June 5, 2024

Why It’s Important to Distinguish Intake and Orchestration

Timothy Harfield

Introduction

To paraphrase Mugatu from the movie Zoolander: “Intake and orchestration. So hot right now!”
But here's the thing about coupling the terms “intake and orchestration” in the procurement technology space: it’s confusing. Are all intake solutions also orchestration solutions? Do all orchestration solutions do intake? When evaluating orchestration solutions, should organizations include vendors that do intake but not procurement orchestration more generally? Do intake and orchestration require two separate technologies? Or just one?

The analyst community sees this confusion and is working to provide clarity. In a recent post from Spend Matters, for example, we hear that “intake sits at the front end and tracks progress, and orchestration (which may include intake capabilities) delivers enhanced workflows to execute processes effectively.” Read in isolation, one might interpret that intake is separable from orchestration and that, to the extent that orchestration platforms include intake as a capability, it’s something that they do in addition to orchestration but that does not involve orchestration itself.

But there’s more. If we continue reading, we find that Spend Matters affirms that intake is itself, not just a capability, but also a process. If intake is a process, and orchestration involves coordinating processes, then intake is just one process among many and should simply be considered an orchestration use-case rather than something that happens outside of, and in addition to, orchestration.

Defining Intake Management

What I'd like to argue is that intake by itself is not a process to be orchestrated. To the extent that intake simply involves the collection of information in order to initiate a process, intake is just a form. It may be a process step, but it’s not a process and so no orchestration is required. However, where you have a process (like those we have in procurement) that involves several systems and sub-processes, some kind of general intake experience is required, which Gartner refers to as 'intake management.'
In contrast to intake by itself, intake management involves collecting, enriching, and coordinating data across multiple systems and, in fact, usually involves automating the completion of every separate intake form required by individual stakeholders (like submitting tickets to IT, or requests to Legal).

Many organizations today are confused by the relationship between intake and orchestration. Indeed, many vendors use the two terms in the same breath as if they are one in the same. What I hope to do in this blog post is to clear up this confusion by clearly distinguishing intake from intake management and, in so doing, demonstrate that the idea of a dedicated intake solution doesn't really make sense. If we are talking about intake, then we are talking about data collection via a form. If, on the other hand, we are talking about intake management, then we are not talking about a technology category that is separate from procurement orchestration but rather a process that requires orchestration. In other words, most organizations don't need intake because chances are that they already have it built in to their existing applications. They do need intake management, however, and for that they don't need an intake management application. They need an orchestration platform capable of intake management.

What is Procurement Orchestration?

Procurement orchestration is process orchestration applied to procurement use cases. As I said in a recent post for Spend Matters:

… orchestration is a way to connect and coordinate people, processes and systems across an organization. It goes beyond performing discrete transactions to facilitate the efficient flow of tasks and information over time and across agents, including people and systems (i.e., digital agents). This includes facilitating each step in a given process, even if that step is in a different system or department, allowing teams and organizations to get work done faster and without frustration.

So procurement orchestration involves the automated coordination of people, processes, and systems in order to achieve well-defined business outcomes. By aggregating data across multiple systems, enriching that data, and then using that data to drive efficient workflows, orchestration has the power to create effortless user experiences. When applied in procurement to things like requisitioning, supplier onboarding and management, and risk assessments, the promise of orchestration is to decrease cycle times, improve visibility and compliance, and increase data integrity.

Necessary Conditions for Intake Management

What are the necessary conditions for intake management?

• The ability to easily connect to any enterprise system. The best intake management solution will not live in a walled garden, and it will not privilege any given technology ecosystem over another. In order to avoid demanding information from a requester that they don’t know or that already exists in another system of record (contact details, department, GL code, commodity, and category codes, etc.), the solution needs to integrate with your ERP, S2P, and HR systems.

• The ability to seamlessly initiate any procurement process based on user input. A user should not have to switch to another system with a different user experience depending on the nature of their request.

• The ability to track the progress of a request through to completion. Remember that Gartner lists the ability to track request status as an essential feature of an intake management solution.

In summary, intake and orchestration are often confused. And when they are confused, buying decisions become hard. In clarifying what we mean by these terms, however, we discover that intake and orchestration are not the same, even if they are related.
If you are looking for an intake solution, ask yourself if you are looking for intake or intake management. Because intake by itself only involves data collection, chances are that your existing suite and best-of-breed solutions already include some kind of intake feature. But if you are looking for a way to coordinate procurement intake across all applications, processes, and sub-processes through a universal front-door experience, then what you need is intake management.
Intake management is a process. And as a process, intake management requires orchestration. In order to provide the best possible experience for end users, it’s important that the intake management process is orchestrated using the same orchestration platform as the rest of your procurement processes. Otherwise, you are working at cross purposes, introducing unnecessary complexity and uneven user experiences when these are two important issues that intake management and orchestration more generally set out to address.

So let’s stop talking about 'intake and orchestration.' And let's stop trying to think of 'intake' or 'intake management' as a separate and distinct procurement technology category. Instead, let's talk about procurement orchestration and think of intake management as just one of many high-impact processes that would benefit from an orchestration platform approach.