SAP Spend Connect Live: Etosha Thurman on Spend Management

SAP Spend Connect Live has seen SAP unveil numerous eye-catching updates to its spend management solutions.
The conference formally opened on Tuesday morning with a keynote address from Etosha Thurman, Chief Marketing Officer for Intelligent Spend and Business Network at SAP.
Appropriately for the convention host city of Las Vegas, Etosha shared five areas where procurement and spend management professionals should be placing their bets:
- Strategic collaboration
- Effortless compliance
- Seamless integration
- Increased productivity
- Informed decision making
Strategic collaboration
Etosha began by outlining the importance of strategic collaboration in the spend management space, as well as how SAP can assist current and prospective clients.
“SAP can help you win the collaboration bet with solutions like Taulia Supply Chain Financing and Dynamic Discounting or SAP Ariba Category Management,” she said.
“With tools like these, collaboration goes from being a complex effort to a natural part of your process.”
Effortless compliance
Staying true to the Las Vegas theme, Etosha went on to compare gambling to spend management compliance.
“In its default state,” she explained, “compliance can become the bane of your existence – a source of worry and stress. And you’re right to worry because one compliance misstep can be a disaster.
“If a supplier is guilty of a human rights violation, you surely don’t want them in your supply chain. But when you bet big on effortless compliance, it goes from the bane of your existence to the basis of your peace of mind.”
Seamless integration
Etosha referred to McKinsey’s Vision for Procurement 2030, which states the spend management operating model is set to move from fragmented processes and tools to an interconnected organisation, leveraging digital tools and Gen AI.
At the heart of this transition is an efficient and well-functioning technology stack.
“When it comes to poker, a royal flush beats everything – and the same is true of your tech stack,” Etosha continued.
“Suite-first is definitely the end game – whether that’s SAP Spend Control Tower, your single source of reporting and analysing spend data; our Concur integrated T&E system which connects trips, travellers and itineraries across all channels; or SAP Ariba Source-to-Pay, which provides an integrated user experience for core procurement processes.
“A suite-first approach makes daily work seamless, stress-free and efficient, but, as it stands today, that’s more of a dream than a reality for most organisations. Going all in on SAP will help you call complexity’s bluff – leveraging a suite to simplify your day to day.”
Increased productivity
Highlighting the challenges faced by procurement teams, Etosha reminded the audience that the function is typically allocated less than 1% of an organisation’s overall budget.
“At the same time,” she added, “the talent gap is alive and well because the needs of the business are ever-evolving. This means you need to upskill your teams to meet new demands, but, in order for employees to have the capacity to expand their skillset, they need some bandwidth back in their day.
“Innovations like SAP Business AI helps innovate the tactical, so you and your teams can focus on the strategic.”
Informed decision making
“Decision fatigue is a real thing,” Etosha emphasised. “In such a fast-paced industry, the ability to make agile decisions without compromising accuracy is paramount. You need to be able to make the right decision, with the right information, at the right time.”
Etosha admitted that, while making the right decision is often complex, the process of gathering relevant data to make that decision should not be.
She said: “SAP takes the heavy lifting off your plate; you don’t have to pull all the pieces together – we hand you the complete puzzle, so you focus on understanding and acting on information instead of aggregating it.”
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