Monthly Top 5 - November 2024

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Hi Readers,

This month’s Top 5 is about one main thing…

Can we please stop saying “AI” when we mean “Generative AI”?

Generative AI (like what powers Chat GPT) is but a subset of AI which has gotten too popular for its own good in the past little while…

Artificial Intelligence is a very wide field which spans a range of applications, from simple automation to complex systems like generative models and autonomous vehicles.

We’ve got to stop using the 2 as synonyms… It’s just confusing.

You’ll see what I mean through the articles I selected for this month’s top 5.

Onwards!

Every month, I comb through 1000+ articles across 40+ sources to bring you the best free procurement articles published that month.

I sort through the noise so you don’t have to.

📰 In this week’s edition:

• 📄 2024 Procurement Tech Trends Report (sponsored)

• 🏆 The Road to the ProcureTech Cup: Episode 25-15

• 🔝 November 2024 Top 5

  • No. 1 - “AI” and “Gen AI” Are Not The Same Thing…

  • No. 2 - A Counter Gen AI Example to Prove the Point

  • No. 3 - Are Your Demonstrating the Value of SRM to Your Business?

  • No. 4 - How to Negotiate Without Leverage

  • No. 5 - Are Trade War Looming? What Should You Do About It?

• 🎁 Get access to my links database

Let’s dive in!

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🏆 Road to the ProcureTech Cup

The Journey Continues…

Join me this Friday, December 13^th at 12pm ET as Keelvar comes on show to demo their Sourcing Platform.

Keelvar is helping businesses drive better sourcing outcomes for strategic, tactical and tail spend.

I hope you’ll join in on the fun:

Last Week’s Episode

SaaS Rooms was on the show last Friday to demo their impressive SaaS Spend Optimization platform.

If you missed it, I’ve made ALL the replays available for you on YouTube:

What is the ProcureTech Cup? Start Here.

No. 1 🥇

“AI” and “Gen AI” Are Not The Same Thing…

I’ve been seeing lots of “AI is going to take over 100% of procurement” posts recently…

“You’re going to chat your way out of every problem…”

My beef? Even if this view is right (which it isn’t), it’s too generic a phrase to really mean anything… There are dozens of subfields of artificial intelligence… And, Generative AI (what powers your Chat GPT experience) is only a tiny sliver of the artificial intelligence field (and is only good for specific use cases).

It’s like standing in 2001 and saying “the internet will solve all business problems and replace 80% of your workers…” It’s a useless conversation unless we break it down into the different technologies leveraging the internet (or AI) and their practical use cases…

Lora adds fuel to this argument with her article this month.

Step Past AI Hype: Drive Real Value
by Lora Cecera at Supply Chain Shaman

No. 2 🥈

A Counter Gen AI Example to Prove the Point

In this article, Lior does a great job of illustrating the potential of Generative “AI Agents” in procurement to positively impact your business (which is why this article is worth reading).

However, throughout the article, he uses “Generative AI” and “AI” as synonyms. I see this conflation of terms often in our “Procurement AI discourse.” (I’ve probably done it myself! 😅)

My resolution in 2025… Grow my knowledge on the useful subfields of AI for procurement and adapt my language to consequently be clear and precise.

I hope you’ll join me!

Friend Not foe: How to Use AI to Become a Sourcing Superhero
by Lior Delgo at Procurement and Supply Australasia (PASA)

No. 3 🥉

Are Your Demonstrating the Value of SRM to Your Business?

As someone who creates content, I always look forward to the yearly SRM State of Flux report simply because its always so beautiful 😅

But I also enjoy it because it drives some solid points home with data. One of my big takeaways from the report:

People, processes and technology all need to be pulling in the same direction to achieve objectives but also to demonstrate how this was achieved with cold, hard data in order to justify additional investments (and impact).

It’s all well and good to do something valuable but you need to be able to prove it.

2024 Global SRM Research - Return on Relationships
by State of Flux

No. 4 🏅

How to Negotiate Without Leverage

This is another article which highlights, just like in the SRM report, that managing perceptions is just as important as delivering the goods!

I thought Tom’s 7 tips on how to “flip the script” on negotiations where you feel powerless was highly actionnable… The main takeaway: you always have some sort of power…

It’s all a question of perspective and communication.

How to Negotiate Without Leverage
by Tom Mills at ProcureBites

No. 5 🎖

Are Trade War Looming? What Should You Do About It?

Since the US election, tariffs have been on everyone’s lips in North American procurement.

I saw a poll on LinkedIn this month where over 50% of respondents said their North American tariff strategy was to “wait and see what happens.”

I was shocked…

At the very least, you should be scenario modeling and creating action plans for various scenarios… This article gives you some pointers on that front :)

How Tariffs and Trade Policy Shifts Impact Procurement and Supply Chains
by Vishal Patel at Ivalua

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