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There are a lot of companies and enterprises out there that made the choice to hire an SAP Ariba consultant to help them with their digital transformation and ended up in a much better position than if they would have been if they had tried to do the job themselves. The difference between hiring a consultant and not hiring one can be close to devastating.
What an SAP Ariba Consultant Does
As you may already be aware the SAP Ariba platform is a powerful suite of tools that when put into action can help a company get the most ouf of its procurement, money management, source management, and buying power.
As the world of business continually moves forward with technological advances businesses have to stay in line with the current trends and the latest advances in technology. Any business that fails to advance with technology is at risk of being trampled over by the businesses that are moving forward.
Since the SAP Ariba platform has to do with the financial structure of the company it is important for it to be installed and configured in a way that is beneficial for the business that it is going to work for. This is where the consultant comes in.
Say, for example, you wanted to put a new roof on your home. By all means, you could probably figure it all out and get it up there and going in no time, right? Or not. Unless you are an experienced roofer you would probably not even know what materials to buy to make it all happen.
Now, if you wanted to put the roof on your home yourself, would it be better to go on YouTube and Google to see what instructions you could find to help you out, our would it be better to hire a consultant to show you how to install your roof one step at a time?
Of course, this is a pretty far-fetched example, however, it might be easier and better for you to try and put a roof on your home by yourself than it would to implement and configure your own SAP Ariba installation.
The consultant will use their knowledge and skills to help you and guide you through your implementation all the way through to the end so that you can have a rock-solid foundation to build your platform on and get the most out of your investment that you possibly can.
What Can Be Different?
If you are one of those people that is adamant about your own skills and just know that you would never need to hire a consultant to get you through you probably wouldn’t be reading this. If you are, it is refreshing that you have been able to face and accept the truth: you don’t know what you are doing.
In any event, the difference between hiring a consultant and not hiring one could literally be millions of dollars. Don’t believe it? Think about it.
Say you have had your own way of finding sources for your company for as long as you have been in business. Some of these sources charge you a certain amount of money for whatever products or services that you order from them.
What if you could get the same products and services for a fraction of the cost, and continue to get those essential things for a lesser amount of money as long as you want?
Depending on the amount of money that you already spend on the items you could already be losing out on thousands of dollars per order.
Look at it this way, say you buy 12,000 rolls of tape for $2.75 apiece. What if you could get those same rolls of tape for $1.25 from another vendor if you sign a contract to buy from them in bulk amounts for a year…or more? That would automatically save you half of your costs before you even begin.
If your consultant could show you a way to set up your application to search for vendors and suppliers that are willing to shave big costs off of their products for deals in bulk or deals that are paid for within a certain amount of time you can save money and get what you need right now and in the future.
Training the Team
What better way to understand something than from hands-on training by a professional? Regardless of how smart the employees are, if you don’t know how to operate the software properly yourself, you will not be able to train anybody else to either.
Instead of trying to figure out the software on your own, then attempting to get the rest of the company to understand the way that it works when you are not sure yourself, it is better to get a consultant to guide you and the rest of your team through the process.
The difference between a trained staff and an untrained one could be the result of a loss of a lot of money and time.
The more the rest of the team knows how to use the platform, the better off the entire operation will be. Instead of people stumbling around and constantly calling for tech support, you will have a well-trained group of staff that know what to do and how to do it without having to scream for help every time they open up the platform.
This is where the help of a consultant makes a huge difference for everybody in the operation, including the higher-ups.
Tips and Tricks from the Professional
It is not surprising that the inner workings of the SAP Ariba platform are filled with tiny little settings and variables that can help to optimize the structure of a business set up in a way that matches the very essence of the company.
The needs of the company, the expenses of the company, and the amount of money that the company can afford to spend. These are all components of a business that can make or break the success of its momentum.
A great example is that one company might have some great sources in one state, while another one has sources in another. Since each state is different when it comes to the cost of items, the amount of tax that it charges, and other variables every business will have to set its parameters of work within the lines of the state, or states, that it does business in.
Being able to break down costs based on where items are bought and shipped are powerful tools if they are correctly put into action from the beginning of the implementation.
A consultant can guide the company through all of the confusing and intricate little details of the platform so that when it is time for them to make some of their own edits to the way things are set up they will be able to do so without spending hours on the phone with customer service.
The Difference
The money that the company invests into the consultant will be well-spent and come back to the company simply in the amount of time and energy everybody will save by getting professional help. If you were to add all of the wasted time and money that is thrown away by paying employees to figure it out on their own you would see that hiring the consultant in the first place was a much cheaper option.
