Reframing SAP Ariba’s ecosystem to empower category managers as strategic leaders.

SAP Ariba | Project 2020-2021

SUMMARY

Transforming SAP Ariba from a transactional suite into a platform for strategic procurement — by designing the Category Manager Experience.

SAP Ariba is one of the world’s largest procurement platforms, historically focused on transactional efficiency — sourcing events, supplier onboarding, and compliance management. Post-COVID, the landscape changed: global supply chain fragility, rising ESG mandates, and the need for supplier innovation pushed procurement to deliver strategic impact, not just cost savings.

To remain relevant, SAP needed to reposition Ariba as a platform for strategic procurement — empowering category managers to build resilient supply chains, drive sustainability, and collaborate with suppliers at a strategic level.

I played a critical role in shaping multiple product visions and UX strategy for the Category Manager Experience, designing a connected ecosystem that moved procurement from fragmented tools to an integrated, strategic platform.

THE CHALLENGE

Empowering Category Managers to Lead Strategically

Post-Covid, category managers‘ performance was no longer measured just on cost savings and sourcing efficiency. Their role expanded to driving supply chain resilience, leading sustainability initiatives, and collaborating with suppliers to deliver innovation.

Yet while their responsibilities expanded, their tools stayed the same.

Category managers found themselves juggling multiple systems daily — sourcing, supplier lifecycle, risk, ESG — just to piece together the information needed for one decision. Supplier data was incomplete and scattered, and strategies lived in static PowerPoint decks that quickly became outdated.

To uncover where the experience was breaking down, I led the discovery and mapping phase, visualizing how category managers worked across tools, data, and teams.

The Journey Map revealed where inefficiencies and context-switching created friction — from kicking off sourcing to tracking outcomes. It highlights the three core challenges Category managers faced:

Fragmented workflows — constantly switching between sourcing, supplier lifecycle, risk, and ESG tools with no single entry point.
Supplier data silos — chasing lifecycle, performance, and risk data scattered across systems, slowing decision-making.
Disconnected strategies — strategies documented in PowerPoint, Word, or Excel, leaving no visibility into goals, initiatives, or execution outcomes.

This disconnect between growing strategic responsibilities and outdated, fragmented tools made it difficult for category managers to deliver the impact their organizations needed.

To complement the user journey insights, I facilitated a collaborative ecosystem mapping workshop with product managers, domain experts, and UX researchers. Together, we visualized the complex network of tools, data systems, and teams that category managers interact with throughout their workflow.

The current ecosystem mapping exposed a deeper problem: SAP Ariba’s procurement products and data systems operated in silos, forcing category managers to manually connect insights across sourcing, supplier management, risk, and ESG tools.

These mapping activities became alignment tools — helping product, design, and leadership teams see the fragmentation clearly for the first time, and agree that the problem was systemic, not just functional.

Why it mattered: Bridging these experience gaps was critical — not only to empower category managers to perform their evolving role effectively, but also to reposition SAP Ariba as a platform for strategic procurement, supporting resilience, sustainability, and long-term business value.

THE SOLUTION

Designing the Category Management Ecosystem

Instead of treating the pain points as isolated usability issues, I reimagined the experience as a connected ecosystem and led the team to reframe them as ecosystem design opportunities:

This reframing shifted the team’s mindset from “How do we add new features?” to “How do we design a connected ecosystem that empowers category managers as strategic leaders?”

The 3 Ecosystem Design Solution Pillars

Design Pillar 1:

Category Manager Launchpad - Unifying Fragmented Workflows

The first step to solving fragmentation was to design a single entry point — the Category Manager Launchpad.

A modular, unified entry point across sourcing, supplier, and ESG workflows — reducing tool-switching and anchoring the ecosystem.

Email me to learn more about the design process →

Design Pillar 2:

Supplier Management Integration — a set of modules embedded into the Launchpad

Embedded supplier performance, risk, and ESG data directly in workflows — cutting data-chasing and strengthening decision-making.

1. My Suppliers: A category-wide view of supplier performance, risk, and lifecycle status.

2. Supplier Development: Structured workflows to strengthen supplier relationships.

3. Supplier Due Diligence: A new module to batch evaluation tasks and simplify supplier data acquisition.

Email me to explore how we redesigned supplier visibility and due diligence workflows →

Design Pillar 3:

New Strategy Tools - Category strategy modules embedded in the ecosystem

New tools for creating, revising, and tracking strategies — replacing PowerPoints with living dashboards linked to execution.

1. Strategy Creation Flow: Quick-start workflows to launch initiatives (e.g., sustainability collaboration with suppliers).

2. Category Dashboard & Plan Review System ◦ Unified view of objectives, initiatives, supplier risks, and planning timelines. ◦ Structured, step-based planning with modular cards for data, visuals, and supplier insights.

3. Future Vision - Ariba Canvas: An AI-powered research workspace to accelerate data analysis and scenario planning for advanced category managers.

Email me to learn how we built living strategy tools and a Gen AI-powered research experience →

Together, these pillars formed the Category Manager Ecosystem — a scalable foundation that repositioned SAP Ariba as a platform for strategic procurement.

OUTCOME & IMPACT

From fragmented workflows to a connected ecosystem — empowering category managers to plan, pivot, and lead.

User Impact

50% faster access to supplier insights with integrated views
70% less time chasing data, freeing managers for strategic work
Strategies moved from static docs → living modules inside SAP
Real-time dashboards improved visibility into goals, initiatives, and execution

Business Impact

Early adoption reached over 40% of target pilot customers within the first release cycle, validating strong product-market fit and demand for a unified category management experience.
Established Category Manager Experience as the blueprint for SAP Ariba’s ecosystem design
Positioned SAP Ariba as a platform for strategic procurement — aligning with post-COVID market needs

Intelligence Future Impact

Foundation for AI-powered strategy research (Ariba Canvas)
Embedded ESG & supplier intelligence as strategic levers, not just compliance add-ons

Building the future of procurement

Ariba Canvas