Back in 2017 (yes, that was 7 years ago, but the subject is still relevant), the doctor penned a post asking if there was magical thinking in your procurement noting that:

the Procurement Department that is getting the worst deal is the one that hallucinates the most — and needs to — in order to keep their worldview intact

And, furthermore, it was these Procurement departments that were most against modernizing their processes or platforms because their worldview requires them to believe that the antiquated processes and (severely) outdated platforms they are (still) using are just fine. (And they don’t recognize that their Procurement departments still run on the island of misfit toys principle — staffed with people who are nearing retirement, related to the boss, or technologically adverse and have been doing it this way for far too long.)

the doctor also noted that the easiest way to identify these organizations was by their telltale arguments of:

• our processes are just fine, we just need more people
• our platform is just fine, we just need more people
• it’s not worth the cost, and it will slow us down

which were soon augmented with the additional telltale arguments of:

• the problem isn’t with us, it’s with logistics / risk management / compliance / support
• the problem isn’t with us, it’s the suppliers who aren’t holding up their end of the contract
• our needs are just too unique and there’s nothing out there that will close the gaps

as supply chains started to crumble under disruptions. Because, if you just gave them more time, money, and people, everything would work out fine with a little pixie dust.

But we know there’s no silver bullet, and the only answer is to implement the best technology, with the best processes, so you can identify the biggest risks, plan mitigations, detect when they have occurred, respond quickly, and, the rest of the time, deal with exceptions and not standard operating procedures that can be entirely automated.

And, in the late 2010s, that was the extent of the magical thinking theorem. But now, thanks to the Gen-AI garbage marketing overload, and the addition of tail end Millenials (who replaced those put out to the Procurement pasture when they called it quits during COVID or when companies tried to force their return to the office), we have a new corollary to the the Magical Thinking Theorem:

the Procurement department getting the worst deal is also the one that thinks they only way to solve their problem and get the best deal is to adopt and implement Gen-AI as fast as possible

because the Millenials, who grew up glued to their smartphones, and always received instant gratification via Google and Apple, believe there is an app-for-everything and that a natural language Gen-AI app combines the best of both worlds and will solve all their problems.

Their thinking is not only as magical as the last generation thinking (that more time, money, and people can solve anything), but more dangerous (because their answer is to just turn their problems over to the artificial idiocy machine and blindly accept whatever comes out of it, no matter how hallucinatory or ridiculous the answer is).

the doctor said it before and he’ll say it again. There’s no room for magical thinking in Procurement. Just like alchemy needed to be replaced with science, magical thinking needs to be replaced with realist thinking, and random unpredictable Gen-AI replaced with proven deterministic procedural (rules-based) solutions that use tried and true mathematical techniques. (Because, the classic analytics, optimization, and machine learning that you have been ignoring for two decades will do just fine.)