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Change is inevitable regardless of what’s happening in the world.

Current times make change, especially unpredictable change more likely than ever. Making sure your loved ones and your business make it through the Covid-19 pandemic is still a work in progress, making the changes we’re likely to face at home and at work highly unpredictable.

All of this serves to drive home how important it is for us to make sure we’re more change-resilient than ever. One thing that can make an enormous difference to our change resilience is adopting digital supply chain and procurement solutions like source-to-pay (S2P) and purchase-to-pay (P2P).

There are actually lots of ways technology companies are trying to help businesses and individuals through this difficult time, and SAP is no exception. There’s free access to Ariba Discovery and Ariba Start Sourcing until the end of July 2020, and services like the SAP Logistics Business Network with the ability to trace the source and provenance of the supplies being ordered are getting the change to show off everything they are capable of. 

How Covid-19 is affecting the global supply chain

A recent survey shows that 75% of companies have experienced supply chain problems due to the pandemic, it’s plain to see the importance of building resilience into the supply networks that will arise from the ashes. However, all is not doom and gloom.

If anything, this crisis has shown scores of decision makers that were dragging their feet when it comes to digital transformation the vital importance of adopting new technology at every level. With the advent of cloud ERP and S2P solutions, you actually get more value and control over your supply chain by redesigning and automating resource-heavy processes.

Additionally, we’ve all seen how much better some companies have coped with the move to remote working when compared to others. The new post-pandemic world will see businesses that are capable of operating from anywhere (including home) take top place in the new global paradigm.

First, we have to get out of lockdown

These two topics are actually very closely related. If we don’t exit lockdown ‘correctly’, we could end up facing additional economic shocks. The range of lockdown regulations, infection levels, and attitudes to the pandemic in effect in different regions and countries will make this a difficult task for businesses and governments.

In many ways, we’re re-booting the global economy – not something to be taken lightly. Managing this change is largely about preparing for the future by making sure we as a species won’t be caught out again when future crises appear.

There’s plenty of support from SAP no matter what industry you’re in

Luckily, SAP has come up with a well thought out framework listing every offer and solution that could help businesses during the Covid-19 crisis by industry and software solution, along with case studies and other resources.

Everything from supply chain optimisation through to financial transaction tracking, with everything in between. If you’re already using SAP Ariba or Ariba Snap for procurement, you should take a look at what’s on offer. Everything has been broken down into recovery stage, industry and aims to make things simple for you, though of course we’re more than happy to advise.   

In future articles we’ll go into more detail on what benefits there are for your industry based on the most current global data available at the time of writing.

The most important takeaway?

It’s already clear from recent research that the actions decision makers are likely to instinctively take as lockdown restrictions ease may not be the most beneficial in the long run. If businesses rush to restart activities without taking care to rebuild a more resilient operating policy both internally and externally, we could see an even bigger collapse – one that would be even harder to dig our way out of.

Just like in the first days of the spread of the SARS-Cov-2 virus, we as a species need to work together to make sure the post-pandemic economy that we build is smarter, more resilient, and better co-ordinated than what went before. High adoption rates of cloud-based software solutions like SAP Ariba, Ariba Snap and S/4HANA will bolster the Ariba Network and make it easier for companies to collaborate on a global and local scale to reboot the economy the right way.

To find out how you can be a more effective actor in the mission to rebuild the global economy the right way, get in touch with our team today, or follow us on LinkedIn.