To successfully implement and deploy SAP Ariba, within a tight forecast schedule, the Geneva higher education establishment was supported by the Acxias teams.
TheUniversity of Geneva (Unige), which has 9 faculties, 13 centers and institutes, and 18,500 students, put into service on 1er January 2024 its new systempurchase, called Puma. This “Unified portal for purchasing control” project is part of the e-Administration program, which aims to optimize the establishment's logistics, human resources and financial processes, by supporting them on modern information systems. and integrated.
To carry out this ambitious project, Unige called on Acxias, a specialist in digital solutions for purchasing, which supported it in the implementation and deployment of SAP Ariba, the leading cloud platform in the purchasing market. SAP Ariba has been integrated into the new Unige ERP, SAP S/4Hana, which replaced the old system in “Green field” mode, that is to say starting from scratch, without a transition phase or operating in parallel with the previous system.
The new Puma purchasing system offers numerous advantages to Unige, both at the operational and strategic level. It first makes it possible to improve business practices and quality of the evidence, providing better visibility and control over spending. It also offers better ergonomics for the thousands of users who place orders in the system with several tens of thousands of suppliers, following a secure expense commitment process, within a framework of rigorous budgetary control.
In terms of functionality, the Puma project includes several modules from SAP Ariba, including SAP Ariba Buying and Invoicing, which covers the complete purchasing chain, from request to invoicing, and SAP Ariba Supplier Lifecycle and Performance (SLP), which makes it possible to manage the life cycle of suppliers, in particular for the process ranging from their referencing to the automated creation of supplier data in SAP ERP S/4.
The solution also integrates SAP Document Information eXtractor, used to automatically extract data from paper or PDF invoices using an artificial intelligence engine based on Machine learning in a Cloud environment. This solution integrates tightly with SAP Ariba through the software Invoice 4.0 from Acxias, developed and executed on the SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) from SAP. As an extension, the scope of the project was extended to the implementation of robots RPA (Robotic Process Automation), which allow suppliers to be automatically created in the system, based on the data provided by requesters directly at the purchase request stage.
Developed for the year 2023 on the basis of an ambitious roadmap, the Puma project was carried out in close collaboration by the Unige and Acxias project teams, from the design phase, configuration, S/4 integration and of recipe until the start of operations on 1er January 2024, in accordance with the schedule defined since the beginning of 2022. What’s next? At the end of the Hypercare period, developments could make it possible to optimize the management of certain purchasing categories and strengthen collaboration with suppliers. The reflection is underway.