SAP Ariba Solutions | Guided Buying Capability

The Simple Way to Smarter Buying:

Guided Buying Implementation
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Guided buying is a built-in capability available
at no additional cost to customers, using the
SAP® Ariba® Buying and SAP Ariba Buying and
Invoicing solutions. It provides a smart, easy,
and intuitive user interface for employees to
create any type of procurement request. These
actions can include buying, contracting, sourcing,
and making services and noncatalog requests,
as well as other types of requests.

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Why Use Guided Buying?
The user interface of guided buying enables THE VALUE PROPOSITION FOR GUIDED BUYING
users to complete their procurement requests Guided buying generates value to customers
in as few as three clicks. Procurement managers using SAP Ariba solutions in many ways. Most
gain improved compliance and more user adoption notably, it:
by making procurement easier, more visual, and •• Increases user adoption of SAP Ariba Procure-
smarter for everyone. ment solutions dramatically
•• Provides users with a single gateway to complete
Guided buying promotes high-touch, low-touch, any procurement request
and no-touch processing. (No-touch processing, •• Increases compliant spend using smart guidance
associated with low-dollar, high-volume procure- to steer users to the right item and to preferred
ment, is also known as straight-through suppliers, and helps ensure they work within
processing.) contractual and corporate policies
•• Simplifies procurement operations by making
To get an overview of key functionality, low-dollar, high-volume requests completely
view this demo of guided buying. self-service
•• Increases savings by driving more spend
through three bids and a buy, allowing self-service
collaboration with suppliers for tactical spend

THE KEY TO ACHIEVING BEST-IN-CLASS PERFORMANCE

Use guided buying to help drive your organization to best-in-class performance metrics.
Successful organizations are achieving the following:

93% of spend under manage- >85% compliance <5% maverick spend,

ment in the SAP Ariba Buying for invoice spend2 as a percentage of spend
solution1 under management3

Fastest average requisition- 20% fewer procurement FTEs per billion

to-order cycle time in the dollars of spend for organizations that support
industry, at less than a day self-service requisition for material and service
with SAP Ariba solutions4 items (using online catalogs with rules-based
checks enabled)5

1.–4. SAP Ariba Benchmark Program, 2015–2016.

5. SAP Performance Benchmarking, 2016.

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Getting Started in Three Easy Steps
So how can you get started with guided buying? By following a simple, three-step
process, which is based on our work with SAP customers in industries around
the world.

1 2 3
DEFINE A CLEAR VISION PLAN FOR THE IMPLEMENT
IMPLEMENTATION

LEARN MORE > LEARN MORE > LEARN MORE >

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STEP 1 STEP 2 STEP 3
Define Plan Implement

STEP 1 : DEFINE A CLEAR VISION

The first step is to develop a vision of how you will design,
plan, and roll out guided buying in your organization. Here
are recommendations and best practices that will help you
through the process:
••Identify your target audience.
Guided buying is recommended for casual and functional
buyers who sit outside of the procurement department.
These users typically do not work on procurement full
time and may not be up to date with procurement best
practices, supplier contracts, policies, and systems
training.
••Establish your objectives to help drive your category
approach.
Success requires taking a category spend prioritization
approach – prioritizing the sequence by which categories
appear on the home page. To get started, determine your
most important objective. Do you want to reduce spend,
simplify the buying process, improve the user experience,
or capture spend data? Determining your most important
objective at the beginning will help with category
prioritization.
••Analyze your spend data.
Who is buying what, and how are they buying it? Identify
high-touch transactions that you want to transform to low
touch or no touch. Low-dollar, high-volume transactions
are outstanding candidates for no-touch, straight-through
processing. Low-dollar, high-volume transactions include
purchases for office supplies, computer and mobile phone
accessories, information subscriptions, and consumer
products that are not strategic or routine purchases.

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STEP 1 STEP 2 STEP 3
Define Plan Implement

•• Note the usage of other internal applications for buying The smart-policy engine allows
services, facilities, or travel-and-expense reporting. you to define rules that users
If these areas are outside of your span of control, start must follow when buying online
conversations with those business owners now to gain in order to comply with the poli-
their support for a single user-interface approach. cies of your organization. Policy
••Review your procurement policies. alerts are embedded into the
Identify those policies that can be used in the smart-policy purchasing experience so users
engine during the buying process (see sidebar). don’t need to know or remember
••Start whiteboarding. the policies. A policy will appear
Lay out the flow for your spend categories and take advan- in the context of purchasing if a
tage of flexible tile options in SAP Ariba solutions to tailor policy has been violated or,
the interface for your users. See the section titled “Designing preemptively, to remind the
the User Experience: Arranging Pages and Tiles” on purchaser that a justification is
page 12 to assist with this process. needed. For example, a policy
could be this: “Require a justifi-
cation for purchases of IT
equipment.”

Policies can also support users

in the process of requesting
quotes from suppliers (also
known as tactical sourcing).
Depending on the spend
category and purchase volume,
procurement can use policies to
guide users on what they should
do. An example of a supplier
policy could be this: “The pur-
chase of IT equipment requires
Guided buying is fully integrated three quotes from preferred
with the SAP Ariba Buying solution suppliers for products costing
US$5,000 or more, and one
and can make use of existing quote from preferred suppliers
catalogs, approval flows, and for products costing less than
master data. US$5,000.”

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STEP 1 STEP 2 STEP 3
Define Plan Implement

STEP 2 : PLAN FOR THE IMPLEMENTATION

The second step is to define an implementation plan. Guided
buying can be implemented either at the same time or
after you implement your SAP Ariba Buying solution and
have completed step 1, “Define a Clear Vision,” described
above. The implementation scope and the time required
for implementation will vary by organization.

Most companies choose a phased approach, which benefits

large companies with multiple geographies and many
categories. The timing of rollout phases varies by organization.
For resource-constrained and risk-averse organizations, the
phased approach to implementation enables them to:
•• Conduct a pilot with a small group of users
•• Learn from the pilot
•• Use the lessons of the first phase to conduct a larger
second phase
•• Iterate with next phases as needed

Some companies choose a big-bang implementation

strategy and roll out guided buying to all corporate users
at the same time. The advantage of the big-bang approach
is that you can:
•• Avoid consulting costs during a long-term implementation
•• Catch and resolve problems early
•• Harvest guided buying’s cost savings and
operational efficiencies earlier
•• Serve all of your users at one time and avoid confusion
over rollout timing

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 STEP 1 STEP 2 STEP 3
Define Plan Implement

The Phased Approach Strategy

SAP recommends the following best practices for rolling out guided buying in phases to serve multiple
geographies and many categories. As shown in Figure 1, the timing of each rollout depends on your
organization’s implementation strategy or resources.

Figure 1: Phased Rollout Framework by Geography or Category

Next rollouts
•• Add more spend categories
•• Introduce other buying channels, such as low-
touch and high-touch processes, with policies
# of users

Second rollout
•• Reach more users
•• Cover major spend categories with
self-service buying channels

First rollout
•• Target a small set of casual users
•• Use a simple set of categories

Time

<5%
Maverick spend, as a percentage of spend
under management in the SAP Ariba
Buying solution

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STEP 1 STEP 2 STEP 3
Define Plan Implement

First Rollout Future Rollouts

For your first rollout, we recommend that you For your second and subsequent rollouts, we
focus on three areas and apply these best recommend that you focus on three areas and
practices. apply these best practices.

Audience: Audience:
•• Conduct a pilot to get a small set of casual users •• Generate a wide base of excitement for guided
excited buying by involving large and diverse groups
•• Get quick wins and advertise them internally and departments within your organization
with testimonials from users, the best first step •• Build on the success of the rollouts continuously
in generating support for guided-buying adoption to keep the company and its employees
involved and motivated
Spend categories:
•• Analyze your spend data and focus on the high- Spend categories:
spend, catalog-driven categories where preferred •• Focus on high-spend categories that are more
suppliers are in place critical to your internal stakeholders
•• Include categories with a large casual-user •• Enable tactical sourcing for your business part-
base, such as IT equipment, including laptop ners so they can easily obtain quotes from
computers, monitors, and mobile phones preferred suppliers
•• Test these categories to help you more quickly •• Drive spend to preferred suppliers and
understand if your implementation is working contracted items
as intended
Buying channels:
Buying channels: •• Add three-bids-and-a-buy forms for specialized
•• Focus on internal catalogs and supplier-driven and high-touch categories such as consulting
catalogs such as punch-outs services (as shown by the screen shot in
•• Add the Spot Buy capability – a custom B2B Figure 2)
marketplace that makes it easy to buy goods •• Add low-touch and high-touch processes later
from trusted suppliers with built-in control – in categories that require procurement agent or
to introduce a marketplace of rich, nonsourced buyer involvement
catalog content •• Identify low-dollar, high-volume items (such as
•• Incorporate links to other relevant internal office supplies) that are good candidates for
systems no-touch, straight-through processing
•• Steer buyers to preferred suppliers to maximize
contracted benefits

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STEP 1 STEP 2 STEP 3
Define Plan Implement

Figure 2: Example of a Request Form for a Plan for Your Audiences

“Three Bids and a Buy” Process This strategy assumes that the solution will be
extended to all corporate users, so you must
define curated pages and a global user experience
that work for everyone. The solution needs to
deliver the right content, suppliers, and buying
channels for all users regardless of their location.
This could require the creation of distinct guided
buying experiences for each operating region.

Define Spend Categories

As you plan your spend categories, it is
important to:
•• Think about all the possible spend categories
and use the same spend volume to appropriately
organize the home page of the guided buying
experience
•• Review global and local processes with category
owners to ensure that the right content will be
available to users in each geographic location
•• Focus on driving spend to preferred suppliers
and current contracts, but also open the door
for capturing the low-tail spend by enabling
The “Big Bang” Implementation Strategy collaboration with local procurement teams
For some companies, it makes sense to use a during request for prices or noncatalog
“big bang” implementation strategy rather than purchases
a phased approach. With this approach, the solu-
tion will be made available to all of your company’s
users at the same time. When planning for this
implementation, consider the following recom-
mendations and best practices concerning your
audiences, spend categories, and buying channels.

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STEP 1 STEP 2 STEP 3
Define Plan Implement

Determine Buying Channels are not permitted to buy mobile phones more
Administrators have the discretion to make any frequently than once every two years. In this
number of buying channels available to buyers. context, the guided buying software automatically
Examples include internal and external online validates a buying request for a new mobile
catalogs and marketplaces such as Spot Buy. phone if the employee has not purchased a
The goal is to: mobile phone in the past two years.
•• Enable as much collaboration as possible with ••Supplier and touch policies determine the
your procurement teams through the right mix appropriate buying channel depending on the
of low-touch and high-touch processes request. These policies are associated with
•• Use the smart-policy engine to capture all policies dollar size and volume of the supply. High-
necessary for each of the various categories touch processing tends to involve high-dollar
and geographic locations used by your transactions, sensitive situations, or risky
business suppliers. Low-touch processing tends to be rou-
•• Use the private online community (explained in tine transactions that require a human to review
the “Create a Private Community” section of and approve. Guided buying routes the high-
this guide) to provide as much support as touch and low-touch transactions to the right
possible to users procurement specialist to review and approve.
•• Complement community support with easy
user access to guidelines, Q&As, and other Create a Private Community
resources Take advantage of a private community, which
provides a framework for publishing help resources
Refine Your Implementation Plan that your users can see when using guided buying.
Regardless of your implementation choice – Procurement experts upload content and links to
phased or big bang – you can refine your additional resources, and users can ask questions
implementation by taking advantage of and post comments to the published content.
important options. This private community provides a collaborative
online workspace for procurement experts to
Add In-Context Policies to Guide Users deliver help to users.
Guide users to the appropriate procurement
channels by adding in-context policies. These As you do this, be sure to:
policies may include the following: •• Publish a list of frequently asked questions
•• Validation policies determine if a user is (FAQs) as a start
authorized to buy a certain commodity or item •• Assign resources to actively manage the commu-
and ensures they provide appropriate informa- nity and to keep the content fresh. If content
tion prior to submitting the request. For exam- becomes stale or questions go unanswered,
ple, many companies have a standard policy users will not see the benefits of the private
governing common purchases such as mobile community and will stop using it as their primary
phones. That policy could state that employees source of help.

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STEP 1 STEP 2 STEP 3
Define Plan Implement

STEP 3 : IMPLEMENT Designing the User Experience: Arranging

The third step is the actual implementation: Pages and Tiles
designing the user experience and configuring You use a category page to curate content that
user paths to ensure a simple, frictionless, refers specifically to a purchasing category or
expertly curated, and faster buying experience. subsets of categories. A tile in guided buying
is a piece of content that you can include in a
At a high level: category page.
•• Designing the user experience involves arranging
pages and tiles as described in the following As shown in Figure 3, the guided buying home page
section. includes the high-level tiles you want your users
•• Configuring guided buying involves populating to see first, along with its search capabilities.
pages with the appropriate content by using Figure 3 illustrates what a typical category-level
links, catalog items, forms, and other types of landing page looks like (in this case, when people
tiles to support buying channels. click on the “Marketing” tile on the home page).

Figure 3: A Guided Buying Home Page

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STEP 1 STEP 2 STEP 3
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This table summarizes the tools available to you to build a simple, basic, and easy-to-use guided
buying experience.

Tool Description
Action tile Redirects the user to another internal Web site (for example, an
SAP® Fieldglass® solution, an SAP Concur® solution, or a corpo-
rate card application site)
Ad hoc item tile Takes the user to a noncatalog item creation screen
Catalog item tile Displays a single catalog item, which could include a punch-out
site for the company’s global IT supplier, for example
Page tile Takes the user to a more detailed category landing page (for
example, an info tech category tile can drill down to hardware or
software or the “Marketing” category page shown in Figure 4)
Search tile Brings the user to a predefined search of catalog items (including
spot-buy items, if the Spot Buy capability is enabled)
Supplier carousel tile Takes the user to a landing page of preferred suppliers for a specific
category, where custom forms can guide the user through the
rest of the process

Use the smart-policy engine to define rules

that employees must follow when buying
online. Policy alerts are embedded into the
purchasing experience so users don’t need
to know or remember the policies of your
organization.

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STEP 1 STEP 2 STEP 3
Define Plan Implement

Figure 4: An Example of a Category Landing Page

for Marketing

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STEP 1 STEP 2 STEP 3
Define Plan Implement

The tools in this table enable you to create a more advanced guided buying experience for users.

Tool Description
Ad hoc item tile Takes the user to a noncatalog item creation screen, which can
be configured to enable the capture of service types of spend.
Ad hoc item tiles are ideal for unplanned services spend.
Carousel of tiles Group tiles that share a common purpose on a single line, where
the user can scroll right or left to find more content
Request form Triggers user collaboration with suppliers upon completion
of the form to get a quote for the good(s) or service(s) to be
purchased. Figure 2 shows what a request form looks like.
Requisition form Enables the user to add the form to a requisition upon completion

Configuring Guided Buying You can also choose a two-phased approach to

You can choose between two configuration types: configuration. In this case, you start with a basic
basic and advanced. Both deliver the visual and configuration, and after users become comfortable
intuitive user interface and primary features of the with it, you can upgrade to an advanced
guided buying capability. Note that: configuration.
•• The basic configuration has a smaller feature
set and is appropriate for organizations that Because configuring guided buying is so easy,
prefer to keep their guided buying experience you are free to choose between basic and
simple for users. advanced configurations to meet the current
•• Organizations that frequently use forms, needs and preferences of your business. There
policies, and tactical sourcing will prefer the is no material difference in resources required
advanced configuration. to implement either the basic or advanced
configuration.

Add the Spot Buy capability – a custom B2B

marketplace that makes it easy to buy goods
from trusted suppliers with built-in control –
to introduce a marketplace of rich, nonsourced
catalog content.

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STEP 1 STEP 2 STEP 3
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This table summarizes the basic and advanced configuration attributes.

Attributes Description Advanced Configuration

Action tiles ✓ ✓
Catalog item and ad hoc tiles ✓ ✓
Forms ✓
Page tiles ✓ ✓
Policies ✓
Search tiles ✓ ✓
Supplier carousel tiles ✓ ✓
Tactical sourcing ✓

Using Administrator Tools

Figure 5: Example of the Self-Service Administrator
Administrators can configure guided buying Configuration Tool
using one of two options:
•• The self-service administrator tool
•• The Microsoft Excel import-export tool

Option 1: The Self-Service Administrator Tool

This option is recommended for ongoing mainte-
nance. You can easily define your guided buying
experience by using the administrator tool
(see Figure 5), and modify any content by simply
adding and editing the tiles and providing the
appropriate information.

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STEP 1 STEP 2 STEP 3
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Option 2: The Microsoft Excel Import-Export Tool

You can easily configure your landing page for guided buying
by using the Microsoft import-export feature, which is
designed to make configuration of the landing page a one-step
process. The guided buying capability includes a Microsoft
Excel template that you can use as a data ingestion tool to
upload tiles and link data. (Each template is unique to each
customer’s solution and comes bundled with it. See Figure 6
for an example.) After uploading the populated Microsoft Excel
template to guided buying, the guided buying capability will
automatically generate the landing page you defined.

Specifically, you download the Microsoft Excel template and

then enter tile information in one column and fill in the other
columns with landing page links, descriptions, item IDs, key-
words, and other data. Within minutes, you will automatically
generate the tiles and links on the guided buying Web pages
based on your spreadsheet data. You can iterate or tune the
visual display of your tiles by adjusting the data in the columns
and rows of the spreadsheet until you obtain the visual
display of tiles that works best for you.

Figure 6: Sample of a Completed Template to Upload Tile

and Link Information

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STEP 1 STEP 2 STEP 3
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CONFIGURATION BEST PRACTICES

Here is a list of best practices derived from the deployment
experience of our guided buying design partners:
••Keep your home page simple. When designing your home
page, display commonly used categories only – do not
overpopulate. As a standard practice, this should be no
more than 9 to 12 tiles so that the user can see all tiles
without scrolling.
••Decide carefully on titles, descriptions, and images.
Make these informative and easy for the user to understand.
•• Consider adding the Spot Buy capability to display a
marketplace of rich catalog content. Guided buying
is fully integrated with the SAP Ariba Buying solution and
can make use of existing catalogs, approval flows, and mas-
ter data.
•• Assign resources to actively manage the expert
community. If content becomes stale or questions go
unanswered, users will not see the benefit of the community.

LEARN MORE
To find out more about guided buying, check out the following
resources:
• Introduction to guided buying
• Administration guide – “Guided Buying Administration”
(Connect account required)
• User guide – “Guided Buying: Finding Items and Making
Purchases” (Connect account required)

SAP provides delivery services that may be necessary

to assist with implementation. Contact your customer
engagement executive for more details.

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