Guided Buying: simple and intuitive shopping for all employees

Purchasing processes in companies are often too complicated, which increases the time of purchase and consumes unnecessary resources.

Ariba Guided Buying takes ordering to a new level with its user-friendly, intuitive and attractive interface.

What is Guided Buying?

Guided Buying assumes purchasing in the shortest possible time, which is practically reflected in the “3-clicks-and-a-buy” method. Such a path is possible thanks to the implemented purchasing policy and selection of preferred suppliers.

Guided buying enforces our policies in the way it’s embedded in the buying process, and by doing so, means the processes are followed, and this guarantees their success. By guaranteeing their success, it guarantees their growth.
Chelsea Grey, Services and Systems Manager, FMG

Guided Buying is part of Ariba SNAP. This system is designed to reduce the time and cost of purchasing processes. Configured using best practices, the solution allows to automate and unify transactions with suppliers.

Ariba SNAP provides all the necessary functionality an organization needs to control its purchasing process and reduce its cost. All of this and more requires only 12 weeks of implementation.

The largest suppliers’ network

The first step in simplifying purchasing is to identify the best source of supply.

Connected to the Ariba Network solution, it provides access to more than 3 million suppliers. This vast network offers an opportunity for companies to globally open up to cooperation with a vast number of partners from all over the world.

The direct connection to the suppliers enables each employee to send a 3-Bids-and-a-Buy request to the selected suppliers. With the Ariba Network, suppliers respond by sending bids to choose the best offer, which is then transformed into a contract or order. This purchasing platform also offers the possibility of verifying the risks associated with individual suppliers, even taking into account the ethics of their processes.

Management of Ariba SNAP contracts

Contracts are an integral part of such cooperation. Ariba SNAP provides an excellent tool for managing and creating contracts. This gives the user permanent control over the agreements.

The solution also has a notification system informing about the crucial events, such as the end of a contract or the burnout of its value. Buyers have the option of assigning invoices to contracts without the need for an order, which reduces the number of documents exchanged.

Digitization of documents

However, not all supplier transactions are contract-based, and here comes the third step – electronic ordering and invoicing. Ariba SNAP ends the era of analog document exchange and introduces the organization to digital transformation.

Thanks to the Ariba Network, the documents from the order, its confirmation of receipt, information about the shipment, to the invoice itself, circulate between the supplier and the buyer only within the portal with the e-mail information about their receipt. This shortens the time of the whole process and significantly reduces the risk of mistakes in the documents because the information is transferred from the document to the document with minimal user intervention.

Integration with external systems

The clear advantage of the solution is its integration with ERP systems. It allows the user to migrate essential data such as addresses, material groups, the structure of the organization or attribution books’ data. Based on the system structure, Ariba SNAP generates workflows and user data, and the decreation allows for automated accounting.

Integration also enables automation in the form of replication of orders and invoices to the ERP system. Thanks to that, access to purchase documents and control over them are also available from the central system of organization management.

The whole solution provides a mobile application for iOS and Android, where one can shop, make approvals or control the process started earlier.

Guided Buying transforms ordering materials and services into simple and enjoyable online shopping. In this case, merging with Ariba SNAP provides access to a professional tool that changes the face of each organization’s purchases and which grows with the development of businesses, opening the way for them to the digital transformation.