WATCH: Ivalua and PwC Navigate the Future of Procurement

Thanks to the challenges being posed by countless economic, geopolitical and environmental crises, procurement has become a more strategic function than ever before. 

Procurement departments are having to juggle an increasingly long list of priorities, with digital transformation, strategic sourcing, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and overall performance just some of those to feature prominently. 

What’s more, the urgent need for transparency and compliance is driving digital solution adoption at a rapid pace.

As organisations plot their roadmaps for the next few years, ambitious digitalisation targets are being set. According to PwC’s Global Digital Procurement Survey for 2024, procurement teams representing businesses based around the world are aiming for 70% digitalisation by 2027. 

The question procurement leaders must surely be asking is whether they are actually on track to achieve their digitalisation goals. 

During an insightful webinar hosted by Supply Chain Digital, Patric Olsson, Director and Procurement Lead at PwC Sweden, and Henrik Nyberg, Sales Director for the Nordic region at Ivalua, take a deep dive into the results of the Global Digital Procurement Survey and chart a course for navigating the future of procurement. 

You can register to view the session HERE!

Examining digitalisation in procurement

PwC’s fifth edition of the Global Digital Procurement Survey gathered the thoughts of senior leaders representing 1,000 procurement departments in 58 countries worldwide. 

Examining the current state of digitalisation in procurement, Olsson highlights that procurement performance, digital transformation and strategic sourcing remain priorities, with CSR tied in third place. 

“We also see that, in addition to traditional objectives of process optimisation and cost reduction, digital transformation is now also driven by a need for efficiency and transparency and compliance,” Olsson adds. 

“This is also a result of new compliance regulations being in place. We see especially increased interest in this in Europe.”

What’s more, Olsson reveals source-to-pay solutions have emerged as a must-have within procurement functions, with almost every company (94%) using either a source-to-contract (S2C) solution or purchase-to-pay (P2P) solution in place. 

Turning his attention to the future, Olsson notes that SMEs continue to increase investment in the digital transformation of the procurement function, as opposed to larger companies where investment is stabilising. 

Olsson continues: “In the area of CSR, managing environmental issues is the top priority for procurement departments for the next three years.”

Harnessing the power of GenAI

Nyberg uses a section of the webinar to advocate the use of generative AI (GenAI) within the procurement department. 

“One of the key success factors when using GenAI in procurement processes is that it is contextualised and the AI knows what it’s doing,” he says. “If I ask it about contracts, it should know what a contract is and where it can find data about contracts.”

He does, however, highlight the need for authorisation control to be maintained in a bid to prevent sensitive data from being leaked. 

“Theoretically, it’s very easy for AI to get all sorts of data from all sorts of systems, but not everything should be seen by everyone,” Nyberg goes on.

“So, when we give AI access to system information, we still need to apply normal authorisation controls so we don’t have data leaks.”

For more procurement insight and expertise from Ivalua and PwC, simply register here to watch the webinar in full.

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