Organizational and Temporal Shifts in Procurement Analytics

Abstract Academic research in the early twenty-first century highlights the emerging role of analytics in all functions, including procurement and supply chain. Given the rapid shifts in technology that are under way in this field, academic research may struggle to keep up with the dynamic evolution of procurement platforms. This chapter assesses the current set of procurement analytics–based research and observes the organizational and temporal evolution of how procurement analytics is proceeding. Next, the chapter reviews a number of procurement platforms and interviews with procurement executives to suggest that academic research is at the same nascent stage as the evolution of the technology, which is often highly touted but is in the early stages of development. The analysis also highlights the importance of data integrity and quality as major roadblocks preventing the adoption of advanced procurement analytics. However, the analysis suggests that technologies will continue to propel the expansion of organizational and temporal shifts in procurement analytics, enabled by the emerging digital environment and evolving technologies such as data analytics and cognitive analytics. As a result, we will likely continue to witness massive changes in the procurement analytics environment in the next three to five years. The chapter concludes that although the current maturity of procurement analytics is low, supply management should adopt a leadership role in advancing the procurement analytics scope and scale.