Procurement teams today encounter immense challenges to achieve cost savings, mitigate risks, and address newer factors like ESG considerations. Unfortunately, conventional procurement methods tend to be responsive rather than adaptable, failing to keep pace with the ever-changing dynamics of the market. However, artificial intelligence (AI) presents a game-changing solution in this scenario. Enter predictive procurement.
By leveraging the capabilities of AI, procurement teams can shift from a reactive approach to a proactive one, enabling them to make well-informed decisions driven by data-driven insights. Let’s delve into the transformative impact of AI on procurement processes.
Utilising AI to Enhance Strategic Procurement Processes
Procurement encompasses various essential tasks, and among them, spend analysis stands out as unquestionably pivotal. Together with future purchase planning and supplier market analysis, spend analysis lays the groundwork for procurement category strategy. Nonetheless, the conventional approach to spend analysis proves time-consuming and susceptible to errors, posing challenges for procurement teams.
Luckily, the utilisation of machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) presents an opportunity to automate this process effortlessly. By examining extensive volumes of data gathered from diverse sources such as historical expenditure data, existing contracts, production plans, supplier performance statistics, and supplier market insights, machine learning and AI can assist in the analysis. Through this data analysis, organisations can effectively identify future spending trends and establish strategic assumptions to optimise their procurement activities. As a result, this enables efficient cost management and risk reduction, leading to substantial savings for the organisation. Additionally, if an organisation aims to incorporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations into their supply chain, AI can provide valuable guidance by considering ESG criteria. This valuable insight empowers organisations to proactively plan their procurement activities, facilitating improved negotiations with suppliers and enhancing their ESG performance.
AI can aid in the creation of a procurement category strategy by performing a comprehensive analysis and gathering the required data. By leveraging prior analytical work, AI can incorporate various crucial factors such as category placement, the assortment of products within the category, the cost structure of each product, risk evaluations, the company’s preferences regarding specific suppliers, and the advantages and disadvantages of switching suppliers. With this information processed, AI can propose optimisation strategies to efficiently manage expenditures and forecast potential outcomes.
After the category strategy is verified, refined, and approved by the category manager, tenders that align with the strategy are organised and prepared for implementation. In the case where the strategy involves incorporating new suppliers into the tenders, AI can assist in identifying suitable candidates. The quotations received from these suppliers can then be simulated to estimate the probable price range, offering valuable insights to the procurement team.
Empowering Tactical Procurement Processes with AI
Building upon the earlier enhancements, machine learning and AI have the capability to automate the generation and refinement of specifications for requests for quotations. Through the guidance of AI, organisations can receive assistance in determining the required parameters to include in quotations, and assigning appropriate weights to them. Consequently, this technology enables organisations to streamline their requests for quotations, ensuring greater precision and fostering the submission of more accurate and competitive bids.
AI can be instrumental in supplier selection, as it can identify the most suitable suppliers for a company’s unique requirements. Through the analysis of multiple business factors, machine learning models can provide recommendations on suppliers that provide optimal value for money. Additionally, based on historical pricing or market research, these models can propose competitive prices for suppliers to bid on. This streamlines the sourcing process, reducing project cycle times while guaranteeing fair and competitive prices for the company.
Machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) have the potential to streamline contract management processes. Through contract analysis and identification of important terms and clauses, AI can assist in maintaining compliance with contractual obligations, minimising legal risks, and uncovering potential cost-saving opportunities. Additionally, when contracts expire or are terminated, AI can recommend appropriate actions to be taken based on the circumstances, such as exploring alternative suppliers, initiating tender processes, or renegotiating contracts with updated conditions, tailored to the reasons behind contract termination and business conditions
Machine learning and AI offer valuable support in streamlining contract management. Through the analysis of contracts and the identification of crucial terms and clauses, AI can effectively enforce adherence to contractual obligations, mitigate legal risks, and uncover potential cost-saving possibilities. Moreover, when a contract reaches its conclusion or is terminated, AI can propose appropriate courses of action, such as redirecting the associated purchase volume to alternative suppliers, initiating a tendering process, or revising the expired contract with updated conditions. These actions are contingent upon the reasons for contract termination and the prevailing business circumstances.
Streamlining Purchase Orders and Invoices
Machine learning has already brought significant advantages to large companies in the realm of operational procurement processes by efficiently handling vast amounts of data. Nonetheless, there remains substantial potential for further development, especially in the realm of predictive capabilities.
By incorporating artificial intelligence into procurement dashboards, ongoing spend monitoring can be greatly enhanced. This is achieved through the provision of specific insights and robust drill-down capabilities, all with a predictive nature. Users can thereby gain a comprehensive understanding of each relevant transaction and precisely identify areas of concern. This holds true not only when everything proceeds as expected but also when significant disruptions occur in the supplier market or when production plans are altered. Through the aid of AI, procurement organisations can identify potential risks, take necessary measures to mitigate them, and achieve more effective spending on an ongoing basis.
Furthermore, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) have the potential to greatly benefit organisations by aiding in the detection of fraudulent behaviour. By analysing transactional data, these advanced technologies can pinpoint indicators of fraudulent activity, such as instances of duplicate invoices or unauthorised purchases. This enables organisations to take proactive measures in preventing fraud and safeguarding their financial well-being.
The incorporation of AI into procurement practices is rapidly revolutionising how organisations manage their procurement processes. By leveraging AI technology, procurement teams can achieve enhanced agility and precision in decision-making regarding expenditures, suppliers, and risks. This holds true even for tasks that were previously challenging to handle due to the complexities of processing multiple factors and vast data sets. Nevertheless, similar to the implementation of any new technology, the adoption of AI in procurement comes with its own set of challenges, akin to those faced in other business areas.
To successfully integrate AI into their procurement practices, organisations must prioritise the establishment of a robust data foundation and the development of suitable governance frameworks. By doing so, they can ensure that the necessary data is available and that ethical considerations and compliance requirements are met.
Despite these challenges, we believe that the future of procurement lies in predictive capabilities, with AI continuing to play a pivotal role in helping organisations achieve their procurement objectives.
