The SAPPHIRE NOW Annual Conference 2013, held in Orlando, FL, brought together key people from the world of business and IT, in the largest SAP customer-run conference.

Speaking about the future of e-commerce and the technologies that are changing the face of business, Chris Haydon, VP Solutions Management – Procurement, Finance & Network with ARIBA, explained that the goal of his company is to add value to every single intra-business collaboration by the network, going as far as to declare that business intelligence and analytics can eliminate the hassle of buying.

When asked to present what new opportunities exist now for transactions (opportunities that didn’t exist before), Haydon mentioned the similarities of today’s e-commerce with the social graph of certain social networks. What Ariba is trying to do these days is leverage the power of the community.

Ariba strives to facilitate new business relationships. In today’s fast-moving economy, the search for suppliers is increasingly difficult. The Ariba Network has hundreds of thousands of global suppliers and it is offering the Ariba Discovery service, along with other services that make a big difference. For example, the Beta Buying, the Ariba Spot Buy, publishing ad-hoc requirements, is offering better prices for the buyer and better business oportunities for the seller.

Getting back to harnessing the power of the community, Chris Haydon further explained that the principle of modern e-commerce is to make the most of the customers’ profiles, prompting buying recommendations in the same manner Facebook is trying to reconnect one with one’s former colleagues.

So, in case anyone was wondering just why Ariba was bought by SAP, it was for its potential to unlock collaboration, not just in procurement.  It comes down to finance and the supply chain, human resources and also sustainability across a business network. It’s the next generation in the network economy. The focus nowadays is on mobile and analytics, what was once called Fast Data.

Now the market for that exploded, and it changed the game. The business changed in tandem and it created a new community of users, which in turn opened the world even more.

The collaboration between SAP and Ariba proved successful. In many markets the PC and laptop are already obsolete, because mobility is key for today’s customers. Ariba was able to make use of the mobile platform that SAP had, instead of building one.

Haydon reiterated that SAP is a major cloud player that accelerates mobility and the user experience, showing innovation and transforming the game through speed. In Ariba’s vision, the network is open, and HANA and SAP are strategic assets on the B2B side of net-based commerce. In this environment there are no challenges, just new opportunities.

This is a multi-value service that enables users to discover new business, to deliver new business and to get paid for new business. Therefore, the key words that sum up the company’s services are comprehensive, collaborative and intelligent.