It's a story as old as the world of business is. Your procurement team is coming to you all excited; they've found the perfect new supplier for that new project. The pricing looks good, the forecasted timeline is excellent, everything looks great. Then you get to actually see the light in their eyes die out. The legal team needs to review the contracts, ensure that this new supplier is up to the same regulatory standards as previous ones, and make sure that everything is above board and the company isn't putting itself at risk.
So, what's the problem? If everyone is rowing together, why is the boat going in circles? Well, these different departments are going to be using separate processes and systems, and those systems might not dovetail into each other as neatly as they could. Data from data-cubed.com suggests that 20-30% of operational expenses are wasted on inefficiency around process bottlenecks and poor communication. But modern problems have modern solutions, and an agentic orchestration layer like the one Tonkean provides could be the solution for the friction that these disparate departments commonly experience.
Why procurement and legal clash so often
The salient reason that procurement and legal, out of all the different teams, are so often going to clash is that they are often part of the same commercial process. The friction occurs because they are dealing with that commercial process from different perspectives.
The procurement team is all about getting commercial value. They want things to happen at speed, perform well, and be costed well.
The legal team is there to make sure the organization's legal interests are looked after. Compliance with regulations must be ensured, risk mitigated, and contractual obligations met.
Cross-department friction is exacerbated by siloed systems
It's almost certain that every department within your organization is using some sort of specialist technology. Specialist systems are, in many cases, necessary for modern business function. But they can exacerbate the friction that occurs between departments when a process necessitates two different teams' attention.
When we look specifically at the workflows of legal and procurement teams, the issue with siloed systems can become obvious. Problems such as the following are likely to be familiar:
- Each team has different versions of the same information.
- Employees are submitting the same information multiple times into different systems.
- Multiple systems need to be updated manually.
There is likely to be a lot of manual entry, taking up valuable time, when systems should be heavily digitized. Data-cubed.com suggests that the average employee might spend as much as 65% of their week on work that isn't actually creating value. More than half of employees spend at least two hours a day on repetitive tasks like data entry, instead of on skilled work. But siloed systems aren't the only point of friction, and lack of context is often a point of friction that agentic orchestration can solve.
What exactly is an agentic orchestration layer?
You should think of an agentic orchestration layer as connective tissue. Something that sits between and over all of the people, business processes, AI agents, and systems that your organization is using.
The idea isn't to reinvent the wheel and throw out the baby with the bathwater; the existing technology that different teams are using should continue to be used. That technology and those systems are in use for a reason, after all. Instead, the idea is to improve the level of coordination that is possible across these disparate systems and processes.
An agentic orchestration layer is a way for separate teams to use enterprise technologies while coordinating the work that occurs through those technologies and connecting them.
Connecting departments without changing tools
There are obvious advantages to ensuring that all of your organization's departments are more coordinated, but thinking about changing every department's suite of tools for one universal system probably makes you break out in a cold sweat. It's an unattractive and expensive idea, and most importantly, it's an unnecessary one.
Existing systems should not need to be replaced, but systems such as procure-to-pay applications, document management tools, communication platforms, e-signature systems, CLMs, and ERP platforms should all be connected.
Agentic orchestration allows for a common operational layer to be overlaid on top of existing enterprise tools. Departments will be connected without needing to change tools and sacrifice their current functionality.
AI agents power the coordination
One of the best uses for agentic orchestration is achieved through using AI agents as part of an organization's processes.
The idea is that an employee would not need to separately reach out to each different department for clarification or information when starting a process; they can instead simply run their queries by an AI agent in the orchestration layer. This agent would then be able to determine which departments are required based on previously determined organizational policies and to start the process of actioning that request.
This sort of coordination will save time and unnecessary communication, as only the relevant departments will be contacted by AI agents as part of any process. The usage of AI agents to streamline job processes was estimated by Forbes to be something that around 42% of business owners believed in.
A single business process, orchestrated as one
Collaboration within organizations is not about replacing departmental tools; it's about connecting them around a shared process. An agentic orchestration layer will do that.
Source: YourStory
