Procurement 2023: BIG Trends and Predictions is an annual report published each January by Ardent Partners.

Each year, Ardent Partners identifies the “BIG trends” that emerge from its recent research that we believe will impact procurement that year. Ardent also makes a series of predictions based upon those trends that are intended to help Chief Procurement Officers, sourcing executives, category managers, and other procurement staffers focus on the important issues facing the profession in the year ahead. These findings culminate in our Procurement 2023: BIG trends and Predictions report. Today we share some of our thoughts on technology.

Technology’s Impact in 2023

BIG Trend: Technology IS Procurement’s Foundation

Major technological change does not simply pervade the modern world, it has come to define it. Today’s blistering pace of innovation makes it difficult to predict how citizens and businesses will communicate, collaborate, and transact twenty years from now, much less the tools that they will use to do so. The advances of the procurement profession and the rise of the CPO are among the most notable business achievements in the first two decades of the 21st Century. And, technology has been one of, if not the, primary enabler of this accomplishment. The successful users of procurement solutions prove year-in and year-out the value that technology can play in helping scale a procurement operation and maximize its impact and performance. After a long period of doubt and frustration, technology has finally become the Best-in-Class CPO’s cornerstone.

Prediction: The Pursuit of Digital Intelligence Becomes the CPO’s Imperative

As the levels of automation usage expand within a procurement department, CPOs around the globe have an extraordinary opportunity to capitalize on it. Smart CPOs know that they must develop and expand their organization’s intellectual capacity and invest in ways to fully leverage it across the entire scope of operations. But their new focus in 2023 (and rest of the 2020s) will be on “digital intelligence,” a major dividend of a digital transformation. For example, using intelligent systems to automatically build supplier contracts that are tailored to optimize compliance and mitigate business risk or processing third-party data to develop more predictive risk models. Step one is to automate. Step two is to drive efficiencies and manage smarter. Step three is to become an intelligent, data-driven operation. The endgame of a digital transformation is digital intelligence. This has become the CPO’s imperative.

Prediction: AI will be “Time Magazine’s Person of the Year”

In 1982, the “Computer” was the Time Magazine “Man of the Year.” Our final procurement prediction is that AI will be named Time’s “Person of the Year.” Artificial intelligence is in the advanced data engines that enable users to consume Big Data for procurement and uncover hidden sourcing and procurement opportunities, risks and challenges. Long over-hyped, the technology is gradually starting to make procurement practitioners smarter, more agile, and more valuable. While it may not seem possible, AI will gain even more attention and traction this year.

RELATED RESEARCH

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ePayables Technology Adoption in 2022

Procurement Experts on CPO Rising (Deploying Technology During a Pandemic)

Tagged in: Artificial Intelligence, BIG Trends, Chief Procurement Officer, CPO, Digital Transformation, Predictions, Procurement, Technology