A different operating model Sudhir says these use cases point to a broader shift in procurement operating models. He believes the industry is moving away from labour arbitrage, where work is outsourced mainly to lower-cost service centres, and towards expert-led models supported by AI.
“ In the new world AI becomes more autonomous,” he says,“ and humans become experts.”
That shift, he argues, will change the role of procurement teams. Rather than acting as gatekeepers or chasers, they will increasingly become enablers who manage exceptions and direct attention to higher-value work.
Lalitha says this is also why selfservice is central to ORO’ s pitch. In her view, modern businesses already give employees more agency in other parts of work, so procurement should offer the same kind of autonomy within clear guardrails.“ Procurement is poker, not chess,” she explains.“ Chess can perhaps be automated fully; poker is about reading the table.”
She says the aim is not to remove governance, but to make it less intrusive and more intelligent. If the platform understands context, it can apply the right checks without turning every request into a bureaucratic exercise. She says:“ Let AI do the boring work – like a washing machine or a vacuum cleaner for procurement.”
34 May 2026