Difference between SAP SRM and SAP E-Sourcing

[Former Member]

Hello,

can you tell me the difference between SAP SRM and SAP E-Sourcing? I understood that with SAP E-Sourcing it's not possible to manage on-line catalogs and the procurement process but only the supplier qualification process and bids, but I didn't understand what is better in SAP E-Sourcing relative to bids and to the supplier qualification process.

Thank you,

Daniela

[former_member193332]

Hi,

The "tactical sourcing' can be handled well by both SRM bidding engine and E-Sourcing. The main differentiator of E-Sourcing solution is that it can handle not only the 'tactical sourcing' but also the 'strategic sourcing'.

In 'tactical sourcing' scenarios, the demand always gets started by the requesters (e.g shopping carts, purchase requisitions, or other types of sourcing requests). The procurement / sourcing team is trying to fulfill these incoming demands as efficiently as possible.

In 'strategic sourcing' scenarios, the demand is not coming from requesters or operations. The strategic team performs the analysis of the spend and sets the goal for sourcing activities. (e.g. reduce IT service spend by 15%, reduce Airline and Hotel spend by 20% in next 3 years.) Then, they set to the plan to achieve this savings goal, supplier development goal, or contract renewal goal.

To support this 'strategic sourcing' scenarios, E-Sourcing has the following net-new features that cannot be found in SRM solution.

- Project Management capabilities

- Robust RFI / RFP capabilities

- Contract Authoring capabilities

- Integration to SPM (Spend Performance Management)

- Total Cost Analysis (New feature in Q3 2010 release)

- Supplier Registration / Modification Approval workflow (New feature in Q3 2010 release)

- Supplier Scorecards (New feature in Q3 2010 release)

I hope this helps.

Thanks,

Steven

[Former Member]

Hi Steven,

Your input is great, could you update on the Q3 release? Is Wave 6 still the latest released version? and any improvement on APIs between SRM7 and E-Sourcing? Cheers.