A clear case of cloud - e-procurement

Today, economic efficiency is often achieved through the right business application. This is especially true for procurement.

However, there is still a lot of catching up to do when it comes to digitizing purchasing processes, as a recent survey by Onventis in collaboration with the German Association of Materials Management, Purchasing and Logistics revealed.

240 companies were surveyed about their strategic planning and investments in purchasing and procurement. The conclusion is that while there is a great desire for digitization, there is still a lack of implementation in many areas.

"Digitization and cloud are inextricably linked - when business models and processes change, software and IT processes must also change"

Frank Schmidt, Managing Director at Onventis, is convinced.

Until not so long ago, the new technologies were still viewed with skepticism, especially in the SME sector. However, a clear trend reversal can be seen here, also because cloud services represent a cost-effective and flexible alternative compared to classic in-house solutions.

More and more SAP users are recognizing this, and innovation cycles in the area of software are becoming shorter and shorter, while the demands on the internal IT infrastructure continue to increase.

"Our solution not only supports SAP users with end-to-end workflows in strategic and operational supply chain management, but together with our housing partner Ecotel from Frankfurt, we also offer fast, flexible and, above all, secure access to a cloud-based virtual server environment."

With e-procurement from the cloud to SAP

Onventis supports its SAP users in purchasing and sales with procurement solutions from the cloud. The movement and master data generated in the procurement process are seamlessly integrated into the SAP system via Onventis Buyer.

Especially for medium-sized SAP users who want to remain flexible without a large capital investment, the hosting offer from Onventis now offers great advantages.

"Our users benefit from a cost-efficient operating model where services can be scaled at any time and are sourced from a certified, fail-safe German data center in accordance with German data protection law"

explains Managing Director Frank Schmidt.

In this way, companies not only receive maximum security and optimum performance, but also avoid longer-term capital commitments and investments in new hardware.

Another benefit for SAP customers is the connection of Amazon Business to the e-procurement platform. This enables SAP users in procurement and purchasing to directly access more than 100 million products on Amazon - Onventis will continue to provide the Amazon adapter to its SAP customers free of charge until the end of 2017.

Onventis has been relying on Ecotel's housing expertise since 2006 and has housed its IT infrastructure in Ecotel's certified data center in Frankfurt am Main.

The multi-security housing of the Onventis e-procurement platform was initially in dedicated Ecotel racks, with special security devices for fire protection and with redundantly designed power supply and cooling systems.

Onventis racks are purpose-built, massive and lockable racks that can securely house storage capacity or servers.

Over time, Onventis' progressive company growth and immense data volume necessitated a corresponding expansion of the data center capacities used.

In April 2016, Onventis awarded Ecotel the contract for the modernization and expansion of the existing capacities. To ensure that the huge volumes of data could flow without interruption during the expansion and relocation phase, the old racks were parked and upgraded as interim racks.

This was followed by updates to the services and an increase in data throughput. Customer-specific requirements with regard to power and traffic consumption were met precisely in this project.

A big plus here is the attractively priced gigabit uplink with redundant peerings to Deutsche Telekom, DE-CIX and GTT, for example. And the bandwidth and network availability are bindingly secured by guaranteed Service Level Agreements (SLA).

"With the scalable and future-proof infrastructure in our own ISO-certified data center, we offer our SAP customers the highest standards in terms of security and accessibility of our systems"

emphasizes the Onventis managing director.

"For us as a provider of professional procurement solutions, 'Cloud made in Germany' is a real competitive advantage."

And SAP users in purchasing and procurement ultimately benefit from the high availability of e-procurement from the cloud.