Procurement & supply chain issues are at the forefront of providing savings. Futurology is an imprecise science. Predictions experts have made about what the world would look like in 2020 include us being served by super intelligent specially bred apes capable of performing household tasks, & helicopters would be as common as cars.
We are all busy working through Procurement strategies, Category Management, Outsourcing, Total Cost of Ownership …When all of this is complete and every permutation has been looked at, what will the procurement fraternity look at next?
Procurement Strategies for the Future
In China today, people are being served in a restaurant by robots. Can the same not take place in procurement? Oh, but the Category strategy has not been looked at…
Technology will play an important role in procurement and procurement strategy. Communications will take place via satellites & robots. There will be more leisure time. Only those with high skill set will survive. You will need to be a skilled negotiator, IT expert, an engineer etc. Like a robot.
Tomorrow’s supply chains need to put environmental impact front and centre
“My natural inclination is to suggest we are headed for the apocalypse,” says Dr Elouise Epstein, a digital futurist, vice president at AT Kearney and co-author of a series on the future of procurement. “Tomorrow’s supply chains need to put environmental impact front and centre. Consumers are increasingly demanding it and governments will too. Despite propaganda, most people can see global climate change is real. And most corporate responsibility programmes are a joke.”
Supply chains will be both global & local. Increased globalisation of supply chains will occur. Leaders at local & national level will have the power to set trade agreements that deliver low on carbon & other regional political agendas.
Predictions become trickier with impact of technology
The goal here is to identify the right kind of “fourth industrial revolution” technologies that will converge to create genuinely smart supply chain ecosystems that can self-optimise, freeing procurement professionals for a whole range of value-added tasks.
By 2050, legal work, medical diagnostics surgery could be undertaken by robotic process automation.
One writer had it correctly predicted that we’d be shopping by picture phones by 2020. AI will have a big part in shopping including AI-enabled shop assistants. Beyond 2050, fusion reactors could start generating electricity.
The Future of Procurement Consultancy with Santé Group
As a Procurement & Supply Chain Consulting Firm, Santé are here to deliver agile sourcing & supply chains across multiple sectors worldwide. Procurement events we’ve hosted, insights we’ve gathered & research we’ve conducted over the past 12 months has helped us collaborate on the changing priorities and focuses on procurement, and we’ve decided to look more closely at some key themes driving this change.
Talk to us today about Procurement Consultancy and how we can help your organisation.
