In recent months, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been on everyone’s lips, thanks in particular to the explosion of ChatGPT and generative AIs such as Einstein GPT, DALL-E, Mistral, GPT… And this trend is real! AI is already everywhere: healthcare, insurance, finance, commerce… In the professional world, it represents an impressive lever for transformation and performance.
A survey conducted by researchers from OpenAI, Open Research and the University of Pennsylvania in the USA reveals that around 80% of workers could see at least 10% of their tasks impacted by the arrival of generative AI. For almost 19%, this proportion could even reach 50%.
Are we living through the most important technological revolution of our era? In this article, we’ll explore how AI can transform Procurement Sourcing and Contract Management, boosting organizations’ performance.
Market trend prediction and intelligence: By analyzing past data and exploiting predictive models, AI helps buyers anticipate market trends and potential risks. Imagine being able to adjust your sourcing strategy according to consumption or price forecasts! AI can also identify opportunities and the emergence of new players or technologies, assessing their potential according to criteria defined by the buyer.
Supplier sourcing: Even before invitations to tender, AI can identify and pre-qualify a panel of suppliers, taking into account precise criteria: quality, price, skills, availability, reliability, and even reputation on social networks. Some solutions can even find the ultra-specialized small business to meet a specific need!
Optimizing the purchasing process: AI can automate certain stages of the purchasing process, reducing lead times and costs while improving the quality of decisions. Whether creating precise specifications or analyzing responses to a Request For Information (RFI), AI facilitates the production of deliverables and aids decision-making.
Task automation: AI can automate tasks such as checking file conformity, pre-entering information, publishing calls for tender, classifying documents, or answering simple questions asked by candidates.
Advanced data analysis: AI analyzes large datasets from multiple sources, applying buyer-defined criteria to achieve specific objectives.
Invoice automation : Procure-to-pay invoicing relies on tasks that are easy to automate, but often error-prone. Today, some management modules already automate almost half of invoice processing, extracting the relevant information, associating it with the corresponding orders and initiating payment without human intervention.
Contract analysis and compliance improvement: AI’s analysis capabilities enable large volumes of contractual documents to be rapidly scanned and analyzed to identify key clauses, contractual obligations and potential risks. One banking group used AI to analyze its contract repository, cutting processing time by a factor of six!
Optimized contract management: AI optimizes contract renewals, option exercises and price revisions, enabling smoother, more efficient management.
Performance and risk management: AI monitors performance indicators and mitigates risks by alerting you to non-compliance with a commitment, whether it’s regulatory non-compliance, financial over-spending, deadlines or quality issues.
The benefits of AI for Purchasing Sourcing and Contract Management are manifold: improved data availability and security, increased productivity thanks to the automation of repetitive tasks, faster decision-making, and significant economic gains.
Thanks to digital transformation and AI, buyers and contract managers will be able to focus on higher value-added tasks, such as developing relationships with suppliers or Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). As a source of competitiveness, innovation and value creation, AI is a major performance lever for companies.
AI is no longer a futuristic concept, it’s here and now, and is already transforming the Purchasing Sourcing and Contract Management professions. For companies, it’s time to seize this opportunity to improve their performance, agility and competitiveness in the marketplace. By integrating AI into their processes, they can successfully navigate the digital economy of tomorrow.