TECHNOLOGY
DEMYSTIFYING TECH IN
PROCUREMENT
With the help of Roland Simon and Hugh Simpson , Procurement Magazine takes a look at the trendiest tech and it ’ s growing influence on procurement
WRITTEN BY : OLIVER JAMES FREEMAN FRSA
Since the turn of the century , technology has , for better or worse , truly revolutionised the way that we live and the way that businesses operate . The rate of development and subsequent advancement has been so fast that in many cases if you didn ’ t check the news one day , you may well have missed something . But it has to be said that , while technology was disrupting almost every aspect of life , procurement processes were mostly left in the dark ages until very recently . As a result , companies are starting to notice that their old , slightly tired-looking legacy systems are well and truly showing their age ; legacy systems and manual tools are a thing of the past that lack ease and efficiency .
So for companies that feature dated legacy systems , we ’ ve compiled a shortlist of the top four disruptive , arguably interdependent , technologies – often shaded under the umbrella of ‘ Industry 4.0 ’ – taking the procurement process industry by storm right now and into the ‘ 20s .
With the help of Roland Simon , former Senior Vice President and Procurement Subject Matter Expert for ElectrifAi , and Hugh Simpson , the CEO of LQD Technology and former Global Lead in Data & Analytics and AI at EY Data & Analytics UK and Australia , we aim to demystify some of today ’ s trendiest technologies , their current role in procurement and the opportunities they offer .
Roland Simon on AI & Machine Learning “ The vast majority of business financial data is generated out of individual transactions . Those transactions are normally either sales or purchases . Depending on the nature of the transaction , i . e . type of industry or nature of the relationship , the individual points of data collected will be different and likely organised differently . Assume then that within the same enterprise , one may have a wide variety of types of transactions , and these transactions would take place across an entire enterprise footprint . Those geographic footprints can range from very local and concentrated to international , global and extremely complex . It is not particularly common for businesses to maintain standardised purchase orders and invoices across their business entities .
“ There are a number of reasons for nonstandard PO ’ s and invoices , not least of which might be differences in accounting rules and cost calculations that vary between
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