The Future of Procurement: Cognitive Technologies – Get Ahead of the Competition with 6 Key Projects

Cognitive computing – technologies that can learn and reason – are being applied with increasing frequency by leading Fortune 1000 and Global 2000 companies. IDC, the highly respected technology research firm, estimates that by 2020, 50 percent of all business analytics software will incorporate cognitive computing functionality.[1] It promises a dramatic shift in technology's role in the business. Cognitive technologies go past automation and analytics – providing a solution that can actually understand, learn, and think through any objective, process, problem, or question you present. Having worked in the procurement profession for years, it's clear to me that cognitive technologies will change how procurement operates and disrupt industries, just like major technological innovations that have come before (e.g., e-sourcing, the Internet, cloud-based solutions).