DIGITAL PROCUREMENT
“Digital transformation may scare people … Basically , everything will change . This is something positive , and we need to convey that message to teams ”
DR WOLFGANG SCHNELLBÄCHER MANAGING DIRECTOR , PARTNER AND EUROPEAN LEADER OF PROCUREMENT PRACTICE , BCG
Let ’ s start with how it looks today . Today you could differentiate three types of procurement functions . You have strategic buyers defining categories and , of course , leading the big negotiations and alignment with business partners . On the end , you have the transactional buyers executing the defined strategy . And then you have the third category of people who are primarily working on topics like research , data gathering , and so forth .
“ In the future , the strategic buyers will still be there at the same size , but they will be working completely differently , very much steered by AI and working on wider value generation topics versus just savings . The second group will shrink . A lot of operational tasks now performed by the group will be retasked to bots and other more seamless , integrated systems between buyers and suppliers , but also between buyers and the overall company and business partners .
“ When you look at what the operations people do today , there is a high share of redundant activities . And lastly , the third group of cross-functional people will expand massively . You will have more people dealing , for example , with master data in order to fulfil the needs that we just laid out . You will have AI programmers . You will have people who deal with robotic maintenance
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