REPORT: 2025 Annual ProcureCon Chief Procurement Officer (CPO) Report

From Launch to Partner of the Year in 12 Months: Icertis Shines at the SAP Pinnacle Awards 2021

By Steve Blacklock

I have always been deeply inspired by the Helen Keller quote, “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much,” and those were my exact feelings when Icertis was named Partner of the Year – SAP Store (Validated and Spotlight) at the SAP Pinnacle Awards 2021. This award is a recognition of the fact that Icertis has successfully created world-class solutions that integrate with and complement SAP technologies and contributed a significant amount of value to SAP and our end customers. SAP honored just 21 companies out of their more than 20,000 partners with Pinnacle Awards this year, and Icertis is honored to be among this elite group.

What makes this achievement even more incredible is that Icertis won this award just a year into formally launching our integrations on SAP Store. Going from launch to Partner of the Year in such an unprecedented timeframe is clearly a recognition of the unique joint value proposition that Icertis and SAP are delivering to the market.

SAP Store is SAP’s online marketplace where customers can discover, try, buy, and renew solutions listed by all SAP partners. With three solutions listed on the SAP Store, Icertis has one of the highest numbers of transactions in the marketplace and significantly contributed to its overall success in 2020.

The two listings include the Icertis Contract Intelligence (ICI) for SAP Ariba and Icertis Contract Intelligence (ICI) for SAP CPQ. These solutions provide businesses with easy access to critical contract information, enabling better decisions within the SAP application environments.

I am extremely grateful to SAP for recognizing how our industry-leading ICI platform is extending the capabilities of these SAP solutions to automate all aspects of contract lifecycle management (CLM) for our customers.

Icertis and SAP: Streamlining Contracting Together, Organization-wide

Icertis and SAP’s partnership kickstarted in April 2020 with the Icertis Contract Intelligence (ICI) for SAP Ariba, which enabled our customers to transform the source-to-pay process. The integration helped customers navigate the supply chain challenges brought about by COVID-19 by accelerating the procurement process, reducing supply chain risks, and optimizing their supplier relationships.

While the integration with ICI gave Ariba users an intelligent and flexible contract management platform fully integrated with their SAP Ariba Strategic Sourcing solution, we also recognized our customers' need for a solution that could radically overhaul their lead-to-cash process. Again, working closely with SAP, we launched the Icertis Contract Intelligence (ICI) for SAP CPQ in December 2020 to offer a unified experience across ICI and SAP Sales Cloud.

Combined, these solutions help address many of the buy-side, sell-side, and organization-wide contracting issues that came to centerstage as organizations adjusted to new business challenges, including those presented by the global pandemic.

More than SAP Store: What’s in store?

Over the last year, our engagement with SAP has grown rapidly, as we teamed up on multiple campaigns and initiatives. To help organizations make the most of the new integrated capabilities, we worked together to produce the Guide to Advanced Contract Management with the Icertis Contract Intelligence (ICI) for SAP Ariba. We also launched our Contracts Over Coffee podcast series by inviting SAP Ariba’s Bob Baker for the premiere episode, one of our most popular episodes to date. Listen to the entire podcast here.

As the Icertis integration with SAP solutions grew, we worked together on more initiatives, including our joint Icertis SAP CX Point of View e-book, our on-demand webinar on streamlining the lead-to-cash process, and our sponsorship of the SAP CX Live event in October 2020. We also promoted our SAP Store listings through the Digital4Spotlight campaign, where we jointly developed a whitepaper on How Rethinking Contract Management Systems Can Deliver Big Bottom Line Results and an infographic on Optimizing the SAP Ariba Strategic Sourcing Solution with Icertis.

More recently, we came together for a webinar that highlighted the importance of supplier diversity — an area that both Icertis and SAP deeply care about. Watch the webinar on-demand "SAP + Icertis: Connecting Advanced Contract Intelligence to Core Business Processes" here.

We are also excited to be a Gold Sponsor for SAP’s prestigious SAPPHIRE NOW event that kicks off on June 2nd, 2021.

Successful Partnership, Happy Customers

Our collaboration has already delivered significant benefits to our customers, including automotive giant Daimler and food distribution company Gordon Food Service, by connecting contracts and core business processes to improve business performance.

Daimler has successfully leveraged the ICI with SAP Ariba to streamline relationships with 500,000 suppliers and reduce its contract cycle times from six weeks down to just one. Gordon Food Service has reduced contract approval times from more than two days to less than two hours through our partnership. This allows the company’s legal department to focus more on higher-value activities.

At Icertis, we believe that partners make more possible, and our strategic partnership with SAP only reaffirms our belief. Icertis is an SAP Gold Partner which again endorses the strength of our partnership and the value that we deliver jointly to our customers. We are excited to see what 2021 brings as we strengthen our partnership, integrating even more deeply with SAP products and solutions, marketing, and sales initiatives. Onwards and upwards!