Terence Lee

How quickly have you seen Gen AI become part of the essential marketplace for procurement?

Procurement has a lot of tasks that can be further improved in terms of efficiency. So AI fits that bill really well. Prior to AI, we had robotics and a lot of coding. But, the next stage of our improvement in efficiency will be the use of AI.

There is a limitation to it. If we are thinking about the organisation's maturity in its procurement curve, if it's a very mature organisation, you do want to be a bit more strategic, you do want to have a lot more insights that are generated from a lot of sources. AI can pull the sources together, they can make some general sense, but it's based on historical understanding. Humans on the other hand, are able to creatively connect the dots and figure out something different. So that's the part that is currently missing, and I think that's where the current folks in procurement are still relevant.

How important is it to separate the value and relevance from the hype?

I think the hype will always be there, because the hype is what fuels some of the interests and the funding.The hype won't disappear, if we just take away the hype that will limit a lot of things.

The tools you have today seem to be derived from a need. One thing we have to understand is that AI is not just solving one need, if you're going to create an AI to solve one need, you're going to be really good at one thing and not 50 other, or 100 other, or maybe thousands of other things that you could do. That's why when we look at AI, we need to understand its relevance to the organisation. The implementation of AI should be something along the lines of, if we want to improve our processes, if we want to improve our efficiency, how best can we include AI as part of our enablement, as part of our augmentation to our people’s skills, and as well as effort.

Where do you think Gen AI is going to have the most impact with procurement operations?

If you're looking at things like contracts, it's making fantastic movement, where in the past you would need a tonne of lawyers, you need to read a lot of documents in order for you to find the right clause to protect your interest or mitigate the risk.

If we want to talk about negotiations, AI can be a very good initial sparring partner.

We need to be aware that AI can help us evolve efficiency in terms of our contract negotiations, getting our job done, but we shouldn't lose sight that there's more to it. We need to be ready to accept that change when it comes.

Are we now moving into an area with Gen AI where it's no longer just the top end organisations that can benefit from it?

Are the tools available for the small and medium enterprises? Absolutely. Does it cost an arm or leg like it used to be? No, it's pretty affordable. But the small and medium enterprises would not know how to go about it.

When they try to bring in a consultant to guide them, the consultant is the one that will charge them an arm and a leg, which at the end of the day, it's not going to happen, because the culture of AI today it allows people to test it out, so long as you have a sandbox you can play in. That's more related to the culture of the company. For small and medium enterprises, if your cultures are not in tune, to explore and take risks, then, even if the tool is there, you will not be maximising the implementation until you're forced to do so.

How do we go about making sure people are properly trained and informed to use these tools effectively?

If you want to be informed, you need three simple A's: aware, assess and adjust.

If you want to have this change or implement this kind of transformation. Get your hands dirty, go out there, search for it, play with it.

Make adjustments to the way that you're working. Because if you're going to do the same work the same way and use a different tool, you realise that you're not maximising the efforts. The change and adjustment of the process is important.

I think everyone has to accept that AI is here to stay. I still have this constant query from many other folks around me, ‘AI is here, our jobs are going to be lost. We're gonna lose our livelihoods.’ Yes, absolutely. 

You're gonna lose your livelihoods because rather than spending the time learning and going on a journey, you're spending more time worrying about losing your job and trying to find another place that has the same need for the current job that you're doing. That's going to only work for that number of years.

Do you feel both AI providers and end users need to work together closely to make sure it's being used to its maximum effect?

I think both parties have to work very closely, there's a lot of trust being discussed here, we are trying to establish whether this AI is the right solution for us.

There's also this trust factor with whether this company that’s introducing us and bringing us along this journey, whether they are the right party.

Whereas, if the provider does not have the mentality of a certain company I know. It had this mindset whereby if you used their system they would make every other module in the system so integrated that you have to buy their system and nothing else.

If the provider of that service is going to continue down that attitude or that kind of approach then it's a one sided affair.

But if the provider goes on the approach of, there’s this AI, there’s this capability, we have the tools, we bring you along the journey, you both learn together, I think both parties will gain tremendously.

You can't take your eyes off two things. One is confidence and the other is complacency. In order for you to build trust, you need to build confidence that the system is working for you. Our biggest problem in humanity is that we become complacent. Where it doesn't work because you just became too complacent and either you just threw the whole entire responsibility to the provider and it became another one side affair.

How are you and your colleagues implementing Gen AI? What has your organisation learned?

I'm from the supply chain optimisation side. So in terms of optimisation, it has done tremendous work for us.

We had an investment, they were the first platform that were able to calculate all the transportation costs for the customers, so as long as you can give us point A to point B, the platform will be able to analyse from all the historical data and give you the best optimal suggestion.

What we are doing in Geodis right now, we have the ability of understanding how your inventory is performing, how's the management of the inventory.

We can try to use AI to predict when you will most likely have a shortfall or an excess that frees up your cash.

I think in the general logistics sector is where we are seeing the most acceptable use of AI, in terms of data crunching, data analytical, outcomes and insight generation, that I think would be the most acceptable use in most logistic companies right now.

I think where Geodis is trying to differentiate ourselves is that there's a human piece that we are trying to come up with, and we're not just looking at AI on its own. We're coupling with things like blockchain technology, we're trying to bring all that together so it doesn't solve just one problem. 

What advice would you give to people earlier on in their Gen AI journeys?

Do not be afraid, please make mistakes. You're actually going to learn more from your mistakes.

Try to make the mistakes within a sandbox. Play within an area whereby your errors and your mistakes do not affect the bigger scheme of things.

Correct your AI, if you need to go back to square one. That's something that I think not a lot of people are willing to do because they have invested so much time, so much money, so much of their blood, sweat and tears that you just wouldn't be willing to go back to square one.

Be willing to make sure that you grow your AI partner, but eventually it is going out of whack. Bring it back to square one and start over. The sooner you do that the faster it is for you to learn and be smarter.

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