DR . MARCELL VOLLMER
TECHNOLOGY
it prepares for the future .
It needs to develop in such a way that it can help different areas of a client ’ s business to ensure that the necessary opportunities are provided to stay relevant in the future . Vollmer is adamant that there now also needs to be a focus on strategic procurement as well as being involved in automating operational and tactical tasks .
Despite the widespread worry that automation of operational tasks will lead to widespread job losses , Vollmer is not worried about the future of the industry and says that it has to evolve to remain relevant . He adds : “ Procurement will play , in the future , a key role to the benefit of the company in all of these different sides of the business .
“ It ’ s perfectly true that a lot of people will use things like artificial intelligence and machine learning , and also things like RPA , and we can see more robots and things like that coming into the agenda so therefore people will lose their jobs . But when you see it from the other side you can look at the many transformational changes in all the different industries over time , starting with steam power back in the 1760s which meant the transport
“ It is up to the politicians and the economy and all of the people involved in the industries to make this change happen ”
DR . MARCELL VOLLMER
system fundamentally changed and expanded with the use of trains .
“ Following that you had the era of mass production , and now we can see what computing has done for us in everyday life . You look at the kind of processing power you have on a laptop now or on a smartphone with apps , every platform today has more CPU than the entire Apollo space missions . “ Now the tricky thing is that you can ’ t necessarily develop somebody who was focusing on processing purchasing orders , or working in an accounts payable department , into a data architect or something , to work
22 August 2017