AI – Potential Use Cases in Procurement

I was chatting with a colleague the other day about #AI (they have a new AI venture) and this got me thinking about potential “Use Cases” for AI within #Procurement, my initial list / thoughts are below – I’d be very interested to hear what you think of them or of any other potential “Use Cases” you can foresee. I look forward to the debate!

Customer Service Agent

• Order / Procurement Status – supporting self-service status updates
• Policy / Legislation Advice (especially as new Case Law / Precedent and / or Policy emerges)
• General Governance / Process advice (in line with an organisations Schemes of Delegation and associated approval / authorisation processes)

Horizon Scanning (supporting Category Management)

• User Need Identification & Capture
• [Identification of Potential] Suppliers and general market tracking
• [Identification of Potential] Products / Services
• [Identification of developing] Technology [Roadmaps]
• Underlying Commodities / Components tracking (and development of risk management strategies)

Contract Management

• Obligations Tracking
• IP / IPR and provided “Assets” tracking and management
• Automated Data / Information sharing tracking & management
• Performance Management System (PMS) / KPI Tracking and generation
• Renewal / Exit Planning

Supplier Management

• Supply Chain Resilience / Risk Tracking
• Key contracts / Sub-contracts / People Tracking
• News

Contract Pipeline Management

“Simple” Transactional Procurement

• Automated (re)procurement

Procurement Process Support

• Auto document creation
• Bid evaluation Training & Support
• Process support / management (especially if via a e-procurement platform)
• Data Room management / tracking

If you’d like a more detailed discussion in regards what each of these could mean and how you may implement them please reach out!

About the Author

Simon Hay has 25+ years of consulting / interim experience developing, delivering and implementing Procurement, Strategic Sourcing and Category Management projects in industries across both the Public and Private Sectors including NHS / Health, MoD, Aerospace, Pharmaceuticals, FMCG / Retail, Food & Drink and Telecoms.