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How Do Iโฆ? Why this three-word phrase is costing enterprises millionsโand how AI-powered intake is finally solving it.
Over the past six months, we dove deep into 100s of call recordings with prospective clients. These werenโt just sales calls- they were therapy sessions where procurement leaders unpacked their challenges, priorities, and hopes for AI transformation.
Some insights confirmed what we suspected: enterprises arenโt just ready for AI โ theyโre demanding measurable ROI from day one. Others caught us completely off guard.
But one pattern emerged above all else. Not a metric. Not a feature request. Just a question that procurement teams hear constantly from their business users- asked a thousand different ways:
โHow do Iโฆ?โ
This deceptively simple phrase- flooding procurement inboxes daily- exposed the beating heart of procurementโs biggest problem. And itโs why intake has become the new battlegroundย for enterprise transformation.
The Questions That Cost Millions
Every day, procurement teams at our prospective clients are bombarded with the same questions from their business users:
โHow do I raise a PO?โ
โHow do I buy software?โ
โHow do I initiate a contract review?โ
โHow do I even work with Procurement?โ
These arenโt innocent questions. Theyโre symptoms of:
- Process fatigue among business users
- Enterprise complexity gone wrong
- Intake systems that fundamentally fail the people who need them most
The End Userโs Daily Nightmare
Picture this: Youโre a finance analyst who needs to onboard a critical vendor. Or a marketing lead who needs software yesterday. Or an IT director managing urgent contract renewals.
You donโt want to become a procurement expert. You just want to get things done.
Instead, you face:
- Portals that feel like theyโre from 2005
- Email chains that disappear into the void
- Forms that ask questions you canโt answer
- Zero clarity on who actually owns your request
โI just ping whoever I know in Procurement and hope theyโll help.โ
โ Finance Analyst, Global Retailer
Sound familiar?
The Procurement Teamโs Silent Crisis
Hereโs what procurement leaders told us: Their teams are drowning in โHow do Iโฆ?โ questions from business users across the organization.
They want to drive strategic value- negotiate better deals, mitigate supplier risk, and optimize spend. Instead? Theyโre playing help desk, spending up to 40% of their timeย answering basic process questions and pointing people in the right direction.
โWe spend 40% of our time just rerouting intake from business users who donโt know where to start. Itโs not scalable.โ
โ Head of Procurement Ops, US Pharma Company
Asย procurement enters 2025, this manual approach is becoming unsustainable.
The True Cost of Intake Chaos
Every time a business user asks โHow do Iโฆ?โ and gets lost in the process, it triggers a cascade of inefficiency:
- Slower onboarding: Suppliers wait weeks instead of days
- Extended sourcing cycles: Strategic initiatives stall while users figure out basics
- Maverick spend: Frustrated teams bypass procurement entirely
- Contract delays: Legal exposure multiplies as users take shortcuts
One global manufacturer discovered 8 out of 20 procurement FTEs were essentially lost to answering these basic intake questions from business users. Thatโs $800K+ in annual productivity-gone.
Enter Merlin Intake: Where AI Meets Common Sense
Merlin Intakeย isnโtย another portal or workflow tool. Itโs Zycusโs AI-native orchestration layer that actually understands how humans work.
The critical success factors:
- Lives where your users already work (email, Teams, Slack)
- Understands requests in plain English
- Routes intelligently to the right teams and systems
- Monitors SLAs and compliance automatically
โWe had 6 different ways to submit requests. Now we have one- Merlin.โ
โ Director of Procurement, Global Chemicals Firm
Watch how Merlin transforms intake โ
Real Results: Delta Air Lines Takes Flight
Whenย Delta Air Lines implemented Zycus, they didnโt just improve intake- they transformed their entire operation:
- 81% reductionย in project cycle time
- 60% increaseย in sourcing events
- 60% reductionย in request cycle time
- 600% ROI uplift
โNow our team is seen as a trusted advisor rather than a bottleneck.โ
โ Delta Air Lines Procurement Team
Watch Deltaโs transformation story โ
The Ripple Effect: How Smart Intake Amplifies S2P
When intake works, everything downstream accelerates:
- Demand Capture: Requirements captured correctly the first time
- Sourcing: Faster RFx launches with complete information viaย Quick Sourcing
- Contracts: Clean data flows directly to CLM systems
- Approvals: Intelligent routing based on actual requirements
- Invoicing: Touchless processing becomes reality withย Merlin for eProcurement
Why Agentic AI Changes Everything
Traditional bots follow scripts. Workflows enforce rigid paths. Zycusโsย Agentic AIย actuallyย thinks:
- Learns from patterns: Gets smarter with every interaction
- Acts autonomously: Doesnโt just route- resolves
- Delivers cross-functional value: Legal, Procurement, and Risk teams benefit simultaneously
Asย Zycus CEO Aatish Dedhia explains, this isnโt just automation- itโs intelligence at scale.
Learn more about AI agents in procurement โ
ย
Enterprise-Grade, Global-Ready
A Big 4 consulting firm runs Zycus across:
- 364,000+ users
- Complex SAP ERP integration
- Multiple geographies and business units
The results:
- Scaled intake across 65,000+ concurrent users
- Integrated GenAI capabilities across all modules
- Reduced integration effort by 80%
The Numbers That Matter
Across our client base, Merlin Intake consistently delivers:
- 70% fasterย cycle times
- 50% reductionย in rogue requests
- 3x improvementย in user satisfaction scores
- 87% first-contact resolutionย rate
The Bottom Line
Youโll never eliminate โHow do Iโฆ?โ questions entirely. Human nature and enterprise complexity guarantee that.
But with the right AI-powered intake, you wonโt have to answer them manually. Let intelligent systems:
- Understandย the intent behind every request
- Guideย users naturally to the right outcome
- Routeย intelligently based on context
- Deliverย value without human intervention
Because of the best procurement experience? Itโs the one your users never have to think about.
Ready to transform your intake?
๐ย Experience Merlin Intake firsthand
๐ย Download โBeyond GenAI: The Dawn of Agentic AI in Procurementโ
