The big push for AI is not to help you, but to achieve every executive’s dream of a perfect utopia where they have 24/7/365 robotic workers they don’t have to pay, feed, or even provide safe working conditions for. Where they have endless slave labour, workers with no rights, and only have to worry about counting the virtual dollars in their endlessly increasing bank accounts.
But anyone with a working brain, who doesn’t live in a fantasy world, who hasn’t given into the cognitive surrender brought on by excessive use of Gen-AI, knows that reality is far, far, away. The algorithms are dumber than doorknobs, hallucinate to various degrees on almost every response, and are only good at sounding right, NOT being right. Intelligent humans are still needed, more than ever (as AI has NOT changed the fundamentals of Procurement. It HAS Only Strengthened Them.)
While there is very little Gen-AI can do, there is a lot traditional AI, and even more that (A)RPA (the real agentic technology) can do if properly defined, constrained, and deployed — and in many back office functions, a lot of the data analysis and processing (still) done by humans can be done by machines (and could be done by machines for at least a decade — if not two). In Procurement, we’ve had invoice technology that could automate invoice processing error free 95% to 98% of the time for over a decade, auto-reorder technology based on stock levels, forecast changes, or production schedules for over two decades, technology for automatic contract creation based on clause templates and clause libraries for almost as long, and sourcing automation since the first major sourcing platforms hit the market.
If this was properly done, and 80% of the tactical bit-pushing time that, with fire-fighting, constitutes about 90% of a Procurement professional’s time, was eliminated — imagine what could happen. All high impact and high risk categories could be strategically sourced. All complex categories could be examined in detail, BoMs and production technologies optimized, and supplier relationships (and thus supply assurance) strengthened. And that’s just the start.
Procurement would have time to examine, shape, and even divert (and eliminate) demand. From the classic example of negating the need for more printers, paper, and printer ink by just ensuring every employee had a second monitor at their desk and a tablet for mobile document receipt and review to a more modern example of elimination of expensive cell phones for non-sales on-demand employees by Whatsapp (and cheap subscription) mandates or elimination of expensive office leases in areas where most employees are/work remote most of the time and only a few hot-swap desks at a work-sharing centers (and the ability to book / rent meeting rooms for occasional meetings) is acceptable (as they all use laptops anyway), demand shaping can result in major organizational cost savings.
Moreover, Procurement could even go beyond demand shaping and reduction to true value identification by helping the departments they serve define, and redefine, what value actually is and how best to achieve that value when going to market.
A great example of this is how IKEA approached its use of AI in customer service. As per this great summary on LinkedIn by Alberto, when IKEA’s AI bot deflected 47% of calls, instead of calling it a win, firing half it’s staff, and moving on, IKEA did two things.
- They asked what the AI bot wasn’t helping with and what concerns still had to be handled by the customer support team.
- They retrained and redeployed over half of their customer support team to handle the most common inquiry, and built a ONE BILLION DOLLAR business around it. (So Far! It’s IKEA. And they’re just getting started.)
To clarify, many (potential) customers weren’t calling just about missing parts or issues understanding the assembly instructions. They were calling to ask what they should buy to meet their needs. “What works in a small living room.”
They needed basic interior design advice. So IKEA trained a significant portion of their customer service workforce as interior designers, and generated over โฌ1 billion in additional business in the first year simply by spending the time to figure out what customers needed before they could make a purchase decision (interior design advice and the identification of products IKEA offered that would meet the design criteria) and giving them exactly what they needed.
Imagine how much value Procurement could add to the business if, instead of reducing staff with automation, the C-Suite retrained (or, if the existing staff doesn’t have the education/experience, replaced that staff with an equal amount of more senior personnel) and redeployed this suddenly freed up staff to act as an internal value identification consultancy that brings Procurement (cost management, risk mitigation, and supply assurance) best practice to the rest of the business.
Think about that before you try to replace real intelligent talent with unintelligent talentless AI (and find yourself in the bog of eternal stench that results from your lack of foresight).
