GEP SMART vs Oracle E-Business Suite iProcurement vs SAP Ariba Procurement comparison

"Through using GEP, we've been able to gain respect; the other departments in our company have come to rely upon us even more, and we have become a more trusted department within the company, among our peers, because we can speak to their spend at greater depth."

"Their tool has become a much better tool over the years."

"We have absolutely seen ROI; we track all of our savings, but it allows us to do a lot more."

"I have seen that the sourcing process in GEP SMART is easier than in Oracle, SAP, etc."

"It's user-friendly, in terms of the design of the tool."

"The most valuable features are the sourcing and tendering processes."

"The fact that GEP is a single, unified software platform for our whole organization certainly unifies the information in one place."

"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."

"It is a scalable solution."

"The features and capabilities of Oracle E-Business Suite iProcurement that I have found most valuable include its market reputation, its ability to automate all processes such as creating requisitions and receiving items, and its e-commerce interface that allows vendors and suppliers to browse and automate tasks."

"It is a scalable product."

"It is a stable solution."

"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 one of the best tools in the market."

"I like the guided buying features."

"SAP Ariba Procurement has impacted my organization in many important ways that have been prolonged benefits."

"SAP Ariba Procurement is worth the money as a tool because it connects all departments in one."

"We made custom enhancements to suite our business process."

"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."

"I want to see continued investment in analytics and reporting."

"We didn't like their dashboard initially, but they responded to that very well."

"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."

"I want to see continued investment in analytics and reporting."

"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."

"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."

"There are certain things within the contracts module — how to upload the line items, for example — that could be done to make that utility a little more user-friendly, a little more like the sourcing module."

"GEP's goal, at least during our integration, is to get through it, not necessarily get it right."

"There could be a mobile application for the product."

"The interface lags a bit since it is a heavy application."

"Integration: SAP Ariba's integration has not matured yet, there is lot of scope for improvement in terms scenarios, error handling, data update intervals, etc."

"Salesforce is expensive, with a subscription-based model."

"On the sourcing, it could be easier to import the documents you want, so if you want items to be bid on, it could be a bit easier to import that from a spreadsheet."

"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 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."

"The SAP portion of the procurement is not always obvious or user friendly."

"SAP could make it easier for people to become SAP Ariba consultants within the SAP ecosystem."

"I would like the solution to be more automatic."

"If our organization could use it as a full-fledged solution, then it would be valuable and give a return on investment. However, since we are not currently using it as a full-fledged solution, even facing some bugs and problems with the synchronization with some of the internal software, we are not able to use it in a full-fledged manner."

"My advice is to think wisely when it comes to estimating the number of licenses that you will require. If you settle on a number too early and you need additional ones, then the extra licenses might be quite expensive."

"The product is more expensive than one of its competitors."

"The product is somewhat expensive. Only large organizations can handle such an application."

"The licensing cost depends on the customer."

"It is an expensive solution."

"The license is expensive."