The procurement software company provides a range of advisory, consulting and support services to companies that are trying to optimise their procurement system. This is a rapidly changing landscape which is often best left to experts. Often the big-name enterprise software consultancies fail to understand what the clients want and what their future needs might be in the highly complex and constantly evolving procurement industry.
A smaller, more agile organisation made up of highly skilled experts is a much better option. SapienceS2P is one such dedicated procurement consultancy. Focussing on SAP’s procurement suite, SapienceS2P offer services to organisations of every size. They are also actively seeking to improve user experience within the SAP procurement framework with a range of add-ons for SAP Ariba such as the Satori and Roshi Chatbots for MS Teams and Slack, or RPAwesome, their robotic process automation solution.
The CEOViews team asked Lovkesh Kapur, Managing Director of SapienceS2P, for some insights into the company. We wanted to find out how their business model is competing so successfully with some of the best-known multinational software consultancy giants.
The reason SapienceS2P exists:
“Sapience” means great sagacity or wisdom. It can also mean a great capacity for self-awareness. Lovkesh wanted a name that reflected their ethos of respectful knowledge and wisdom. Making the most of our existing skills, combined with our capacity to learn new things is at the core of everything we do here at SapienceS2P. S2P (source-to-pay) speaks for itself.
Lovkesh already had a high profile in the procurement software industry and felt his business model could leverage his skills and experience to deliver top-tier SAP procurement consulting services faster and more cheaply than the big-name enterprise software companies. His many years of experience taught him the most innovative and effective deployments came from smaller teams of very experienced consultants, so why not make a company with this very ethos.
Capabilities and services:
SapienceS2P’s teams are made of up highly experienced consultants, with each team led by a senior consultant with an average of 20 years industry experience. Combined with their onshore-offshore model, this lets them deliver skilled support to almost any global location quickly and effectively. Their unique model means customers can get access to the expertise they need while also getting the on-the-ground support their employees and software systems can require, no matter where they are in the world.
The global economic climate, combined with black swan events like Covid-19 are all driving a worldwide move to remote working and flexible career portfolios – something that fits in well with the SapienceS2P working model. Businesses that are still using on-prem procurement software can gain a wealth of benefits from upgrading to cloud solutions like SAP Ariba and S/4 HANA.
We’re constantly working on new ways to not only improve ROI and overall efficiency in the procurement sector, but to take advantage of functions like SAP Ariba Cloud’s ability to manage both sustainability and pandemic-affected logistics all in one place. Additionally, products like the Satori & Roshi Chatbots for MS Teams & Slack offer a hugely streamlined UI for users that works on any device with little or no training.
Originally built for SAP Ariba, these chatbots work with any source-to-pay or procure-to-pay software that supports APIs. Users can achieve common tasks in 2-3 steps, work collaboratively in a conversational interface on more complex activities like contract creation, and more.
SapienceS2P also offers a custom RPA (robotic process automation) solution, RPAwesome, several add-ons for SAP SRM, and several off-the-peg migration roadmaps for customers eager to upgrade quickly and easily to the latest cloud software. Regardless of where prospective clients are in their procurement product lifecycle, SapienceS2P starts with an assessment audit that helps them discover the best pathway for each customer.
Unique approach towards client management:
Regardless of contract size, SapienceS2P’s team is always working hard to give clients above and beyond what they expect from us. All clients get 24/7 support for their products and services, no matter where in the world they’re based. There’s no need to worry about time zones or not being able to find the right expert for your problem – access to experts with first-hand experience of your situation is guaranteed.
The combined power of their team’s many years of experience and the SapienceS2P company culture helps them to spot areas ripe for improvement in existing systems or design and implement top-tier new deployments. Some of the key things they focus on include:
- User experience for both IT teams and day-to-day users
- Workflow optimisation for internal and external data flows
- Automation – reducing human touchpoints drastically reduces errors and increases task speed
- Integration of SAP and 3rd-party apps and processes, even legacy systems
- ROI maximisation
- Upgrade/update planning and long-term roadmaps
- Lessons that can be applied in the future to benefit more clients
- Work with with stakeholder needs, g. email invoicing and other backwards compatibility
There is a free audit assessment for every customer to help identify their pain points, unearth potential risks, and outline improvements that meet client resource and time constraints. This leads to a bespoke roadmap that outlines impending software upgrades, with the latest cloud procurement platforms being the ultimate goal (regardless of timescale). At the same time, these customers are guided towards a more ERP-heavy or more Ariba-heavy solution based on their long-term needs.
The best example of their innovative thinking in the organisation is the “Sapience Satori Chatbot.” Initially triggered by a call from SAP asking for partners to come up with a solution to help with the COVID-19 pandemic, what started as a simple inventory-sharing chatbot for healthcare settings rapidly evolved into the powerful solution it is today. Soon the Satori Chatbot was born, enabling users to do a number of common admin tasks in SAP Ariba in just 2 or 3 actions via the MS Teams or Slack chat interface, vs the 10+ steps in SAP Ariba’s traditional web browser UI. It will work with any source-to-pay or procure-to-pay software that uses API calls, regardless of who the publisher is. The chatbot project also led them to become an SAP PartnerEdge Silver Build Partner, and they have numerous inhouse developed applications listed in the SAP App Store.
What’s ahead?
In the short term, SapienceS2P plans to increase brand awareness as a procurement knowledge powerhouse. They plan to be the “go-to” consultancy for clients and other consultants faced with a difficult task they’re struggling to resolve on their own. On the development side, they will continue to come up with excellent enhancements for SAP Ariba and other third-party procurement products at all software lifecycle stages.
SapienceS2P is one such dedicated procurement consultancy. Focussing on SAP’s procurement suite, SapienceS2P offer services to organisations of every size.
They are in the process of expanding to more countries and, in the future, will be opening offices in more locations, including North America and Europe. At the same time, they will continue to pride themselves on their ability to provide specialist senior consulting teams for any industry or location worldwide. No matter how niche customer needs are, SapienceS2P will have the right consulting team.
