Current Situation
Procurement is largely still a manual effort. Digital data sources are used, but many decisions made by procurement professionals are based on experience, instinct, and gut feel when calculating the balance between supply and demand. While this has generally worked for many companies, it is far from ideal, certainly not optimized and rarely done in real time.
Goals and Objectives
A digital procurement assistant augments the human procurement professional by automating rote tasks and ensuring that they are done quickly and in a timely fashion. Relieving the procurement professional from these repetitive tasks allows them to focus on much more strategic, value-added tasks.
Technology Deployed
Enterprise hardware, personal devices, cloud, big data and analytics, mobile, applications, connectivity services, and cognitive
Use Case Summary
The digital procurement assistant enables automated ordering from suppliers, auctions, or supply base/catalogues and makes informed trade off decisions between various sources of supply (such as a supplier with inventory versus others for exception management based on percentage of ability to fulfill), all in real time and as a complement to the employee.