MAY 2021CIOAPPLICATIONS.COM9REVAMPING PROCUREMENT INNOVATIVELYThe 4T's are talent, time, teamwork, and tools. If you neglect any of these elements, your results will vary, and you may never see the true benefits desired from attempting such a lofty goalsunits with speed retaining the ability to scale up and down. New services utilise technology which we have become familiar with at least by names such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing. These allow for all sorts of activities to become industrialised, applying process and logic e2e across the various Procurement processes. Setting up teams in the right way to optimise these new capabilities means traditional models can be remodelled. EY is leading the way in shaping new "Portfolio" teams over more traditional "Category" teams where portfolios aggregate larger areas of spend and suppliers to increase the scale where new methodologies are to be applied. Maybe some of you reading will remember using a map to plan a journey somewhere in the car, working out the fastest route, planning your stops and where you may run into problems. This was based on your knowledge, experience and information you had at hand, the best strategy to get from point A to point B. Nowadays, you flick on the satellite navigation which will work out the most optimal route, the service stations and speed limits all in real-time diverting you away from problem areas. This analogy in many ways is like the procurement landscape of the past and future. The satellite navigation is here, so buckle up!Procurement now has a tremendous opportunity and the future looks to be a very exciting one. Get ahead by putting in place solid foundations on which you can build upon safely in a precise, structured way! Alexei Burns
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