INTELLIGENT PROCUREMENT
of expertise , such as strategy , contract management , and negotiations . Relieving teams of those ‘ firefighting ’ responsibilities in turn allows companies to adapt and compete in this new environment .”
“ That process will be even more difficult and time-consuming if procurement doesn ’ t have an integrated , intelligent platform letting them collect emissions from multiple sources and store them efficiently .”
Competitive advantage and strategic operations Within the next two to five years , procurement teams will be forced to move from relying on processes and transactional recording systems ( which often only show what happened in retrospect ) into an environment that demands an ‘ always on ’ memory of decisions made , their contexts , and their outcomes .
“ This digital record will be critical to strategy ,” says Chaplain , “ particularly as environmental , social , and governance ( ESG ) mandates require companies to measure and justify the impacts of procurement decisions . When we consider how many organisations still rely on spreadsheets , emails , or phone calls to track decisions and outcomes , the value of this technology is very apparent .
“ In addition , decision automation helps procurement teams focus on the high-value , strategic decisions that deliver competitive advantage . Using predetermined rules and predictive logic to automate decisions that a person would have made reduces the team ’ s operational workload and allows those professionals to focus on their areas
Future risk mitigation and resilience building Intelligent procurement allows organisations to consider more variables in purchasing and supply chain decisions , allowing them to choose a course of action more quickly .
Optimal procurement decisions must consider data such as customer orders , safety stock , total cost of ownership , and on-time in-full ( OTIF ) performance . This equips companies with the capability of balancing risk , cost , and quality through the application of AI and machine learning , as well as data harmonised from across enterprise systems .
This allows , for example , a company to choose the best potential supplier for a given sourcing need , while monitoring spend and ensuring adherence to budget . Chaplain says : “ Or consider that , with traditional procurement processes , a yearend deviation between budgeted spend and actual spend leaves staff working to understand the cause of the discrepancy . By contrast , today ’ s technology makes it possible to track performance versus budget on an ongoing basis , record decision outcomes , and make adjustments as needed .
“ With this technology , companies can mitigate risks by breaking down the silos that hide process gaps . Moreover , companies can readily adjust strategic sourcing and contracts to consider changing market conditions or supply-chain threats whilst mapping both decisions and outcomes to business objectives .” procurementmag . com 59