PRESS RELEASE – November 2, 2023.- Fullstep, a company specialized in the end-to-end digitalization of the procurement, sourcing and supply chain process, has signed an agreement with the University of Granada, for the development of the first cloud system, based on Artificial Intelligence, for the integral management of supplier risk.
The technical team working on the project is developing a solution that represents an important technological leap in the use of learning algorithms within the procurement departments of companies.
Fullstep, beneficiary of the Call for Grants for Research and Development Projects in Artificial Intelligence and Other Digital Technologies and their Integration in Value Chains, managed by the RED.ES agency under the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, has carried out this strategic alliance with the University of Granada because it is the third most important university in Europe in artificial intelligence, and the only Spanish university in the top 10 of the 2022/2023 edition of the Best Global Universities ranking, published by the U.S. News & World Report magazine in the United States.
“It is very stimulating to be able to work with such specialized AI profiles for the development of our solution, which becomes a unique and pioneering system in the market. This advance allows companies to create a global risk map and a supplier rating that allows them to estimate the degree of exposure derived from the supply chain, as well as to carry out the automatic approval of each supplier. This is key in an increasingly demanding regulatory environment. This Deep Learning algorithm design project is a milestone in the area of corporate procurement” , explains Rosario Piazza, Fullstep’s CEO.
Pioneering solution for risk profiling and intelligent supplier approval.
The objective of the project focuses on developing an operational solution in the cloud, which allows companies to efficiently reduce the risk to which they are exposed, associated with their supply chain. To achieve this, it is based on two levers: the automatic validation of certificates and documentation for the intelligent approval of suppliers, and the development of risk profiles for each supplier.
Currently, a large company has an average of 10,000 suppliers, which have to be approved for the procurement of different materials and/or services. Taking into account the number of certificates required from each supplier, as well as the manual tasks that must be performed for the validation and data extraction of each certificate, each company needs to invest thousands of hours annually to keep its supplier base updated and approved.
Risk profiling is based on a supplier map created autonomously by an algorithm that analyzes a large volume of data from sources associated with the particular market sector, financial parameters, historical data and other information related to market “sentiment”.
“This project allows us to continue advancing Fullstep’s strategy of incorporating new AI-based tools into the procurement platform to maximize efficiency in our clients’ processes and help them better manage their risk with suppliers. Our team has developed intelligent certificate validation systems for automatic approval and, in collaboration with the UGR, we are working on new market sentiment analysis models on suppliers/brands and their incorporation into Deep Learning systems to obtain intelligent risk-supplier evaluation models in real time, applicable to any supplier in any sector of activity. And all this at an affordable cost for our clients“, explains Antonio Fernández Ruiz, CTO of Fullstep.
Compliance with ESG criteria, another of the core objectives of the new product.
The approval of suppliers increasingly involves complying with the regulations established by governmental bodies and institutions on sustainability and environmental issues. For this reason, Fullstep as a leading entity in Spain in the design and implementation of responsible management models for procurement activity under strict sustainability principles, offers companies with this new system the automation of the management of the required certificates, ensuring compliance with ESG criteria in the supply chain.
“The valuation of “market sentiment” through multiple sources will favor those companies committed to sustainability. This gives added value and, therefore, greater competitiveness to the entities”, assures Piazza.
