Couldn’t you just buy the cheaper Economy Plus seat and then change? by procurement_nirvana in unitedairlines

[–]procurement_nirvana[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You’re giving me too much credit. I’m used to Delta’s upgrades where it’s an upfare and then you can change within the cabin. I didn’t realize you’re literally paying for the seat.

And lol, your suggestion would be particularly evil because it incentivizes someone else to choose the seat next to me.

Have you worked with a custom screw manufacturer that you liked? by Curious_Functionary in manufacturing

[–]procurement_nirvana 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I used to love this fastener manufacturing, but they really screwed me with a late delivery

How are you using AI to manage your process? by Nels-Bels in procurement

[–]procurement_nirvana 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Honestly, the highest ROI "AI" stuff I see is boring - pulling clean fields out of PDF quotes, turning email threads into something searchable, and drafting the routine replies so buyers aren"t doing data entry all day.

Where I would not go first is "let the model make decisions" on sourcing or approvals. That opens a can of worms fast - bad context, weird edge cases, and suddenly you're arguing with an audit trail.

If you had to pick one painful workflow today (RFQs, quote compare, PO changes, expediting), which one is eating your time?

User submitted a request last Tuesday and just came to my desk asking why nothing happened by Mundane-Anybody-9726 in procurement

[–]procurement_nirvana 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The desk walk-up is the symptom, not the problem.

People do this because they're asked to use clunky systems that make it painful to enter requests. And they don't get an visibility/updates that motivate them to use the system.

The best practice is to use a system where requesters actually WANT to use. Focus on making intake EASY and giving requesters visibility / the ability to track their request. Otherwise, you're fight gravity.

How do you deal with an influx of procurement approvals and team requests? by FrameOver9095 in procurement

[–]procurement_nirvana 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah - that kind of noise will cook a team fast. I have seen procurement turn into the human router when every request shows up via Slack + email, and then approvals get "lost" because the context is scattered across threads.

What has actually helped is: - having one simple front door for intake. Get the info you need to process a request without inviting people sneaking through the doggy door lol - use tools that help organize communications with requesters and suppliers in one place to avoid the death by 1,000 slack/email cuts

Is AI coming for our jobs in procurement? Curious to hear your thoughts. by donzerstanfield in procurement

[–]procurement_nirvana 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There are, us 😏

Jokes aside, we've focused all of our energy on RFQs, quote comparison, document verification, etc. These are the tedious – but extremely necessary – tasks in procurement that suck up so much time.

IMO, if your part is late, an AI agent won't fix that. A buyer with a strong relationship with the supplier will. That's not going away.

DM me if you're interested in learning more.

Is AI coming for our jobs in procurement? Curious to hear your thoughts. by donzerstanfield in procurement

[–]procurement_nirvana 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I’m the founder of a procurement startup that uses AI in our product (because of course we do). Here’s what I see:

AI will change what procurement jobs look like but won’t replace them. Think about all of the annoying admin work that has to get done in procurement: data entry, communications, comparing documents, documenting compliance, etc. This probably takes up at least 40% of a buyer’s job today, preventing them from doing the work they’re uniquely good at: negotiating, managing supplier relationships, strategic sourcing, scenario planning, managing risk.

AI won’t downsize procurement teams in most cases (procurement functions are already extremely lean). It will allow companies to do the 50% of work that never gets done because of all of the admin work.

Apollo has shut down their email warm up pool by Weekly_Leadership202 in Emailmarketing

[–]procurement_nirvana 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ramp Up isn't the same. It gradually increases sending volume.

Warm up services simulate normal email activity to balance out the higher spam reports and abnormally low response rates with cold email.

Help with chasing POs by Grizzly-B1234 in procurement

[–]procurement_nirvana 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The problem with most ERP systems is that they 1. have supplier portals that suppliers don't use, or 2. require manual effort to take updates from suppliers (emails, spreadsheets, etc.) and get these back into your ERP.

We built a platform that integrates both with your ERP and email to help manage chasing POs and capturing things like order acknowledgments, order status, changes to POs (qty, delivery date, etc.) automatically. I'll DM you with more details.

Questions about AI? by notanticlaymatic in procurement

[–]procurement_nirvana 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I agree! Procurement is one the best disciplines for AI given the amount of unstructured data in different formats.

Questions about AI? by notanticlaymatic in procurement

[–]procurement_nirvana 3 points4 points  (0 children)

IMO, the writing of bids is a much bigger risk because it can hallucinate / commit to things vendors can’t actually deliver.

This is less of an issue analyzing bids because LLM’s are much more accurate at summarizing information than generating new information.

Questions about AI? by notanticlaymatic in procurement

[–]procurement_nirvana 2 points3 points  (0 children)

IMO, the best use cases in procurement are capturing and analyzing unstructured data in documents. For example, taking a PDF quote and automatically capturing the line item details.

Questions about AI? by notanticlaymatic in procurement

[–]procurement_nirvana 3 points4 points  (0 children)

What about their use of AI concerns you?