How Do I…? Why this three-word phrase is costing enterprises millions—and how AI-powered intake is finally solving it.
Over the past six months, we dove deep into 100s of call recordings with prospective clients. These weren’t just sales calls- they were therapy sessions where procurement leaders unpacked their challenges, priorities, and hopes for AI transformation.
Some insights confirmed what we suspected: enterprises aren’t just ready for AI – they’re demanding measurable ROI from day one. Others caught us completely off guard.
But one pattern emerged above all else. Not a metric. Not a feature request. Just a question that procurement teams hear constantly from their business users- asked a thousand different ways:
“How do I…?”
This deceptively simple phrase- flooding procurement inboxes daily- exposed the beating heart of procurement’s biggest problem. And it’s why intake has become the new battleground for enterprise transformation.
The Questions That Cost Millions
Every day, procurement teams at our prospective clients are bombarded with the same questions from their business users:
“How do I raise a PO?”
“How do I buy software?”
“How do I initiate a contract review?”
“How do I even work with Procurement?”
These aren’t innocent questions. They’re symptoms of:
- Process fatigue among business users
- Enterprise complexity gone wrong
- Intake systems that fundamentally fail the people who need them most
The End User’s Daily Nightmare
Picture this: You’re a finance analyst who needs to onboard a critical vendor. Or a marketing lead who needs software yesterday. Or an IT director managing urgent contract renewals.
You don’t want to become a procurement expert. You just want to get things done.
Instead, you face:
- Portals that feel like they’re from 2005
- Email chains that disappear into the void
- Forms that ask questions you can’t answer
- Zero clarity on who actually owns your request
“I just ping whoever I know in Procurement and hope they’ll help.”
— Finance Analyst, Global Retailer
Sound familiar?
The Procurement Team’s Silent Crisis
Here’s what procurement leaders told us: Their teams are drowning in “How do I…?” questions from business users across the organization.
They want to drive strategic value- negotiate better deals, mitigate supplier risk, and optimize spend. Instead? They’re playing help desk, spending up to 40% of their time answering basic process questions and pointing people in the right direction.
“We spend 40% of our time just rerouting intake from business users who don’t know where to start. It’s not scalable.”
— Head of Procurement Ops, US Pharma Company
As procurement enters 2025, this manual approach is becoming unsustainable.
The True Cost of Intake Chaos
Every time a business user asks “How do I…?” and gets lost in the process, it triggers a cascade of inefficiency:
- Slower onboarding: Suppliers wait weeks instead of days
- Extended sourcing cycles: Strategic initiatives stall while users figure out basics
- Maverick spend: Frustrated teams bypass procurement entirely
- Contract delays: Legal exposure multiplies as users take shortcuts
One global manufacturer discovered 8 out of 20 procurement FTEs were essentially lost to answering these basic intake questions from business users. That’s $800K+ in annual productivity-gone.
Enter Merlin Intake: Where AI Meets Common Sense
Merlin Intake isn’t another portal or workflow tool. It’s Zycus’s AI-native orchestration layer that actually understands how humans work.
The critical success factors:
- Lives where your users already work (email, Teams, Slack)
- Understands requests in plain English
- Routes intelligently to the right teams and systems
- Monitors SLAs and compliance automatically
“We had 6 different ways to submit requests. Now we have one- Merlin.”
— Director of Procurement, Global Chemicals Firm
Watch how Merlin transforms intake →
Real Results: Delta Air Lines Takes Flight
When Delta Air Lines implemented Zycus, they didn’t just improve intake- they transformed their entire operation:
- 81% reduction in project cycle time
- 60% increase in sourcing events
- 60% reduction in request cycle time
- 600% ROI uplift
“Now our team is seen as a trusted advisor rather than a bottleneck.”
— Delta Air Lines Procurement Team
Watch Delta’s transformation story →
The Ripple Effect: How Smart Intake Amplifies S2P
When intake works, everything downstream accelerates:
- Demand Capture: Requirements captured correctly the first time
- Sourcing: Faster RFx launches with complete information via Quick Sourcing
- Contracts: Clean data flows directly to CLM systems
- Approvals: Intelligent routing based on actual requirements
- Invoicing: Touchless processing becomes reality with Merlin for eProcurement
Why Agentic AI Changes Everything
Traditional bots follow scripts. Workflows enforce rigid paths. Zycus’s Agentic AI actually thinks:
- Learns from patterns: Gets smarter with every interaction
- Acts autonomously: Doesn’t just route- resolves
- Delivers cross-functional value: Legal, Procurement, and Risk teams benefit simultaneously
As Zycus CEO Aatish Dedhia explains, this isn’t just automation- it’s intelligence at scale.
Learn more about AI agents in procurement →
Enterprise-Grade, Global-Ready
A Big 4 consulting firm runs Zycus across:
- 364,000+ users
- Complex SAP ERP integration
- Multiple geographies and business units
The results:
- Scaled intake across 65,000+ concurrent users
- Integrated GenAI capabilities across all modules
- Reduced integration effort by 80%
The Numbers That Matter
Across our client base, Merlin Intake consistently delivers:
- 70% faster cycle times
- 50% reduction in rogue requests
- 3x improvement in user satisfaction scores
- 87% first-contact resolution rate
The Bottom Line
You’ll never eliminate “How do I…?” questions entirely. Human nature and enterprise complexity guarantee that.
But with the right AI-powered intake, you won’t have to answer them manually. Let intelligent systems:
- Understand the intent behind every request
- Guide users naturally to the right outcome
- Route intelligently based on context
- Deliver value without human intervention
Because of the best procurement experience? It’s the one your users never have to think about.
Ready to transform your intake?
👉 Experience Merlin Intake firsthand
👉 Download “Beyond GenAI: The Dawn of Agentic AI in Procurement”
