 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.
item is ordered.
Solution Benefits Quick Facts
Buyers can view catalogs of approved suppliers Gain Greater Compliance and Control
only. Preferred suppliers and products are priori- While Cutting Costs
tized based on relevance to search criteria, and
contract pricing is applied proactively. The solution
also helps enforce contractual agreements, with
tools to ensure compliance for shopping carts.
Overall, SAP Ariba Catalog increases procurement
visibility and control while providing greater
operational flexibility and repeatable cost savings.
The solution makes it easier to create rules to
cleanse and enrich catalog content – and help
ensure catalogs are compliant and error free.
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 SAP Solution Brief
Summary
The SAP® Ariba® Catalog solution combines
simplified, consumer-like shopping with a
sophisticated procurement process. It gives your
employees a user-friendly catalog and shopping
cart functionality so they can easily buy what
they need. And buyers get advanced content
management tools to efficiently validate and sort
the best of what their suppliers offer.
Objectives
• Simplify and centralize purchasing with consistent
processes and e-procurement
• Enforce compliance with purchasing policies
and prices
• Drive higher profitability through lower costs
and increased margins
© 2020 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.
• Make more-insightful purchasing decisions
based on greater visibility
Objectives Solution Benefits Quick Facts
Solution
• Cloud-based solution for fast enablement
• Enterprise-grade content management tools
• Open API to link catalogs to live inventories
and enterprise software
• Easier catalog management
• Always-on support
• Compliance with purchasing rules, prices,
and contracts
Benefits
• Better procurement visibility and control
• Greater operational flexibility
• Repeatable cost savings
• More-compliant processes
• Lower risk and cost of ownership
Learn more
To find out more, call your SAP representative
today or visit us online.
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