Asset Management

In a highly competitive business environment where companies face the pressure to become more agile, profitable and transparent, leaders in procurement, supply chain and finance are being called upon to implement new digital strategies. In order to help companies achieve this, SAP launched its Intelligent Spend Management (ISM) strategy.

Leading analyst firm IDC states in its 2019 Predictions study that by 2022, more than 50% of Latin America’s GDP will be digitalized, with growth in each industry driven by digitally enhanced relationships and operations.

Similarly, according to the Mexican Institute of Finance Executives (IMEF), the digitalization of Enterprise 4.0 – the next evolution of business – will be significant for all sectors of the economy. This is particularly true for Chief Financial Officers and Chief Procurement Officers, who face a new reality in terms of real-time data and analytics. Their evolved role in the business ecosystem will be vital for strategic business decisions, adding differentiating value to companies in today’s highly competitive market.

Based on this, the emergence of Intelligent Spend Management addresses customer demands for innovative solutions that simplify procurement processes, enable better control of spend and resources, and improve agility and transparency. With ISM, SAP enables procurement, supply chain, finance and IT leaders to generate value and significant savings, by expanding their spend capture across every source and every category while leveraging the best-in-class cloud-based SAP solutions:

SAP Ariba for direct and indirect spend. Ariba Network connects millions of buyers and suppliers and enables better spend management with data-backed insights across the organization and real-time collaboration with suppliers to negotiate savings in direct and indirect spend.
SAP Fieldglass for the sourcing, contracting and management of the external workforce – from temporary staff to Statement of Work-based consultants to freelance workers, gig workers and contractors.
SAP Concur for managing corporate travel expenses from end-to-end – receipt to reimbursement – with total transparency into spending and an effortless experience for employees.

An example of a successful ISM implementation, KIO Networks, is a mission-critical IT company with more than 17 years in the Mexican market and operations in Panama, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic and Spain. KIO developed a strong ISM strategy to more efficiently manage their travel expenses and procurement processes, as well as their relationships with suppliers and external workers. All this with the purpose of budgeting projects more efficiently and achieving client success with greater speed.

José Luis Cruz, Chief Procurement Officer of KIO Networks, commented: “As a technology services company, we are constantly looking for suppliers that provide us with a comprehensive view of all spend data, and thanks to SAP we have visibility from contracting and deliverables to time to payments for services – all based on transparency and accuracy.”

Eric Rossati, Director of SAP Ariba and SAP Fieldglass in Mexico, said: “Our world is moving faster than ever before. Facing the unprecedented transformation of the procurement function, SAP aims to provide our customers with digital tools that help them automate and make their processes more transparent, so they can focus on their business strategies. With ISM, we help companies infuse intelligence into their spend from end-to-end with the industry-leading solutions from SAP Ariba, SAP Fieldglass and SAP Concur – all in compliance with current legislation.”