Ariba Strategic Consulting

Most organizations recognize the importance of a cohesive spend management strategy. Yet all too often companies are hampered in their spend management initiatives by poorly defined objectives, lack of focus on prime areas for achieving savings, and the inability to consistently quantify and measure savings against relevant industry benchmarks.

Ariba Strategic Consulting helps organizations clearly define their spend management vision so they can develop a program that aligns the initiatives and resources essential for success. Through our global expertise and understanding of the spend management process across multiple industries and commodities, we help companies improve deployment speed and effectiveness, convey crucial knowledge to key stakeholders, and ensure enterprise-wide participation to achieve spend management goals.

Through Ariba Strategic Consulting, your organization is empowered to:

• Use strategy articulation maps to align business areas with spend management objectives and use resources in programs that create and sustain improvements
• Engage constituents and critical cross-company resources
• Develop roadmaps to efficiently address key spend management operating processes and realize rapid ROI
• Utilize integrated performance measures to effectively manage deployment pace and accurately monitor spend management progress
• Define a clear strategy to harvest best practices and build sustainable spend improvements
• Ensure that knowledge management is a core operating component in every aspect of the spend management process

Performance Improvement
Ariba's Capability Deployment methodology helps organizations understand current Spend Management capabilities, establish future state capabilities and make the changes necessary to establish Spend Management as a high value, high participation, and sustainable business process.

Unlike traditional assess, design, and deploy "transformation" methodologies, Capability Deployment leverages best-practice based standardized processes and templates to allow companies of all sizes to extend spend management capability to more of their spend. Using our unique Capability Framework, we help sourcing and procurement organizations look across the enterprise to clearly define their value proposition, establish cross-functional objectives and institute the communication and governance structure necessary to make it a reality. At the same time, we help organizations look "under the hood" to give their people the right processes, tools, training and rewards to drive execution.

Organizational Strategy
Ariba can help transform your organization into a best in class Spend Management organization, ensuring you have the right people in the right places to support your organization's ongoing needs, both functionally and technically. Ariba will share industry-wide best practices, assess and refine your structure, map your key business processes and provide input into your talent management.

Solution/Implementation Strategy
Ariba understands that significant technology decisions can be challenging for many organizations. There are a multitude of factors to consider when making the decision to upgrade, change technology platforms, or outsource the management of your applications. Ariba offers knowledgeable assessment resources from within our Consulting organization to help evaluate the many options available for selection.