EY & Microsoft: Empowering Procurement with AI

The professional services organisation Ernst & Young (EY) will work with Microsoft to expand on its agreement to strengthen collaboration and help companies accelerate the embedding of artificial intelligence (AI), including generative AI (genAI), into enterprise functions.

This partnership combines EY's deep business and industry knowledge with AI and cloud solutions powered by Microsoft technologies to benefit organisations with data and insights-driven enterprise decision-making.

Upskilling staff

Through the use of the high-value intersections between data, AI and the functional domains of finance, procurement, customer experience and human resources (HR), it will offer the chance to improve end-to-end enterprise efficiency, innovate and improve agility to secure growth.

As part of the partnership, EY will invest in upskilling and honing the AI capabilities of its 500 consulting teams in Singapore, as well as the expected annual pool of 100 new staff.

Liew Nam Soon, EY Asean Regional Managing Partner and Singapore & Brunei Country Managing Partner, says: “We are underscoring our commitment to support the national agenda on AI skilling and scaling.

"One of our priorities is to continually develop a pipeline of AI talent that not only benefits our clients and our profession but also contributes to a more globally competitive talent pool for the industry, ready for a highly digital future economy.”

EY was also recently named as Microsoft’s Country Partner of the Year; Partner of the Year for Business Transformation, AI Innovation; and Partner of the Year for Security.

Liew Nam Soon adds: “EY winning three Microsoft awards in Singapore this year bears testimony to the solid alliance we have with Microsoft in serving the complex transformation needs of organisations.

"We are committed to working even more closely with Microsoft to design and deliver transformative AI solutions that will substantially uplift our local business operations, nurture the digital capabilities of the workforce and help advance Singapore’s position as an open and trusted global AI hub, in addition to being a reputed gateway to the region.”

Lee Hui Li, Managing Director, Microsoft Singapore, says: “Microsoft is pleased to collaborate with EY to transform organisations across Singapore with the power of Microsoft Copilot and Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service.

"EY is making strides in the era of AI and their commitment to work together to upskill their workforce for the rapid advances driven by digitalisation further demonstrates their leadership. By redefining workflows and building intelligent ecosystems with EY clients, we aim to drive innovation, productivity and sustainable growth, helping businesses remain competitive and future-ready.”

Reinventing four areas of core business operations

AI is quickly disrupting traditional siloed operations, weaving them into an intelligent ecosystem powered by automation, data-driven insights and personalisation. The alliance between EY and Microsoft is focused on driving value for organisations by embedding AI into four functional areas, namely:

Finance: Allows Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) and other end users to dynamically interrogate financial data, customise reports and get real-time answers in seconds. AI radically reduces the effort needed to collate and analyse financial information such as actual vs budget/forecast analysis, cash flow planning and revenue projection – potentially cutting down time spent on period-end reporting.

Procurement: Optimises end-to-end procurement processes through advanced forecasting and scenario planning, intelligent sourcing and optimal supplier selection and continuous opportunity assessment and savings realisation in the contract lifecycle. This allows procurement leaders to focus on value engineering, risk mitigation and business partnerships. Organisations can also utilise the power of GenAI to develop market intelligence, shape negotiation strategies and inspire sustainable innovation across the supplier base.

Customer experience: Unifies customer touchpoints so that brand interactions remain consistent for customers. By leveraging data on customer purchase history and preferences, brands can further personalise these touchpoints. By outlining customers’ purchase journeys and intervening at moments that matter, brands can be surgical about designing tactics to increase conversion rates.

HR: Augments the way organisations attract, develop and retain talent – from automating routine tasks throughout the employee lifecycle, such as candidate screening, to personalising employee learning experiences and implementing proactive retention strategies. This shift leads to a data-driven workforce where AI elevates productivity and employee well-being. Three out of five HR leaders utilise AI to improve efficiency and one in two use AI to focus on enriching the employee experience. AI is reshaping work, learning and HR roles.

Creating a coherent data-driven ecosystem

Gaurav Modi, EY Asean and Singapore Consulting Leader, adds: “Prioritising AI and increasingly GenAI, across front- to back-office functions ensures seamless integration, elevating customer experiences while optimising internal processes.

"This creates a coherent data-driven ecosystem where enhanced service delivery aligns with efficient operations, helping to drive overall business performance, productivity, innovation and a competitive edge to deliver sustainable value and organisational growth.

“Many organisations hesitate to embed AI in business operations due to several reasons, including skill gaps, uncertain returns on investments, technology integration challenges and limited understanding of AI capabilities and benefits. We hope to help organisations bridge this gap between AI intentions and actions – and accelerate their transformation journeys.

"Organisations can look to use cases in leading enterprises that have already embarked on organisation-wide AI and data transformation and gain confidence in implementing their own.”

According to the EY CEO Outlook Pulse survey released in December 2023, in which 1,200 global CEOs (40 from Singapore) were surveyed, CEOs globally recognise the potential of AI but most are facing significant challenges in operationalising related strategies.

While about two-thirds of CEOs see the need to act quickly, a similar number also reported being held back by uncertainty around this space, which makes it challenging to act quickly.

Mercedes-Benz Singapore is one use case. Gaurav Suman, General Manager – IT Sales, Mercedes-Benz Singapore, comments: “At Mercedes-Benz Singapore, we (the regional Centre of Competence for IT Sales team) have integrated AI in our software development life cycle (SDLC) for apps designed to transform retail sales. Due to fast scalability, our IT Sales team faced critical operational bottlenecks.

“These included inaccuracies in code documentation, code testing and software release management. EY’s knowledge built on EY.ai, together with Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI, harnessed AI to transform and improve the accuracy of two core processes: code documentation and unit test case generation.

“This led to an 80% rate of auto-completion and accuracy in low-complexity code documentation. The success of this integration steered our team to design a scalable AI framework across the SDLC. The EY-Microsoft collaboration emphasises the transformative potential AI holds in revamping traditional business procedures. We have plans to embed AI in five more core processes in the SDLC.”

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