The aim of this two-part blog post is to give an update on the latest Sourcing and Procurement innovations in S/4HANA Cloud. Each quarter, SAP releases a new wave of innovations, which helps solve the problems typically faced by procurement organisations. In the role of a consultant, I often speak with these organisations and hear about their pain points e.g. problems maintaining strong relationships with top-performing vendors or issues gaining value for money. With a cloud-based ERP, many of these problems are solved and a traditional organisation can be transformed into a next-generation intelligent business.
But first, how did the innovations of the 1905 release help our customers? Last release, we saw exciting enhancements in areas such as Image-Based Buying (3UH), which enables users to search catalog entries by image. Other innovations included: Situation Handling for Predictive Contract Consumption (BMD), Monitor Central Purchase Requisition Items (1QR) and Centralised Business with Central Purchase Requisitions & Central Procurement Operations Monitor (2XT, 1XI). For more information on the 1905 release for Sourcing and Procurement, check out my colleague’s blog post.
Fast-forward to today - What’s planned with the latest 1908 release? And how will this help customers to run a seamless and intelligent procurement process? Part one of this blog will look at the innovations in Operational Procurement and Sourcing and Contract Management. Part two will focus on those across Central Procurement, Procurement Analytics and Invoice and Payables Management. For each enhancement, we’ll look at common pain points and the innovations helping to overcome these. For further information on the latest release in Sourcing and Procurement, you can also read this blog post.
Operational Procurement
Pain Point: Lack of efficiency in viewing required information, Slow turnaround time
1908 Innovation: Improve information visibility by reflecting original status of a purchase requisition after copying
Self-service users can now edit a copied purchase requisition
Pain Point: Poor process transparency/efficiency, Too much navigation required
1908 Innovation: Increase process transparency by displaying the status of purchase requisitions in the header
Users can now gain a quick view of key details in the purchase requisition such as: Overall status, quantity, price and approval comments
Pain Point: Lack of efficiency in approving/rejecting workflows
1908 Innovation: Increase employee productivity by informing users about workflow rejections or approvals through e-m...
Requester is now enabled to take follow-on-actions upon receipt of email notification, without needing to be logged into the system to receive notifications
Pain Point: Poor cost control, planning and settlement, Complex integration
1908 Innovation: Deliver flexible integration of transportation management into purchase order processing
Integration of transportation management into S/4HANA Cloud (ability to now trigger settlement of transportation costs)
Lean services – Integrated use of purchase orders
Information of origin and destination country for accurate tax determination during transportation settlement (information forwarded from transportation management upon initiation of a purchase order)
Pain Point: Poor transparency, Slow issue resolution, Low level of understanding
1908 Innovation: Improve operational efficiency by providing configuration options for rules and partner functions
Full flexibility for use of partner functions inside purchase orders through following self-service configuration user interfaces (SSCUIs): Define Partner Schemas, Assign Partner Schemas to Account Groups, Assign Partner Schemas to Document Types, Define Partner Roles, Define Permissible Partner Roles per Account Group
Pain Point: Lack of efficiency, Detailed scrutiny, Stagnant level of productivity, Delays
1908 Innovation: Increase employee productivity by providing intelligent purchase requisition approval using Machine ...
Confidence level is now provided for a purchase requisition with item-level approval in SAP Fiori app My Inbox - Indicating level of criticality of purchase requisition item approval. The top parameters contributing to confidence level for a purchase requisition are now also displayed in the app
Pain Point: Complex processing, Complex integration
1908 Innovation: Increased process efficiency through external processing of purchase requisition items originating f...
Enable external sources to use purchase requisition OData API to do the following: Create purchase requisition items that are in process externally, enable purchase requisition items for purchasing or discard purchase requisition items from purchasing
Pain Point: Slow turnaround time, Poor process efficiency
1908 Innovation: Improve turnaround time by enabling employees to perform partial confirmations from the SAP Fiori ap...
Employee now enabled to perform partial confirmation of a purchase requisition once purchase order has been created
Paint Point: Lack of flexibility, control and adherence
1908 Innovation: Increased flexibility by using customer cloud business add-ins (BAdI) for field control of follow-on...
Cloud BAdI for determining whether a follow-on flag is for display only or editable in a customer-specific implementation. BAdI Change of Field Control for Purchase Order Itemsenables user to influence the field control of specific fields in purchase order apps. User can now change status of fields that affect settings for follow-on documents, such as goods receipt or final invoice
Pain Point: Information maintenance, Impact of price changes, Difficulties in triggering logistical processes
1908 Innovation: Improve operational efficiency by providing self-service configuration for stock transport order ins...
Activation of self-service configuration user interfaces (SSCUIs) for using “stock transport orders” functionality inside a single plant enabling users to: Activate stock transfers for storage locations, define shipping data for stock transfer between storage locations and determine pricing schemas for stock transport orders
Pain Point: Stagnant employee productivity
1908 Innovation: Increase employee productivity by displaying commitments in Manage Purchase Orders Fiori App
Enable the option “display of commitment information” for all items in a purchase order
Sourcing and Contract Management
Pain Point: Low levels of compliancy, Too many business transactions with embargo business partners
1908 Innovation: Deliver flexible integration of global trade services in purchase contract
User now enabled to perform global trade services checks on purchase contracts, such as embargo checks/watch list screening checks
Ensures that contract complies with international trade laws and restrictions
Pain Point: Low level of usability, Slow processing
1908 Innovation: Increase process efficiency by creating call-off purchase orders from purchasing contracts directly
Use Manage Contract app to create call-off order for one/several items of contract
Retrieve pertinent data from contract when creating purchase orders
Pain Point: Loss of time/money
1908 Innovation: Improve operational efficiency by proactive situation management in case the request for quotation (...
Automatic system detection of critical situations in sourcing process
Information provided to responsible purchaser in timely manner to resolve situation
Pain Point: Basic Functionality, Problems with contract processing
1908 Innovation: Improve cycle time for new contract creation by providing reference number and additional filters in...
Reference-number field in document header
Filter for main entity/organization and stamps in document list page
Ability to link external objects to legal transactions
Pain Point: Lack of consolidation of automation rules, Manual intervention, Requirement to optimise purchasing process
1908 Innovation: Increase process efficiency by enabling automation of purchase requisitions through configuration of...
Define rules for automating business processes for assigning unique sources of supply and creating purchase orders for purchase requisition items
Automate source-of-supply assignment and purchase order creation
Define and automate custom actions for implementing checks and modifications
Schedule execution of defined rules in background app
Pain Point: Dependency on GUI applications
1908 Innovation: Improve operational efficiency by supporting subcontracting, consignment, and pipeline processes for...
Create info records supporting other info record categories e.g. consignment, subcontracting, and pipeline, standard categories
Display info records for all info record categories supported in list page of app
Stay tuned for the second part of this blog post which will list the rest of SAP S/4HANA Cloud’s 1908 innovations for Souring and Procurement!
Important Links:
Best Practices for SAP S/4HANA Cloud
SAP S/4HANA Cloud Customer Community
SAP S/4HANA Cloud Help Portal
SAP Innovation Discovery
Sven Denecken’s SAP S/4HANA Cloud 1908 Release Blog
1908 Feature Scope Description
What’s New 1908
Transform Procurement with SAP Solutions
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