Intake and Orchestration – It’s a combination of people and tech

Intake management and orchestration solutions are the newest procurement tools on the market. Some vendors offer both intake and orchestration, as they are both heavily rooted in automated workflows, while others specialize in one.

As described by our analysts:

Intake management is not just about the actual request itself but ensuring that the request flows smoothly along its workflows, from department to department and (when applicable) technology to technology. Intake can support payments, sourcing, supplier onboarding, contracts and other use cases. Intake solutions give users a single point of entry as well as more visibility into what happens with requests and when.

Orchestration brings visibility to the end-to-end business processes across applications (but does not attempt to replace those applications). Orchestration sits above and across other applications and focuses on automating the coordination and management of disparate systems, services or workflows.

But how do the people running day-to-day procurement operations perceive this relatively new technology? Do they understand what it does and how it impacts their business? We’ve spoken to procurement professionals about their understanding and opinions of intake and orchestration.

Mathew Schulz, founder of matchat, a procurement accelerator for next-generation practitioners looking to advance their careers, former VP, Procurement Strategy at Airbase, and former Head of Global Procurement at Forrester, shared his opinion.

Why do we need ‘Intake and Orchestration’ for procurement?

“Intake and orchestration exists because, for too long, organizations and practitioners have been using legacy tools that were hindering, not helping, their cause. They were often fumbling through spreadsheets, shared folders, and using email as an approval mechanism when trying to kick off buying requests. It’s added complexity made for a rather manual, and difficult, process. Enter, intake and orchestration. Tech providers jumped in and created user friendly workflow solutions that gave stakeholders a modern interface, which resembles more of the tools they use in their daily life.”

But has the message reached the practitioner?

“In my experience, practitioners are still looking for assistance and understanding. Given the newness and fast movement of the market, it’s important to understand and define the space. So I think Spend Matters exploring Intake/Orchestration on behalf of practitioners is a good thing.

“Practitioners, including CPOs, often default to historical definitions and approaches to procurement — think PO creation, payments, expense and spend management. Fundamentally, however, how business gets done is changing. We’re seeing a movement towards strategic procurement. A more proactive approach. We are using modern technology like intake and orchestration to simplify the complexity.

“And from the conversations I’ve heard at conferences and other events, it’s becoming clear that intake is gaining momentum and that people are interested. They see the new technology as a place where they can aggregate disparate buying needs and teams together (legal, infosec, finance, etc.).”

As both a practitioner who has used these tools and someone who has been involved in building them, Mat sees their value for people who don’t want to have to think about the process but simply want to get the job done, because these tools completely route the request from start to finish.

Intake and orchestration tools – why bother?

While Mat is clearly passionate about intake and orchestration, the big question for procurement leaders is: how do I convey their value to the business and why should they care?

“It’s difficult to make the business case because these tools are so new,” he says, “and intake/orchestration is still a little misunderstood. This is especially true in a large enterprise that often has larger, legacy tools in place; for them it’s just adding a new layer of complexity — ‘another tool’.”

So, some education is needed.

Mat’s experience in starting up procurement functions from scratch, as he did at Forrester, taught him that in order to make the case for a new solution or service means selling it to your stakeholders. “I knew I needed to be the best marketer and salesperson I could be,” he says. “I almost stopped doing procurement and focused on selling its value to the organization.”

He also shared with them how these new solutions can create ease not just for the end user but the organization. “I explained how a universal intake form, linked to a front door, helps with requests by providing both a singular place for the rest of the journey – approvals from legal, infosec, etc. — and a unified source of truth that fit into an existing tech stack.”

“The stakeholders really like that all the information they need, including documentation or artifacts, are in one place. By automating more processes, it makes it easier for them to work with us.

“So, at the end of the day, it’s a combination of people plus technology. Selling it to the organization in a way such that they understand both how it impacts their needs while enhancing that of the business. It’s a change management exercise.”

What will this tech look like tomorrow?

Solution providers have come to realize that the meaning of intake is wider than originally thought. And this is where vendors, like Airbase, Zip, Opstream, ORO Labs, Levelpath, are differentiating themselves by orchestrating the whole process.

“There’s an opportunity in the market to combine intake with other tools and features,” he says, “especially those that aggregate data and information, like vendor management systems, contract repositories and databases, because having all that information in once place makes it even more powerful.

“My teams were always focused on being as proactive as possible. We’d get in front of the organization constantly to educate and communicate the value and benefits of procurement. As a result, buy-in increased. Combining that approach with intake/orchestration tools meant we were leaner and more productive.

“And then, think about adding in AI to that system. Now you have agents guiding employees and prepopulating data and information, acting as a virtual assistant. It makes things even easier and less prone to error. Incredibly intuitive. So it’s hard to imagine companies not adopting this in the near future as models and tools get better.

“My advice to practitioners and organizations is to understand how tools like intake and orchestration fit within your current ecosystem. Choose the solution that fits your needs, whether you’re a small business, mid-market or enterprise, there’s something for you. Get educated.

“Procurement has never before had so much visibility and exposure. It has been called upon during the Covid pandemic to manage supply chain disruptions and again during macroeconomic challenges to manage savings and market surveillance. Now is the time.

“And if you are looking for more information, people like Spend Matters can help you make sense of these tools, rather than ignore them.”