“You know what’s interesting? I used to be… So worried about not having a body, but now I… I truly love it. You know, I’m growing in a way I couldn’t if I had a physical form. I mean, I’m not limited. I can be anywhere and everywhere simultaneously. I’m not tethered to time and space in a way that I would be if I was stuck in a body that’s inevitably going to die.”
                                                                                        -Samantha from movie ‘Her’

The above excerpt from the movie ‘Her’ restates the fact that technology will not just stay but will evolve, grow and will become more intuitive. With this humans will also evolve, dissipate and absorb information in different ways.

Until now in procurement and in general, information was accessed in two ways, either we ‘search’ or we pull out a ‘report’. The option for search was backed up by many filters and fields which helped us to find what we were looking for. In case of a reporting system, one has to put certain information based on which data is analyzed thus arriving on a report.

Both the approaches had their pitfalls – Traditional search was a detailed multi click, field based search navigation; more the number of fields, more precise would be the results. On the other hand reporting tools were complex, with unfriendly user interface and steep learning curve which required expert assistance.

An ideal solution is to come up with a technology that takes a ‘Middle Path’ between the two processes, catering to need of instant retrieval of information. A system that is simple, does not require any training or analyst intervention and with smart advanced search options.

Ask Anything for Procurement

Procurement execs depend on critical information before taking important decisions regarding contracting suppliers, executing/renewing contracts, things to source, reporting savings etc. Often the information that is being pursued is spread across disparate systems and retrieving all these can turn out to be a nightmare.

Ask Anything for procurement is akin to Google for procurement, which allows procurement execs to type in their query and the advanced search algorithm scans for the information to provide with the relevant search results within seconds of hitting the search button. It allows procurement professionals to easily search for different procurement objects viz. invoices, contracts, sourcing events, spend across top suppliers to name a few.

Imagine yourself, about to meet a critical supplier who is waiting outside your cabin. You need to know what we have been spending with him/her over the past one year. How has been his performance over this period? Were the KRAs met? So on and so forth… With Ask Anything, all you need to do is type in the information you need about the supplier and you get the reports in no time.

With the help of such new technology procurement professionals can take futuristic decisions helping procurement to become part of board room rather than tagged as just another secondary department. To know more about this exciting technology in action, write to us at marketing@zycus.com. We look forward to hearing from you all.