MODERN PROCUREMENT IN THE AI ERA

29-30 Jul, 2026, Wyndham Grand Bangsar Kuala Lumpur

Register Now
PDF Brochure

IPA Training is Registered with

Learn from the Best

Dr. Manoharan Murugeson is a highly experienced consultant and trainer with a proven track record spanning over 21 years in various supply chain capacities across both public and private sectors. With an additional 35 years dedicated to training, Dr. Manoharan is recognized as an industry authority, operating globally as a professional speaker, trainer, and consultant.

 

Specializing in key supply chain functions, Dr. Manoharan’s expertise includes inventory management, stock auditing, technology integration for fixed assets tracking, warehousing optimization, procurement, contract analysis, fraud risk assessment, and negotiation. His practical experience extends to the storage, control, and management of vehicles, heavy equipment, and parts. Beyond consulting,

 

Dr. Manoharan has engaged in short-term business ventures and pro bono activities, demonstrating his commitment to professional advancement and social responsibility.

 

Certified and accredited by PSMB (TTT/0461; TI17423), Dr. Manoharan is a highly sought-after trainer and facilitator. He delivers tailored workshops and seminars on a range of topics including contracts, negotiation, procurement, fixed assets management, operations, purchasing fraud prevention, warehousing, logistics, and supply chain management.

 

Dr. Manoharan’s clients are numerous to name, but a sample of illustrious client list for training include Shell, UMW Toyota Motor, Celcom, Samsung, Proton, Colgate-Palmolive, Eon Finance, Philips, Hicom- Yamaha, Malaysian Oxygen, NEC, Petronas, General Electrics, German Malaysian Institute, Gamuda, Johnson & Johnson Medical, JVC, Kontena Nasional, Glaxo Wellcome, Hitachi, Hong Leong Lurssen Shipyard, University Malaya Medical Centre, National Heart Institute (IJN), Kenwood, Macfood Service, Nestle, Mattel, Matsushita Industrial Corporation, Maybank, Minolta Precision Engineering, MISC, Perwaja Steel, Seagate, Canon, BASF and UPS, Petronas Carigali, Sidel, Western Digital, Perodua, Sharp, Panasonic, Sabic- Saudi Arabia, Oxy-Oman, Kuwait Petroleum, BAT, RAPID Penang, Barkath, IOI, CIMB, Sabah Cement, Fiberail, Genting Berhad, IIUM, KPJ Group, MARA, Mof Sabah, PDC, San Miguel, TNB, Sarawak Electricity Board, The Government of Brunei, Prasarana, RAPID, SEALINK, Deftech, SPAD, National Planning Authority Uganda, WWF Tanzania, County Govt. of Kenya etc., etc.

 

Academically, Dr. Manoharan holds a Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) degree in Supply Chain Management from OUM, along with an MBA from Oklahoma City University, USA, and an Advanced Diploma in Business Administration from the UK. He maintains active membership in professional associations such as The Institute of Asset Management (UK), the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (USA), and the National Contract Management Association (USA).

 

Driven by a commitment to ongoing learning, Dr. Manoharan regularly participates in online courses offered by reputable institutions, covering topics including entrepreneurship, operations management, supply chain dynamics, and forensic accounting.

 

Dr. Manoharan is the author of Predators in the Supply Chain, a practitioner study of how toxic actors exploit procurement, contracts and asset management, drawn from decades of field exposure.

 

In summary, Dr. Manoharan Murugeson is a respected figure in the field of supply chain management, renowned for his practical expertise, professional integrit and dedication to advancing industry standards.

Venue Details

Wyndham Grand Bangsar Kuala Lumpur
No 1, Jalan Pantai Jaya Tower 3, 59200 Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah,

https://wyndhamgrand bangsarkl.com.my/



Phone : 03-2298 1888

Contact us

Juliany,
03 2283 6109
juliany@ipa.com.my

Phoebe,
03 2283 6100
phoebe@ipa.com.my 

FOR CUSTOMISED IN-HOUSE TRAINING
Jane,
03 2283 6101
Jane@ipa.com.my

ADDRESS 
A-28-5, 28th Floor, Menara UOA Bangsar, 
No.5, Jalan Bangsar Utama 1, 
59000 Kuala Lumpur
www.ipa.com.my

FOCUSING ON
  • Module 1: The Procurement Reset: What AI Changes, What It Does Not
  • Module 2: The Modern Buyer’s AI Toolkit
  • Module 3: AI for Sourcing, Supplier Discovery and Market Intelligence
  • Module 4: AI for Spend, Category, and Supplier Analysis
  • Module 5: AI for Scope Preparation, Specifications, RFQ, RFP, Tender and Drafting
  • Module 6: AI for Supplier Evaluation, Due Diligence and Risk
  • Module 7: AI for Negotiation Preparation and Commercial Strategy
  • Module 8: Governance, Confidentiality and Responsible AI in Procurement
OBJECTIVE

Procurement has always been judgement work dressed up as paperwork. The procurement professional who reads suppliers well, asks the right questions, drafts a tight specification, and walks into a negotiation prepared is the professional who saves the organisation money and trouble. Everything else is process around that judgement.

Artificial intelligence (AI) does not replace any of that. It changes the speed at which the supporting work can be done, the depth at which markets and bids can be analysed, and the quality of preparation a procurement professional can bring to a meeting. Used carelessly, it also creates new exposure: confidentiality leakage, hallucinated facts, weak audit trails, and decisions that look automated when they were never authorised to be.

This course treats AI as a working tool in the hands of competent procurement professionals. Participants leave with the procurement craft sharpened, the AI toolkit understood, and the governance instincts intact.

This procurement course takes the AI shift seriously and equips participants to use it well.

AFTER ATTENDING THIS COURSE YOU WILL RETURN TO YOUR JOB…
  1. Understanding how AI is changing Procurement work.
  2. Identifying Procurement activities where AI can assist.
  3. Using AI tools to support Sourcing, Supplier Evaluation, Tendering, Contract Review, Negotiation Preparation, And Reporting.
  4. Writing better Procurement-Specific AI prompts.
  5. Applying AI to practical Procurement scenarios.
  6. Recognizing confidentiality, accuracy, bias, and governance risks.
  7. Using AI responsibly within organizational policies.
  8. Preparing AI-assisted Procurement outputs that can be adapted for workplace use.
WHO SHOULD ATTEND
This course is suitable for:
  • Procurement Officers, Executives, Managers and Senior Managers
  • Tender and Contract Administration Officers and Executives
  • Vendor Management Teams.
  • Supply Chain and Logistics Personnel involved in Procurement Decisions.
  • Finance, Audit, and Compliance Staff who work with Procurement.
  • Managers responsible for Procurement Performance, Governance or Transformation.
  • Organizations preparing for the digitalization of Procurement or AI adoption
METHODOLOGY

This course uses a practical and participative learning approach.

The methodology includes:

  1. Short concept briefings.
  2. Live AI demonstrations.
  3. Guided hands-on exercises.
  4. Procurement case scenarios.
  5. Prompt writing practice.
  6. Group discussion.
  7. AI output review and critique.
  8. Procurement document drafting.
  9. Supplier risk and negotiation exercises.
  10. Practical templates for workplace use.

Each major topic follows this learning flow:

Procurement Problem - ?AI Demonstration - Participant Practice - Human Review - Workplace Application

DAY 1
9:00

MODULE 1 THE PROCUREMENT RESET:

WHAT AI CHANGES, WHAT IT DOES NOT

Procurement focus

  • Where procurement has always struggled: information asymmetry, supplier opacity, slow analysis, weak negotiation preparation
  • What AI changes immediately: speed of intelligence gathering, structure imposed on unstructured data, and scaled document review
  • What AI does not change: accountability, ethical sourcing, governance, the buyer’s commercial judgement

Where AI changes the work

  • Reframing the buyer’s role from doer to director of AI-assisted work
  • Recognising the procurement tasks where AI gives a meaningful uplift
  • Recognising the tasks where AI is irrelevant or dangerous

Hands-on lab

Each participant maps a real week of their procurement work into three columns: AI-augmentable, AI-irrelevant, and AI-dangerous. Discussion and debrief.


10.45

MODULE 2

THE MODERN BUYER’S AI TOOLKITT

Procurement focus

  • Why is no single AI tool best at everything a buyer does
  • Generative AI, Analytics AI, Automation, and AI Assistants.
  • Confidentiality reality check: what each tool keeps, learns from and exposes
  • Choosing a tool for the procurement task, not by brand familiarity

Where AI changes the work

  • Comparative analysis of conversational AI, research AI and document-grounded AI
  • Understanding why output quality differs between tools on the same prompt
  • Building the buyer’s habit of running important queries on more than one too

Hands-on lab

Each participant runs an identical procurement query on two tools of their choice and writes a 5-line comparison: speed, depth, accuracy, confidentiality risk, and usefulness. Pairs swap and critique.

1:00 Lunch
2:00

MODULE 3

AI FOR SOURCING, SUPPLIER DISCOVERY AND MARKET INTELLIGENCE

Procurement focus

  • Category landscape mapping and alternate source identification at speed
  • Drafting RFI questions that elicit useful answers, not marketing copy
  • Building structured supplier profiles from scattered public information
  • Detecting greenwashing, capability inflation and supplier marketing fluff

Where AI changes the work

  • Using AI to widen the funnel beyond the buyer’s known supplier list
  • Using AI to compress days of market scanning into hours
  • Using AI to challenge the buyer’s own assumptions about who the realistic suppliers are

Hands-on lab

Live mapping of a category landscape in under ten minutes. Participants see the trade-off between speed and reliability, and what verification work still has to happen afterwards.

3:45

MODULE 4

AI FOR SPEND, CATEGORY, AND SUPPLIER ANALYSIS

Procurement focus

  • Understand what is bought, from whom, at what value, and under which category.
  • Identify supplier concentration, duplication, fragmented buying, and dependency risks.
  • Review categories spend patterns for sourcing, negotiation, and cost improvement.
  • Use spend insights to support planning, budgeting, supplier strategy, and reporting.

Where AI changes the work

  • Converts raw procurement data into clear insights on spend, categories, and suppliers.
  • Detects maverick spend, duplicate suppliers, price movements, and off-contract buying.
  • Prepares faster category briefs, supplier comparisons, negotiation inputs, and opportunity reports.

Hands-on lab

procurement spend dataset and convert raw purchasing information into practical procurement insights.

The aim is to show how AI can help procurement teams move from data listing to category thinking, supplier visibility, and sourcing opportunities.

5:00 End of Day 1
DAY 2
9:00

MODULE 5

AI FOR SCOPE PREPARATION, SPECIFICATIONS, RFQ, RFP, TENDER AND DRAFTING

Procurement focus

  • The chronic procurement problem of weak specifications and what it costs downstream
  • Stress-testing specifications and scope preparation for ambiguity, omission and contradiction
  • Drafting RFQ, RFP, and Tender structures that produce comparable bids
  • Building evaluation criteria that are defensible to audit and to losing bidders

Where AI changes the work

  • Using AI to read a specification the way a clever supplier would
  • Using AI to surface the loopholes a buyer would otherwise discover only during evaluation or delivery
  • Using AI to rebalance criteria that lean too heavily on price or on a single vendor’s strengths

Hands-on lab

Specification drafting and identifying gaps through AI


10.45

MODULE 6

AI FOR SUPPLIER EVALUATION, DUE DILIGENCE AND RISK

Procurement focus

  • Beyond the lowest price: total cost of ownership, dependency risk and single- source exposure
  • Financial health signals, ownership opacity and related-party risk
  • AI-assisted due diligence: what to ask, what to verify, what to never trust at face value
  • Detecting collusive patterns and concentration risk across supplier groupings

Where AI changes the work

  • filings, registries and news in minutes
  • Using AI to map ownership and director relationships across supplier groups
  • Using AI to write the due diligence questions that a polished supplier deck does not answer

Hands-on lab

Each participant evaluates a real or case-study supplier using AI assistance, then debriefs on what the AI got right, what it got wrong, and what only a human buyer could have caught.

1:00 Lunch
2:00

MODULE 7

AI FOR NEGOTIATION PREPARATION AND COMMERCIAL STRATEGY

Procurement focus

  • The negotiation preparation most buyers skip and what it costs
  • Mapping the supplier’s likely position, anchors, fallbacks and walk-away points
  • Building the buyer’s own target, reservation and walk-away positions
  • Rehearsing tough scenarios before the meeting, not during it

Where AI changes the work

  • Using AI as a sparring partner that plays an unyielding or tactical supplier
  • Using AI to surface the commercial arguments a supplier is likely to bring
  • Using AI to write the opening, the trade-off menu and the closing structure

Hands-on lab

Each participant prepares a negotiation scenario, runs a practice round against an AI- simulated supplier, and debriefs with a partner on what worked and what did not.

3:45

MODULE 8

GOVERNANCE, CONFIDENTIALITY AND RESPONSIBLE AI IN PROCUREMENT

Procurement focus

  • What never goes into a public AI: real supplier names, real pricing, NDAs, contract drafts, internal pricing data
  • Building an AI use policy for the procurement function
  • The audit trail: when AI helps, when it harms, and when its use disqualifies a decision
  • Bias, hallucination and the failure modes that wreck procurement careers

Where AI changes the work

  • Drawing the line between AI as an assistant and AI as a decision-maker
  • Designing controls that allow AI use without surrendering accountability
  • Recognising the difference between a buyer using AI well and a buyer being used by it

Hands-on lab

  • A real example of an AI hallucination in a procurement context, broken down step by step. Participants estimate what it would have cost if it had gone uncaught.
5:00 End of Course