8 topics I am willing to go all out to change in Procurement:

1) RFPs:

Out:

Fixed and signed the Scope of Work as a Prerequisite to start the sourcing process

In:

Give a problem statement to the Suppliers with expected outcomes, and let me propose solutions.

2) Evaluations:

Out:

Technical evaluations based on 50+ page documents submitted by each vendor.

In:

Live evaluations in collaborative workshops with vendors.

3) Award:

Out:

Based on Techno-Commercial scoring results

In:

Based on Proof of Concept demonstrations, Review of existing deployed solutions

4) Communication during the sourcing process:

Out:

Technical experts + Sales team as the only interface to Procurement & Technical team

In:

Technical experts + Operational team that will work with during deployment with the Buyer’s organization + Business team

5) Negotiations:

Out:

RFP by RFP approach (transaction hopping)

In:

Controlling the overall vendor share (Across the universe of your Org’s sourcing requirements)! Welcome - Demand Bundling.

6) 100% Manual Activities ready for disruption:

A) Supplier Registration and Due diligence:

Can be 80% automated (”unsupervised”). High accuracy levels are possible.

B) Scope of Work Quality Check:

Use “First Pass through AI” check to spot the Scope of Work quality as compared to the previous scope of work, spot any scope bias, missing features, and use AI to suggest missing elements by doing vendor research

C) Technical Evaluation:

Use the “First Pass through AI” check to auto-evaluate Supplier responses against the Scope of work. Since I am pushing for live workshops, I will use meeting transcriptions to feed into AI for scoring!

Let the vendors work on missing features as highlighted by AI in the first pass.

D) Commercial Evaluation:

Like above, use “First Pass through AI” to screen commercials (against market benchmarks and previous submissions) to identify cost increases, breakdowns, and benchmarks. Basically, which segment has how much cost reduction potential?

7) Negotiation:

Out:

Unprepared, Ad-hoc Vendor Negotiation sessions.

In:

Negotiation playbook (of course, automated) that builds out a

- Demand bundling opportunity,

- Early contract renewal opportunities

- Spend analysis patterns,

- Market research on cost model,

- AI first pass evaluations on bid submission (Technical and commercial)

- Performance management feedback

- Internal notes (teams/slack/email) about Supplier operational issues

- Most importantly, study RFP/RFQ/eRA behaviour, Win/Decline ratio, and then figure out expected price reductions (how many rounds does it take to extract x% discount)

Sum it all up to propose a tactical negotiation playbook (like Supernegotiate T-60 Negotiation playbook)

Let your agent prepare this in seconds for each supplier as part of Negotiation (note: I already built one, and it’s highly effective)

8) Supplier Performance Management:

Out:

On-time and In-full delivery measurements as the sole metric

In:

Joint Initiatives to boost your operating margin directly!