Is Procurement dead?
I recently saw a couple of articles and videos (some are below) that are announcing the death or Procurement. They were issued as part of the “Big Ideas Summit” organized by Procurious in May in London.
My first reaction was typical: denial!
Being someone who works in the Procurement world since a couple of years now, I could only disagree with people saying that Procurement would disappear…
Although I do not think that Procurement will disappear, the recent publications I mentioned above made me think about it…
But first, 2 videos announcing the end of Procurement…
Technology will kill Procurement.
J. Betts explains that recent advances in technology and forthcoming ones will “kill” Procurement because technology (he did not directly mention artificial intelligence, AI, but this is what it is about) will be able to analyze and decide alone without relying on someone from Procurement.
Procurement will “dissolve” itself.
In the 1st part of the video below, P. Smith explains that each and every function of a company now realizes how critical suppliers are in terms of value-add. Therefore, the tendency in the coming years will be for each function or department to “insource” Procurement to closely and directly manage suppliers.
Maybe a “perfect storm”, a combination of both…
As Peter Smith says in the 2nd part of the video above, we could see a “perfect storm” where the conjunction of dissolution of Procurement in all other functions AND the progress of technology will both contribute to “kill” procurement… as we know it today, as J. Betts concludes.
To be fair to P. Smith and J. Betts, I believe that they do not announce the end of Procurement but more the end of an era. Procurement will evolve into something new. And they are right. And this is applicable to many other functions too…
It is the end of
Procurement
as we know it!
In a recent publication, Accenture also predicts it:
“We foresee dramatic change in the procurement organization itself, as it evolves into a new structure featuring procurement professionals embedded within the business and uniquely connected back to a smaller, central, core decision-making team supported by advanced technology.”
Yes, as I wrote in other posts, we live in a disrupted world… and the Procurement function like any “entity” of this world must adapt to survive and has to potentially reinvent itself!
The wonderful and terrifying implications of computers that can learn
What will future jobs look like?
More information and links:
