THE PROCUREMENT INTERVIEW
“ When there’ s a leader that is very comfortable with what they already know, they’ re living in their comfort zone and they don’ t really want to reinvent the wheel... then it’ s always rolling a rock up a hill.”
Augmentation, not replacement A common fear in the procurement community is that AI will eventually replace the human buyer. Spencer’ s philosophy, however, is firmly rooted in augmentation. He believes the goal of technology should be to“ make the easy things easier and the hard things possible.”
“ There have been two thoughts about AI’ s future in procurement: replace people or enable people to do more. At LightSource, we focus on augmenting people,” he says.“ The answer isn’ t to replace procurement, but augment and help them work faster and better.”
This augmentation is particularly vital during the New Product Introduction( NPI) phase. With 80 % of cost variability determined by the time a design is frozen, the ability for procurement to collaborate with engineering in real-time is the difference between a successful launch and a financial struggle.
procurementmag. com
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