Suplari Customizes AI Analytics For Procurement Teams

Artificial intelligence (AI) firm Suplari is targeting the procurement and finance functions in the enterprise with its newest offering. The company announced Thursday (Sept. 20) that its Insights Generator is now live, enabling businesses to use the Suplari Intelligence AI platform to develop custom analytics for their finance and procurement processes.

The solution currently provides data analytics solutions for an array of business features, including commercial cards, contract management, procure-to-pay, corporate travel and expense management systems. The Insights Generator augments that offering by allowing businesses to access insights on specific areas of the organization for more customized analytics.

In a statement, Suplari CEO Nikesh Parekh said the solution offers procurement and finance executives a way to “proactively drive business outcomes.”

“There is a wealth of data flowing through an enterprise’s financial and procurement systems,” continued Parekh. “Unfortunately, leveraging and acting on that data is difficult. Finance and procurement are generally last in line for engineering or data science resources.”

Suplari’s AI capabilities enable automation of contract, spend and supplier management, as well as the ability to analyze data stemming from those processes, he noted, pointing to opportunities to enhance profit, risk and compliance efforts.

Earlier this year, Gregg Makuch, the company’s head of marketing, spoke with PYMNTS about some of the other opportunities for AI and analytics to improve enterprise financial systems. Businesses, especially larger enterprises, often struggle to aggregate the data they need to gain clearer insight into what’s happening.

“With this lack of an enterprise-wide view, you could really be leaving a lot of money on the table,” he said.

With businesses looking more closely at AI as a way to enhance spend analytics, companies are planning significant investments in the technology. Research published earlier this week from International Data Corp. — in its Semiannual Cognitive Artificial Intelligence Systems Spending Guide  —calculated that business spend on cognitive and AI systems could hit $77.6 billion by 2022. That’s more than three times the spend predicted for this year, the report noted.