Ariba Category Playbooks

Developing in-depth knowledge for all spend categories within an organization can be challenging and time-consuming. Commodity managers do not always have the necessary tools to aggregate and research information on specific categories. As a result, companies generally only manage up to 50 percent of their categories. In addition, challenges in consolidating knowledge on key categories further constrains large procurement organizations where teams are geographically dispersed or decentralized.

Ariba Category Playbooks leverage Ariba's extensive sourcing and category expertise. They deliver comprehensive collections of explicit knowledge and tools, developed and seamlessly accessed through the functionality and features of our sourcing technology, to help Sourcing professionals build and execute an effective sourcing strategy and obtain sustaining savings.

Category Playbooks inject Ariba's extensive category knowledge directly into the users' sourcing process and templates, so that they can quickly execute a sourcing event with added insight from Ariba's broad base of category expertise. This unrivaled combination of technology and expertise significantly reduces the learning curve for sourcing unfamiliar categories and makes it easy to take on categories that may not have otherwise been brought under management. Some of the additional benefits are:

  • Ability to systematically source smaller spend items that fall off the table or that are not being controlled centrally and that don't allow for outsourced sourcing activity due to low ROI potential
  • On-demand access to category expertise and content
  • A scalable knowledge solution for customers who want to strategically approach spend management and allow less-specialized resources to be more effective in doing their job
  • A shared process, which allows continuous improvements and incorporation of best practices

Category Playbooks are comprised of the following components embedded, integrated, and delivered through the functions and features of Ariba's Sourcing technology. These components become part of the toolset, creating a category-specific solution:

  • Category Perspectives – High-level overview of the industry, market trends, cost drivers, sourcing best practices, category assessment and a case study
  • Strategic Sourcing Process Templates - Best practice strategic sourcing process
  • Request For Quotation/Proposal - Complete RFQ/P document with best practice language and content
  • Request for Information (RFI) templates - Best practice questions to include in an RFI to a supplier
  • Data Collection Template - Key data fields to be collected to source the category, including item-level information and specifications
  • Cost Breakdown Template (Item Templates) - Key price components to be collected to source the commodity. Also includes suggested analyses that can be performed on the cost breakdowns to assist buyers in decision support.
  • Ariba SupplyWatch – Quarterly showcase of Ariba's category expertise, delivered directly into your Sourcing technology

Customers may order from an extensive list of category playbooks that span the breadth of direct and indirect spend categories, including the following areas:

  • Capital Goods, Construction and Engineering
  • Electronics
  • IT Technology
  • Metals
  • Paper & Packaging
  • Plastics
  • Raw Materials
  • Services
  • Transportation
  • MRO

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