AI in procurement from theory to practice: the example drafting a SLA

An increasing number of professionals are leveraging AI tools daily across various disciplines, and procurement is no exception. Although AI has the potential to significantly facilitate procurement-related tasks, its use is often limited to personal or isolated applications. Integrating AI into organizational processes can truly unlock even greater potential.

So, how do you put AI into practice and embed it structurally into procurement processes?

A real-world challenge: the SLA gap

During one of our advisory missions, our procurement consultant engaged with the procurement director of a renowned chocolate company, who presented a pressing challenge: a significant gap in their Service Level Agreements (SLAs) with key suppliers. The absence of a robust SLA was not just a compliance issue—it was affecting delivery performance, quality assurance, and overall supplier management.

How we drafted a SLA with AI

To address the problem, our interim procurement consultant quickly identified an opportunity to leverage generative AI for contract drafting.

The process followed several steps :

1. Initial drafting using AI:

   We employed a generative AI tool to produce the first draft of the SLA. By designing a detailed prompt based on our prompt structure model, we instructed the AI to:

   • Act as a procurement contract expert.

   • Draft an SLA that included key performance indicators (KPIs) such as On-Time Delivery (OTD) and On-Quality Delivery (OQD).

   • Integrate penalty clauses for non-compliance.

   • Incorporate essential legal requirements, environmental, social, and governance (ESG) commitments, and dispute resolution procedures.

     
     

2. Stakeholder engagement and iterative refinement:

   Recognizing that the success of any procurement process strongly relies on comprehensive internal collaboration, we involved stakeholders from various departments—quality, marketing, production, and of course, legal.

   
   

   In a series of structured meetings, each group provided targeted feedback. The quality department, for example, requested a clause addressing recurrent non-quality events by defining “recurrent” as occurring in more than 10% of deliveries.

   
   

   By integrating this feedback in a new prompt, we iterated on the draft in real time, ensuring that every piece of input was incorporated to create a contract that met both legal standards and operational realities.

   
   

3. Final outcome:

   The end product was a robust, comprehensive SLA template that addressed all key issues in a matter of days. This rapid turnaround underscored not only the efficiency of AI in streamlining contract drafting but also the importance of a well-coordinated, human-machine collaborative process.

   
   

If you're eager to see exactly how we did it, you can get our complete prompts—both the initial version and the updates from stakeholder feedback—along with our prompt structure model.

Click here to receive your full resources!

Embedding AI procurement processes within your organization

This real life example of using AI in procurement demonstrates that when AI-driven processes are coupled with active stakeholder involvement, organizations can achieve:

• Greater accuracy and compliance: Ensuring that all necessary clauses are included.

• Reduced turnaround times: Achieving results in days rather than weeks.

• Enhanced collaboration: Bringing together diverse expertise to refine and optimize outputs.

  
  

From theory to practice: our AI Procurement courses

At the core of our approach is the belief that effective AI integration must go beyond theoretical discussions. Procurement prompt models, for example, are just a start—knowing how to implement them in real-world scenarios and connect them with your team’s needs is the real challenge.

Our AI procurement courses for organizations are designed with this philosophy in mind. They don’t just teach theory; they provide hands-on, practical frameworks that mirror real-world applications like the contract drafting exercise described above.

During our courses, participants learn, amongst others:

• How to build effective prompts: Crafting precise, actionable instructions for AI to generate useful outputs.

• Iterative methodologies: Blending human expertise with machine precision through a cycle of drafting, reviewing, and refining.

• Stakeholder integration: Incorporating insights from diverse internal teams to ensure that AI-generated processes are fully capture your organization's expertise and are seamlessly integrated into its workflows.

  
  

By participating in our AI procurement courses, procurement professionals gain the skills to implement AI solutions that drive efficiency, foster cross-departmental collaboration, and deliver tangible business benefits.

Download our Artificial Intelligence for Procurement course overview to discover our training programs or get in touch to discuss your needs.