"We operate with three different systems that input data. The fact that GEP consolidates all that information into one place is a big deal for us. It streamlines that data for us."
"The AI tool definitely has learned from the information we've given it but also from some of the corrections that we've made. It may have auto-applied a classification and then we have gone in and corrected it, given it some feedback. With that, more and more, we are not having to touch the information once it gets processed. It's classifying it from the get-go in the correct category."
"It's really simple to use. That's one of the reasons we chose GEP over some of the others. It's very Google-like. On the homepage, you just type whatever you need. And there are tabs that can come up if you're looking for a certain word or phrase..."
"Among the most valuable features are the ability to send out purchase orders, create catalogs, and accept invoices through procurement. And the reporting function is robust."
"SMART has been helpful for sourcing and public bids. For regulatory purposes, our university posts bids, depending on the scope of the bid. We get a lot of value out of SMART's ability to post to a public site and have suppliers see that information, register in the tool, and participate."
"The one we use the most is the sourcing module... It's really easy to use. You don't have to train vendors. You can add a new vendor at any time, and that vendor will get an email saying, "You've been selected to participate in our RFP, and you do X to get your ID set up." That works really well."
"There are additional time savings in managing communications. If you have an open RFP and there are questions, you can manage all of the questions and answers in the thread inside that RFP. All the suppliers will get any notifications that you want them to get, and everything is within the body of the RFP so you don't have to worry about things in email, outside of the system."
"In terms of ease of use, GEP has done a lot of work through its enhancements over the years to make the user experience more intuitive. There is a more standard-Amazon-like experience, where manuals and tutorials are not really required, simply because the user experience and what's on the screen are pretty intuitive."
"Ariba allows us to manage our suppliers seamlessly."
"It is one of the best tools in the market."
"The best features are the ease of use and the workflow management that allows me to understand every step in the approval process so that I can forecast the time through my request and its approval."
"It is a stable solution."
"I like the guided buying features."
"I want to see continued investment in analytics and reporting."
"The manuals, especially the ones for the suppliers, are currently available only in English. If these can also be translated into different languages, that would be excellent."
"While it captures all the fields and requirements, when any supplier updates or new supplier registration happens, then the supplier needs to update their bank details. Our IT team has made it so every half an hour the GEP SMART system will push the supplier to the Oracle Database. So, we have faced some problems, like bank details, etc. We addressed this issue with GEP. They are working on it to make bank details a mandatory field for any supplier and match our requirements. Their engineering team has taken up creating a customized process for us."
"Their contracts module is kind of clunky and It took a while for them to correct some of the basic functionality, some of the "Contract Management 101" functions, but it seems to be coming around. It wasn't working the way we'd expected."
"There are no mechanisms for them to check up on how they refresh their data. So oftentimes, when we go into the tool and we don't see something, we alert them and they say, "Oh, the data hasn't been refreshed, so we'll go ahead and refresh it," and then what we're looking for pops up. We should not have to be the ones to tell them they need to refresh. There should be a mechanism in place for that."
"We definitely have some asks for enhancements. One of the big ones we'd like to see is what we call "drag-and-drop." If I have an email that I want to maintain in the SMART record for whatever reason — for example, it has supporting information in it — I would love to be able to just drop that into the notes and attachments section without having to save it as a PDF and then upload it."
"I'd like to see drag-and-drop reporting. They have the old model for reports where you have to click the "run" button. The thing runs and then you have to export it to PowerPoint."
"The loading of the contracts could be a little bit easier. I'd like to see a little bit more of AI brought in, to the point that it's actually reading the contract and automating some things, like expiration dates and renewal terms. That is an area for improvement."
"SAP could make it easier for people to become SAP Ariba consultants within the SAP ecosystem."
"I would like to see more reports coming out of Ariba and more insights because it has to work in connection with SAP. So unless I run SAP and Ariba, I have to run. I am not able to see the utility of Ariba."
"Ariba Procurement tends to integrate best with other SAP products and is harder to work with if you have non-SAP products in your architecture."
"I would like the solution to be more automatic."
"They should make the solution more user-friendly."
Earn 20 points
GEP SMART is ranked 4th in Procurement Software while SAP Ariba Procurement is ranked 1st in Procurement Software with 8 reviews. GEP SMART is rated 8.4, while SAP Ariba Procurement is rated 7.6. The top reviewer of GEP SMART writes "Provides us with more frequent, fresh spend data and alerts us about contract renewals". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SAP Ariba Procurement writes "Easy to use but lacks advanced features". GEP SMART is most compared with Zycus Source to Pay Suite and Coupa Procure, whereas SAP Ariba Procurement is most compared with SAP Fieldglass, Oracle Procurement Cloud, Oracle E-Business Suite iProcurement, Coupa Procure and Zycus Source to Pay Suite.
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