Intelligent Procurement Suite

Problem

“10 + years of outdated tools & systems is frustrating. Everything is a fire drill.” - Director of Procurement, Ford

Organizations often face difficulties optimizing their procurement processes, leading to increased costs and reduced efficiency. SAP's Strategic Procurement products, which include Strategic Sourcing, Product Sourcing, and Strategic Contracts, were developed to address these challenges by enabling procurement organizations to manage supplier relationships, negotiate better prices and terms, and reduce costs. However, the outdated nature of these products posed several obstacles to their effective implementation and utilization. Users encountered issues such as a lack of UX consistency, insufficient actionable insights on errors and data, and limited customization options, resulting in poor product experiences. Furthermore, the products did not provide unified solutions, requiring users to exit the product to complete certain tasks. The inability to analyze and build different sourcing scenarios resulted in a lack of confidence in sourcing strategies, and the absence of early warnings regarding contract expiration further hindered procurement efficiency. As a result, these challenges obstructed the effective utilization of SAP's Strategic Procurement products, ultimately preventing procurement organizations from achieving better business outcomes.

Solution

To address the challenges faced by procurement organizations in optimizing their processes and utilizing SAP's Strategic Procurement products effectively, several solutions can be implemented:

1. Update the user experience (UX) of SAP's Strategic Procurement products to ensure consistency and ease-of-use across all products. This can be achieved by conducting user research to better understand the pain points and needs of procurement professionals and using that information to design intuitive and user-friendly interfaces.
2. Provide actionable insights on errors and data to enable users to quickly identify and resolve issues. This can be accomplished by implementing data analytics and visualization tools that provide real-time insights into procurement data.
3. Increase customization options to enable users to tailor the products to their organization's specific needs. This can be achieved by incorporating flexible and configurable features that allow users to customize the products to meet their unique requirements.
4. Provide unified solutions that enable users to complete all procurement tasks within the product, without having to exit to other tools or platforms. This can be achieved by integrating other procurement tools and applications into the Strategic Procurement products or by developing new modules that address specific procurement needs.
5. Enable users to analyze and build different sourcing scenarios to gain confidence in their sourcing strategies. This can be achieved by implementing advanced analytics and modeling tools that allow users to test different scenarios and identify the most effective sourcing strategies.
6. Provide early warnings regarding contract expiration to improve procurement efficiency. This can be achieved by implementing contract management tools that provide real-time alerts and reminders regarding contract expiration dates and renewal options.

By implementing these solutions, procurement organizations can overcome the challenges faced in optimizing their processes and utilizing SAP's Strategic Procurement products effectively. This, in turn, will enable them to achieve better business outcomes, reduce costs, and increase efficiency.

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UX Research

As a UX design manager and lead, I organized and facilitated a 2-day design thinking workshops with Ford, JP Morgan, CVS, Coca-cola as a starting point to capture user insights. Further my team and I conducted 75 user interview and usability testing sessions with Fortune 500 customers from 20 different industries to gather valuable insights and feedback about our product experience.

Based on all user sessions, here were key pain points of our users.

• Procurement organizations face difficulties optimizing their procurement processes, leading to increased costs and reduced efficiency. The outdated nature of SAP's Strategic Procurement products posed several obstacles to their effective implementation and utilization, resulting in poor product experiences.
• Users encountered issues such as a lack of UX consistency, insufficient actionable insights on errors and data, and limited customization options.
• The products did not provide unified solutions, requiring users to exit the product to complete certain tasks, which hindered procurement efficiency.
• The inability to analyze and build different sourcing scenarios resulted in a lack of confidence in sourcing strategies, which obstructed effective utilization of the product.
• During the development of the sourcing strategy and scenario, users collaborated with stakeholders to gather inputs and insights. However, the lack of communication and collaboration tools within the SAP Strategic Procurement products made it difficult to analyze data, receive feedback or approvals, and streamline the procurement process. As a result, the process was highly manual and time-consuming, leading to inefficiencies and delays in procurement.
• The absence of early warnings regarding contract expiration further hindered procurement efficiency, making it difficult for organizations to achieve better business outcomes.

I synthesized all users insights, defined key UX KPIs. Our design team collaborated on creating and updating persona cards.

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Design

I presented the UX design strategy and UX roadmap to the leadership and stakeholders to ensure that everyone involved in the project is aligned with the plan to address the pain points of our users and improve the overall user experience of SAP's Strategic Procurement products.

To solve the pain point of difficulty optimizing procurement processes and outdated nature of SAP's Strategic Procurement products, we implemented several design solutions:

• We introduced a user-friendly interface with UX consistency across all Strategic Procurement products. This ensured that users could easily navigate the products and complete tasks without encountering any inconsistencies or confusion.
• We provided actionable insights and data visualizations in the procurement dashboard and the supplier bidding analysis phase to help users identify errors and make informed decisions. This helped to reduce errors, compared different supplier bids, and improve the overall effectiveness of the selecting suppliers
• We enhanced customization options to allow users to tailor the products to their specific needs. This increased the flexibility and adaptability of the products, enabling users to optimize their procurement processes more effectively.
• We added unified solutions that enabled users to complete all procurement-related tasks within the Strategic Procurement products, without the need to exit the product. This streamlined the procurement process, saving time and increasing efficiency.
• We introduced advanced analytics and scenario building capabilities that enabled users to analyze and build different sourcing scenarios with confidence. This allowed users to make data-driven decisions and optimize their procurement processes for better outcomes.
• We added automated alerts for contract expiration, providing early warnings to users and reducing the risk of missed deadlines and related costs. This improved the efficiency of the procurement process and increased the likelihood of achieving better business outcomes.

Overall, these design solutions addressed the pain points of outdated products, lack of UX consistency, insufficient actionable insights, limited customization options, lack of unified solutions, inability to analyze different sourcing scenarios, and absence of early warnings regarding contract expiration. 

Impact

We improved the overall user experience 25% during the beta testing and 62% after launch and increased the effectiveness of the procurement process by implementing a user-friendly interface, actionable insights, customization options, unified solutions, advanced analytics, and automated alerts.