Is this start of a new trend in Procurement Digitization?

I have received 40+ requests in 1 day for a demo in testing for Supernegotiate's esourcing suite, which is :

- Free to use
- On-Prem (You heard this right. It is not on the public cloud).
- Basic eSourcing that just works
- Go-live in 5 mins
- Best in class Negotiation Module

But that's not the purpose of this post. As part of my ongoing experimentation with GenAI in Procurement, a few things have become extremely clear to me.

1.) GenAI/LLMs capability for core Procurement applications, i.e., Spend Analysis, Negotiations, Contract Management, and Supplier Management, is still immature. Recently, I shared my experience in building GenAi/LLM-driven spend analysis solution. It didn't go well. I will write another post to explain Contract Management.

So, buying an off-the-shelf solution that is GenAI /LLM is a waste of time currently. It is inauthentic. Hallucination is a big concern, and at least I am unwilling to accept an incorrect data analysis in Procurement!

2.) The procurement consulting industry is going through a transformation right now. Getting a pure Procurement transformation project is getting tough. A lot of inefficiencies in complicated implementations and expensive solutions are making things even more difficult.

I think Procurement consulting firms will now (and rightly so) build their own eSourcing and Other Procurement Tech platforms. This should enable them to expand their offering within the procurement organization. Expect a lot of action within this industry during 2025/26. Big firms are already scouting acquisition opportunities in the Procurement Tech stack. It is even true for boutique consulting firms.

As a CPO, if you have a sizeable business consulting spend, I think you should proactively ask your consulting firm to offer eSourcing/Procurement Tech stacks already.

3.) Your current incumbent vendor, if it is > 5 years old, is a blocker to your procurement innovation. It gets worse if you have been working with one for 10 years. Your legacy vendors are playing a catchup game, often postponing your critical requirements into promises of future updates but rolling up unnecessary and easy-to-implement LLM/Genai text generation features. These are mere disguises as they scramble internally to roll out anything meaningful.

Your legacy vendor is still 2 years out to meaningfully offer anything relevant (Negotiation or a better eSourcing experience)

4.) But there is one area where GenAI shines. It is now possible to quickly build your own basic version of Procurement apps in less than 1 month.

Having built 30+ Procurement apps (as a hobbyist), I find Procurement apps simple. Whether it is building agents, spend analysis solutions, or an esourcing system, the code assistants from LLMs are extremely useful. With proper discipline and a little bit of knowledge, any category manager can turn his/her domain experience into fully functional platforms that require little maintenance.

This changes everything! Thoughts?