Keith Hausmann, Chief Revenue Officer, Globality, explains how the AI revolution is transforming the way companies source complex categories – typically services, delivering faster, better decisions; more autonomy for stakeholders; and greater opportunities for procurement professionals to drive innovation. With the huge volatility seen in today's business environment – and in the world more generally – global enterprise companies are facing unprecedented challenges. They need to increase their adaptability and resilience to withstand future economic shocks, all while keeping costs down and driving innovation in order to remain competitive. To succeed in these demanding conditions, many businesses are turning to AI (artificial intelligence) and automation in order to find ways to improve decision-making, accelerate routine processes, and free up their people to focus on driving more strategic problem-solving and growth-related activities. Given AI's seemingly limitless potential, no wonder that it's being increasingly used by procurement functions.

Among the many trends happening in procurement today, artificial intelligence and machine learning are two of the biggest topics. A recent industry conference, Bid Ops' Optimal AI event, brought professionals together to discuss the often confusing, but definitely complementary, role that AI can play in a procurement process. Bid Ops combines sourcing and artificial intelligence under one umbrella solution. By inviting hundreds of thought leaders, professionals and executives to attend the daylong virtual conference, event attendees learned about AI, sourcing and how digital transformation is taking hold in procurement today. On the other hand, there's strong data showing that AI is being rapidly adopted across the procurement industry," Edmund Zagorin, Founder and CEO of Bid Ops, said in an email to Spend Matters. "So it's confusing for a lot of procurement professionals -- is AI a meaningless buzzword or is it critical for businesses to'do more with less' and manage volatility and change?

Founder and CEO of PurchaseControl, with decades of international experience in Procurement, Spend Management, and Technology. Often, discussions concerning digital transformation in modern enterprise focus primarily on virtual tools driven by artificial intelligence -- e.g., robotic process automation, data digitization and analytics, machine learning, etc. However, in considering the ways in which procurement professionals can build value and create savings for their organizations through digital transformation, we must also consider the technologies connecting that transformation to the physical world via Industry 4.0. The idea of Industry 4.0 comes from the broader notion of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). Building upon its predecessors, 4IR introduced new technologies -- automation, digitalization, artificial intelligence, cloud computing -- that fundamentally transformed work, life and play for billions of people.

In 2017 Gartner predicted that artificial intelligence (AI) would benefit procurement and sourcing technology. That moment has arrived, according to Mike Quindazzi, managing director at PriceWaterhouseCoopers and top financial-tech influencer. "We're now in the golden age of AI, where advancements come from voluminous sets of data, new algorithms being created, computing power and the ability to do this in the cloud at scale," said Quindazzi. Procurement data has exploded because procurement has evolved into something called "intelligent spend management," which oversees all corporate purchasing processes including direct and indirect purchases, travel and external labor. Quindazzi cautions that while AI has many use cases in procurement, such as rating vendors, "there will always be a human at the end of AI processes, so there needs to be a sense of accountability."

Early in 2017, when IBM announced a partnership with SAP Ariba to build the future of procurement, it was an exciting moment for all involved. In addition to marking the latest chapter in a partnership stretching back more than 40 years, it also represented a new opportunity to drive tremendous value for our clients. By working with a strong partner that has a wide portfolio of procurement solutions, we aimed to redefine what's possible in procurement. And help our customers accomplish more than they possibly could have before. At IBM, we believe that procurement should play a leading role in shaping overall corporate strategy.