The future of procurement is data first with AI

Officials from Unilever, Siemens Energy and Scoutbee discussed using big data to solve supply chain challenges and create new opportunities at Digital Procurement World.

Procurement teams are challenged with the exponential increase of data everywhere and bringing it all together to leverage it and make the right decisions, according to panelists speaking at Digital Procurement World in Amsterdam on Thursday.

Getting data out of the supply chain and figuring out how to transfer it to a buyer so they can do something tangible with it is a challenge — especially when you have 56,000 suppliers, said panelist Alexandra Tarmo, head of partnerships and social procurement at Unilever.

The current technology ecosystem is not prepared to handle all...