SAP Ushers in New Era of Collaborative Supply Chain Management

WALLDORF, Germany, Sept. 16, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- As supply chains continue to evolve into demand networks, with a more dynamic, lean and globally dispersed assortment of internal and external partners, collaboration is fast becoming the new strategic capability. Recognizing this, SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today announced cloud-based innovations that leverage the connectivity, community and insights of the Ariba® Network to help companies fuel more agile, intelligent and collaborative supply chains to succeed in today's increasingly global and networked economy. This announcement underscores SAP's commitment to helping companies run simple, especially those operating in the complex world of logistics and supply chain management.

Transforming Linear Supply Chains into Demand Networks 
Delivered as part of SAP® Supply Chain Orchestration application, cloud edition, and consistent with SAP's vision to transform supply chains to demand networks, the innovations leverage the latest cloud technology to enable visibility, collaborative decision making and automated planning and orchestration in a network-based environment.

SAP Supply Chain Orchestration, cloud edition, is an overarching solution that integrates the SAP Supply Network Collaboration application and Ariba Collaborative Supply Chain. Combined, this provides companies with complete visibility into supply side trading partners and a single interface for managing the advanced supply chain needs of critical, high-value partners. It also facilitates the automation required for all supplier categories. Using the application, companies can quickly onboard and enable efficient, targeted and transparent collaboration with their direct materials suppliers and achieve the following benefits:

• Reduced inventory and increased revenue with advanced collaborative supply chain initiatives
• Improved process efficiency
• Greater compliance and risk management
• Optimized cash flow across the supply chain

Delivered via the Ariba Network, the world's largest, most global trading platform, Ariba Collaborative Supply Chain makes it easier than ever for companies to collaborate with their suppliers in a single public cloud platform and manage all of their activities across multi-tier supply chains. Through simple integration to any back-end system and supplier on-boarding services companies can quickly and easily collaborate on orders, confirmations, scheduling agreement releases, advance ship notices, goods receipts notices, financing and VAT-compliant invoices.

With the established and widely used SAP Supply Network Collaboration application built in, companies can orchestrate the supply chain network with suppliers and contract manufacturers, enabling innovative and advanced collaborative business process with industry specific capabilities. Newly available via the private, secure, subscription-based SAP HANA® Enterprise Cloud service, customers can also access the cloud service in an environment managed by SAP.

The delivery of SAP Supply Chain Orchestration, cloud edition, represents SAP's continued commitment to its supply chain strategy, which was initiated with the launch of the new SAP Integrated Business Planning solution in July 2014. Combined, the launch of these initiatives will transform supply chains to demand networks in the future, enabling customers to meet new challenges in a volatile marketplace that is clouded with logistics complexities.

"A business cannot achieve its cost, revenue and cash flow goals without being able to efficiently engage with customers and collaborate with their supply chain," said Hans Thalbauer, senior vice president, Line-of-Business Solutions for Supply Chain, SAP. "Many companies are beginning to recognize that they can gain new insights and enable new processes that allow them to manage supply chain volatility and meet market demands by being connected to a community of their partners and peers, and this is what our latest innovations deliver."

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About SAP
As market leader in enterprise application software, SAP (NYSE: SAP) helps companies of all sizes and industries run better. From back office to boardroom, warehouse to storefront, desktop to mobile device – SAP empowers people and organizations to work together more efficiently and use business insight more effectively to stay ahead of the competition. SAP applications and services enable more than 261,000 customers to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and grow sustainably. For more information, visit www.sap.com.

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SOURCE SAP SE