AI in Supplier Management: Today (Part 2)

As we have been repeating throughout this PRO Spend Matters’ AI series, AI is the reigning buzzword of the day in sourcing and procurement software. Supplier management is no exception. Just about every vendor out there trying to get an edge in the space is claiming to have AI, even if all they have is a pinch of RPA. That's why, in Part 1, we reviewed the technology ladder from RPA to "cognitive" — and insisted that while there is no true artificial intelligence out there today, we will start to see “assisted intelligence” and, later, “augmented intelligence” as the software gets more mature and more powerful.

And while we may not see true AI for decades, we do need assisted and augmented intelligence to efficiently and effectively do our jobs. As with supplier discovery, sometimes there is just too much supplier data to weed through to on-board, qualify, track and manage suppliers in an efficient and effective manner. It's really hampering our productivity.

But the right platforms will change all that. As per Part 1, the best platforms of today will:

— speed up and simplify on-boarding for us and our suppliers with auto-fill from databases, networks and third-party information sources.
— offer basic community supplier intelligence to provide quick, differentiating insights between suppliers with similar profiles but greatly differentiated capabilities.
— provide real-time performance insight and alerts to issues that need, or may soon need, attention from a real person versus just automated follow-ups with a supplier.

This is great, but it is not all they can do. We really need platforms that can be all they can be in order to truly take supplier management to the next level as an organizational practice ... versus a point-based endeavor with suppliers that we think are strategic or need our help.

The best platforms on the market today can also help with:

— automated issue identification
— automated risk identification
— automated resource assignment

And we will discuss each of these required capabilities in the rest of this article.