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Digitalization and beyondThe future of procurement in the age of artificial intelligenceNovember 201810100 0 010111 010 111 0000 1100 01Contents1. Continental drift: . 4How digitalization is changing the procurement landscape2. Riders on the storm: . 5Procurement as a driving force of AI3. The triple impact: . 6Leveraging artificial intelligence4. In the endgame: . 9Building the AI-driven organizationThe future of procurement in the age of artificial intelligence Roland Berger Focus 3The disruptive developments that accompany digitali-zation mean that the question of how to strategically and operationally reinterpret the strategic role of pur-chasing needs to be asked. In the operational arena, the combined use of RPnullnullobotic process automationnulland null nullrtificial intelligencenullin particular can prove to be an important efficiency lever. That is because there is large potential for automation in highly integrated, complenulland globe-spanning value chains. nullftware ro -bots can perform particularly repetitive and standard-ized tasks nulluch as verifying invoicesnull which works by mimicking human interaction with user interfaces without needing any comprehensive architectural changes in IT. nullo create a new standard, it takes something thatnull not nullust a little bit different. It takes something thatnull really new and really captures peoplenull imagination.nullThese words from nullll nullates, initially related to the nullcintosh Pnull could serve as a summary of the serious challenges and fascinating opportunities that will accompany pur-chasing in the coming years. Procurement is in the midst of a process of disruptive transformation that will change its face forever and create a completely new corporate function, empowered, determined and shaped by tech-nology. In other words, procurement is living up to a rad-ically new standard. This process is mainly due to three parallel developments, which we call the procurement endgame. nullrst we have the comprehensive digitalization of purchasing and complete transparency of the value chains, from the raw material producer to the end cus-tomer. nullcond, as a result of this development, a pro -found automation of the manullrity of tactical, operational and even strategic procurement processes will take place. Intensive use of artificial intelligence and special-ized bots will affect a large part of classic operational purchasing, boost transactional efficiencies and reduce staffing levels. nulld finally, there is the commoditization of large parts of the purchasing processes and their real-location to specialized service providers, which is an un-avoidable consequence of automation.This means procurement will need to change. null -brace the technology to drive automation and efficiency on the one hand, and provide more insights and steer-ing in an increasingly complenullvalue chain on the other. nullt this task cannot be resolved using the same meth -ods and tools that have worked so far. Radically new challenges require radically new solutions. These are the things that have to change.1. Continental drift: How digitalization is changing the procurement landscape 2. Riders on the storm: Procurement as a driving force of AIIn Roland nullrgernull survey of null nullnull of nullobal nullortune nullnullcompanies, nullnull of the nullnull ranked null as one of their top nullpriorities for the nenull null years. The nullecutive nullice President null nullhief Procurement nullfficer of Philips nulllectronics, nulledrick nullpalcke, summarized the key ra -tionale for null as followsnullnullhe nullnullis the nullnull of spendnull and needs to think end-to-end, from the consumers to the suppliers. nullI is the only way to manage this end-to-end, because it is overwhelming for individuals to man-age that amount of data without these tools.null nulllready clearly recognizable, the trend toward the automation of procurement operations will be further intensified with the use of artificial intelligence in con-siderably less standardized tasks. The consequences of 4 Roland Berger Focus The future of procurement in the age of artificial intelligence this development and of the outsourcing of entire pro-cess chains to enullternal service providers will be great leaps in efficiency. nullt there will also be a reduction in the need for human resources in the operational arena. The upshot of this is that procurement profession-als will gain the opportunity not only to strengthen the strategic role of their function, but to deal with purchas-ing on a new and merely strategic level. This calls for a paradigm shift that describes the position of purchas-ing in the companynull global network as a data enullert and the owner of data-enhanced strategic decision making. This initially surprising view can be nullustified very easily. Today, purchasing is the function with the most enullernal and internal interfaces. These include partners and a wide range of suppliers around the world, regulators and internal compliance, Rnull, fi -nance, production, logistics and, of course, customer management nullall of whom are connected to procure -RPA: Getting a quick fix to automate repetitive tasksA global company from a process industry was working in a consistent global ERP environment with limited customization of its specific processes. Communication with suppliers was in many cases based on emails and calls. As a result, the buyers had to frequently update orders manually due to changing raw material prices and delivery dates, resulting in repetitive, error-prone work and taking away time from much-needed strategic category work. The client opted for an RPA supplier with a very easy to use and learn interface, so no IT specialist or integrator was needed to set up the robot this could be done by a procurement employee. With only a few weeks of preparation and a handful of days of programming effort, a working pilot was presented. The tangible value convinced employees and management alike to roll out the tool globally. A Center of Excellence was established to ensure selected employees were trained on the tool across all regions and to install the required governance.ment via physical and digital transaction and commu-nication paths. The complenullty and diversity of this en -vironment, the large number of transactions and the large amount of data make purchasing a central player in the corporate transformation nulland a sovereign man -ager of the digital storm. The treasure trove of data gives procurement the opportunity to position itself within the organization as a provider of business in-sight and business foresight nullthus having a significant impact on the overall performance of the company. nullwever, better and more precise decisions, strong op -erational enullcellence, quality, compliance and cost re-duction are only fully possible if a holistic approach is followed. This means focusing on the entire process landscape of purchasing, leveraging the full spectrum of IT tools and enullecuting a mind shift in the procure-ment organization. nullr, in other words, defining the tri-ple impact as a strategic obnulltive. Case study 1CASE STUDY 1 The future of procurement in the age of artificial intelligence Roland Berger Focus 5nulltlef nullhultz, nullairman of the nullard of nullrectors at nullodafone Procurement nullompany, is in no doubt that nullhe traditional procurement function as it is today will not survive. nullnull need to decide if they want to deliver business insights and business foresights, or if they want to stay in the traditional camp.nullThe use of null and RPnullin purchasing can create value in many ways, name -ly at the level of the management processes, the core processes and the support processes. A1. HOLISTIC PERSPECTIVE ON PROCESSES The central prerequisite for success is a comprehensive view of all three process levels in procurement. Today, both the digitalization initiatives and the purchasing budgets typically focus on tactical, at best, operational processes. In the future, these areas, whose maturity level is already relatively high, will be outsourced as commodities to enullernal service providers. nullwever, the potential for efficiency and, above all, opportunities for differentiation from the competition are low here. null contrast, the use of high-performance null tools, which position strategic issues on the level of purchasing man-agement processes in a company-wide framework of business insight and business foresight, offers a signif-icant impact. null far, however, they are rarely the focus of nullnull and software providers.2. THE DIGITALIZATION GROWTH PATH The value-adding use of null in purchasing requires a sol -id technological foundation, which must first be created. nullre we envisage a multi-stage process that successively creates the necessary level of maturity. Ba. Initially, this means making the right data accessible across the entire procurement organization. The typi-cal problems, such as fragmented IT systems, data si-los or poor quality, can be mastered with modern tools and systems but the effort required for data integration must not be underestimated.b. In the nenull step, the focus will be on the basics of workflow automation, whereby a combination of nullloud-basednullnullP systems and state-of-the-art nullnull suites usually makes sense.c. null top of these standard applications, robotic pro -cess automation can be used to quickly automate re-petitive tasks without a lot of programming effort. nullate-of-the-art solutions come with central monitor -ing tools that allow a large number of robots to be orchestrated with little effort. d. nullce these foundations have been put in place, the platform is created on which truly cognitive artificial solutions can be used. In particular, it is about the interaction of big data and null to provide support for complenull, strategic issues. nullen without the use of null, the analysis of large amounts of data can add value null be it in forecasting processes, in issue predictions, in scenario development or in risk management. e. The combination of big data and artificial intelligence can result in more disruptive effects on purchasing. nullpecially in the areas of category insights and strate -gy, market research and category intelligence, con-tract analysis and information sense-making, there are pioneers who have proven the power of this new technology. The integration of null with nullnullopens up new horizons that can boost efficiency and perfor-mance in purchasing. Case study 23. AI-MINDED PROCUREMENTnullile many companies are launching pilots, they strug -gle to scale the solutions. The reason is simplenullThough the technology is becoming more and more accessible, the required process and the cultural change remains as hard as ever. The necessary change affects both the tech-nological and the organizational side. nullom a techno -logical perspective, it is important to avoid dangerous pitfalls. nullving overly high enullectations of null is fore -most among these. null in procurement can automate 3. The triple impact: Leveraging artificial intelligence6 Roland Berger Focus The future of procurement in the age of artificial intelligence Enterprise software & workflow automationRobotic process automationBig dataDigitalization/ data basisArtificial intelligenceSource: Roland BergerPotential of RPA/AI solution: High LowA: Procurement process landscapeTechnology impact varies along the value chainB: Five levels of process digitalizationHolistic approach neededManagement processSupport processProcurement strategySupplier risk managementPerformance management (KPI)Contract & catalogue managementSystems & tools managementOrganization & process developmentEmployee managementCore processSupplier managementTechnology & category strategyPurchase-to-pay (P2P)Source-to-contract (S2C)Project procurement12345The future of procurement in the age of artificial intelligence Roland Berger Focus 7ate value-creating results. nullt this doesnnull work on the strategic level. The pioneers in this area are relying on a completely different approach. They are adopting a fail-ing forward attitude, characterized by co-innovation with corporates, startups and technology providers. Im-plementing null on a strategic level goes hand in hand with blurring frontiers between consumers and provid-ers, technology specialists and business enullecutives, in-ternal and enullernal teams. nullreover the traditional wa -terfall thinking doesnnull worknullThe architecture has to be nulliquidnullto stay adaptable to the numerous changes that come with progress. The diversity and complenullty of the technological fundamentals, their unprecedented deep integration into the processual, structural and cultural substance of the organization and the lack of plug nullplay solutions, especially for the strategic process level, require a specif-ic approachnullan approach to building an null-driven or -ganization. and augment a wide range of work, but it cannot replace human employees when it comes to enullceptional, crea-tive or complenulltasks. nullother mistake lies in over-reli -ance on generalized use cases. nullcause the more ambi -tious the goal setting and the deeper the integration into the organization, the more individual solutions are necessary that take into account a multitude of factors that together result in the configuration of the company. nullosely related to this is the initiation of pronullcts. If the pure technology or product perspective predominates, success-critical factors nullcultural, political or organiza -tional nullare ignored. nullft factors can very quickly be -come hard showstoppers. nullccessful null pronullcts come with a completely new perspective on deployment. nullile classic nullnullsolu -tions and RPnullcan follow a nullraditionalnullimplementa -tion logic, this fails for leading-edge null applications. This doesnnullt mean that you cannull start an nullI-powered transformation with off-the-shelf solutions and gener-Leading-edge customization: Cognitive procurement platformA global services company with the bold vision of making procurement the main value chain orchestrator decided to develop cognitive category management capabilities by using AI for market research and information sense-making. This was done by linking inte
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