Face to Face with Marcell Vollmer, COO Ariba
Q: A lot of solution providers call themselves “end to end” providers, though few of them actually are. Do you feel confident that this is something Ariba can offer?
Absolutely. We’re already offering it today. Every day, billions of consumers around the world use sites like Facebook, Amazon, Uber, etc. to manage their personal lives because they make things so easy. When you shop on Amazon, you
don’t worry about connecting to each individual merchant. When it comes time to pay, you don’t worry about integrating into each individual bank or credit card company. It’s all done for you within the network.
The same is true with the Ariba Network. Everything companies need to manage commerce – from sourcing and orders through invoice and payment – is there for them. They don’t need to worry about connecting to individual trading partners using multiple systems – with more than 1.8 million companies in 190 countries, chances are they’re already connected and in one place. And if they aren’t, they can be within minutes. Or they can tap into the community to find new partners.