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Tuesday
Jul102007

The Future of Purchasing - 75 Years From Now

DateTuesday, July 10, 2007 at 09:48PM

There is a fun article at Supply Management titled How will procurement have changed by 2082? Some forecasts from futurologists and experts include:

  • Almost all procurement in that time frame will be done by machines, from machines, and mostly for machines. But many of those will be artificial intelligence.
  • According to Professor Lamming, purchasers will be replaced by improved technology and a new breed of "deal shapers" - young, independent agents who control access to market and supplier information.
  • By 2082 there will be new business models based around closely connected networks of companies competing against other networks. Purchasing as a function will not exist. Instead, collaborative inter-organizational teams will plan across the network to optimize total end-to-end cost.

Replacing purchasing with machines should be a good challenge for the likes of SAP, IBM and Ariba.  I like the "deal shaper" idea... but what happens when the "deal shaper" leaves? I guess you'll need to make a call to the "deal fixer" or the "kaizen shaper". The last point about closely connected networks of suppliers - I thought the likes of Toyota and others were already doing this.

Purchasing Blogs made some of our own predictions in a post titled Procurement Predictions for 2007 and Beyond.

AuthorDaveM | Comment4 Comments |

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Reader Comments (4)

Interesting article… I don’t know about the machine takeover. It sounds a bit like an Arnold movie… But Commerce Networks are forming and evolving rapidly. In some cases like those initiated some time ago to take cost out of non-competitive processes by collaborating with others (perhaps even competitors as in the auto makers example), but also in other ways as buyers continue to demand more efficiency and the supply-side “joins” so they don’t miss out on opportunity. These Networks are forming because they allow for the buyer to streamline their purchasing and reduce costs, enable suppliers to partner with capable sellers while better servicing their customers, help providers to find their niche and fine tune their processes, etc. All of these things are becoming increasingly possible to do concurrently, and therefore fueling the evolution of Commerce Networks. Early versions of “deal shapers” are already forming to facilitate and enable the creation of networks. We’ve seen this dynamic within our community of connected users of buyers, sellers and suppliers (Four51). As the mass of commerce has grown (approx. $1b), new members are joining more rapidly (1 every 30 seconds) and asking us, or those already on our Network, to help them “leverage” the Network. Perhaps in the future anyone, no matter who they are in the supply chain, will have their pick of “deal shapers” to help navigate the choices and benefits available via a given network or group of networks.
July 19, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterGary Nemcek
You have done it once more! Amazing read.
May 26, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterLeona Layton
Wow I am literally the first reply to this great article!
May 29, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterVicente Grimm
If only more than 44 people could read about this!
May 31, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterEmilia Dennis

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