SAP Spend Connect Live: Q&A with Valerie Blatt

SAP Spend Connect Live is an opportunity for SAP to showcase exciting updates to its spend management solutions.

On Day 2, Supply Chain Digital sat down with Valerie Blatt, Chief Revenue Officer for SAP Business Network, to discuss headlines from the two-day conference and SAP’s position at the forefront of innovation. 

Tell us a little bit about you and your role with SAP

I’m Val Blatt and I’m CRO of the SAP Business Network. What that means from an SAP standpoint is I control revenue for the Business Network. From a customer standpoint, I’m responsible for all things customer success.

What key solutions have been unveiled at SAP Spend Connect Live 2024?

There’s a couple of really exciting things – I’ll save the best for last. 

We’ve heard a bit about the SAP Spend Control Tower and a lot of our customers are talking about how they can see all their spend and data across all applications and solutions. 

Another big thing is intake management actually being open to end users, allowing them to interact with your solutions and intake all that information across our suite. We see a big market need here and we’re getting some really great feedback from our customers on that.

The last thing, on the Business Network front, was the announcement of the Promote package, which is about adding value for suppliers. 

Our suppliers on the network are always saying “help me grow”. They’re already connected to the customers they’re doing business with, but how do we connect them to the customers they’re not doing business with? How do we help our customers find those suppliers? 

We’re doing certifications for those suppliers on the network and making it available for our buyers to see who they transact with or how many transacting connections they have, so it actually makes that supplier much more certified to that buyer as a great source. 

It’s something very new and innovative we’re doing on the Business Network and we’re really excited to launch that in Q1 of next year. 

How exciting is it to be at the forefront of innovation in the spend management space?

Twenty-five, maybe 30 years ago, Ariba really innovated everything that we see today in the spend management and procurement space.

Becoming a partner and being integrated into SAP has only allowed us to innovate that much faster and become closer to those really critical business processes that our customers talk about in their direct spend supply chains.

It’s really exciting to see what we can do with Ariba, the Business Network and SAP together. It’s our competitive differentiator and our customers feel that as well. And the amazing part is you don’t have to boil the ocean – you can land where you need to land in your business processes and grow from there.

I get so excited at these events because I can see the opportunities we have with our customers and also hear how we’re already providing them so much value. 

What’s your main takeaway from SAP Spend Connect Live?

There’s a lot changing in the world right now, especially when it comes to AI and all its use cases. Our customers are ready but also trying to figure out the right way to move forward with AI and its potential to change the landscape of everything we do. 

We’re on the precipice of a really big change in tech and I’m just really excited to be a part of it. 

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