Accenture is expanding its collaboration with SAP Ariba to deliver next-generation Procurement business process outsourcing (BPO) services. The SAP Ariba Sourcing Professional solution will be integrated into Accenture's proprietary procurement platform which is used by its category and procurement experts to deliver Procurement as a Service and help clients achieve better business outcomes. Accenture has a long history implementing and enabling SAP Aribasolutions for clients who manage spend and all sourcing activity internally, while using a proprietary solution to serve Procurement BPO clients.

In recent years, more companies have moved toward hybrid operating models whereby they manage select categories internally, and leverage Accenture's capabilities in other categories, in order to enhance and accelerate their reach, agility and impact. To bring these clients a more harmonized solution and experience across all of their spend categories, Accenture will integrate Ariba Sourcing Professional functionality into its existing source-to-pay platform and leverage the eRFX capabilities of the solution as a core part of its Sourcing platform. This proprietary platform automates and integrates workflow across the source-to-pay process while also harvesting and providing unique market insights and analytics, gathered across clients and then infused back into the process, to improve outcomes.

With Ariba Sourcing Professional, Accenture will gain robust real-time scoring of qualitative questions and advanced auction capabilities such as Index based auctions and Net Present Value (NPV) auctions.