Merlin AI Platform: 3 Things You Should Know Right Now!

By 2022, 50% of all legacy spend analysis software will be retired; replaced by Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered, cloud-based solutions.

While spend analysis is just an example, AI, at its core, is automation and augmentation: it will improve many of the core business processes of Procurement. AI will reduce costs and streamline processes.

A clear roadmap of how to move and exploit the AI opportunity needs to be laid out by organizations, and early movers have already started to identify the key areas with the most potential for AI in procurement. This exercise is critical to gain a competitive edge and will provide a clear view of what the future looks like.

As the Procurement industry talks about AI in general and Merlin in particular, here is a 3 point list of what Merlin is about:

Zycus Merlin A.I. Platform is ready-to-use BOT platform for procurement and finance to leverage cutting edge A.I. technology by using BOTs to perform, routine, mundane, or data-intensive tasks. Our Merlin BOTs ensure gains across strategic and operational procurement and AP processes and source systems, thereby unlocking long term strategic advantages of FTE reduction, smart suggestions, improved turnaround time, enhanced quality, and job role improvement.

The comprehensive Zycus Merlin A.I. platform leaps towards the future of procurement and AP departments through multiple smart BOTs for the entire spectrum of the Procurement and Accounts Payable domain. Starting from requisition automation and unified search experience for catalogs, Merlin also enables complete automation of the invoicing process through inbound email automation and accurate invoice extraction.

It also adds value through effective risk management by detecting duplicate and fraudulent invoices. Our Merlin A.I. platform boasts of its presence in the strategic Source-to-Pay suite with BOTs that can reduce time spent on data entry and identify risks during the contracting phase.

According to Gartner, “Seventy-five percent of application software vendor CEOs who participated in Gartner’s Tech and Service Provider CEO Survey indicated the intent to incorporate AI into their products by 2020”.

Now sample this, in 2002, Zycus introduced AutoClass, which is our AI-based patented classification mechanism. After the success of AutoClass and General Electric as one of the first customers, we started focussing on the Source-to-Pay solution suite. With our focus on product excellence, Zycus has been recognized by leading analysts like Gartner and Forrester. Zycus is recognized as a Leader for the 4th time in a row in Gartner’s 2018 Magic Quadrant for Strategic Sourcing Application Suites .

The Magic Quadrant measures solution providers on two axes: the ability to execute and completeness of vision. Zycus believes that this recognition is a testament to the success of a customer-centric approach that is the cornerstone of Zycus’ values.

With 19+ years of AI experience, Zycus has launched Merlin, ensuring high process accuracy. Zycus takes AI beyond RPA and chatbots. We are talking about intelligence beyond automation ensuring higher accuracy leveraging new-age innovations, and the accuracy improves with real-time feedback.

It has a single platform advantage to ensure smooth processing of invoices. Although most companies claim that acquisitions will help them maximize customer value, such claims may not be accurate. Strategic technology questions that two merging organizations should ask are often not given importance or completely ignored. This exposes customers to multiple risks like:

• The previous customer commits, and product development expectations are often not adhered to
• Product innovations may be unavailable to customers who have not migrated into the new platform
• Extensive configuration requirements shall drain internal resources
• Integration models may not be foolproof

The advantages of Zycus’ organically grown solution suite include:

Zycus team leverages global knowledge and client’s invoices to provide in-house training. Automated continuous training for A.I bots improves accuracy every day. A.I. platform improves both universal knowledge and account level accuracy with an increase in input data.