PROCUREMENT STRATEGY
Procurement has always had the potential to be strategic, but historic business constraints, including the availability of good tools and technology, have often resulted in the function falling short. Procurement became synonymous with tiresome and laborious tasks like manual supplier searches, quote comparisons and repetitive administration.
Despite the commercial importance of the decisions being made, procurement is all too often relegated to an operational function.
Michelle Lau, Managing Director at Alibaba. com, believes this is being driven by a legacy gap in B2B commerce:“ For decades, consumerfacing technology has been driving innovation, creating more efficient, more intuitive and personalised shopping experiences. While for many, sourcing has remained static and analogue,” explains Michelle.
That is, until now.“ With new and emerging technologies, including automation and agentic AI, B2B sourcing has rapidly been redesigned around the everyday realities of business procurement,” she adds.
Today, procurement teams and leaders have access to tools that can digitise the process of supplier and product discovery, comparing options, requesting quotations and evaluating market opportunities with hyper efficiency.
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