Design the experience for Zora AI's sourcing and procurement agent for a category manager at a large manufacturer.

Introduction

Zora AI is Deloitte's agentic AI platform, launched in 2025 and built with NVIDIA. It offers role- and function-specific agents for areas such as finance, procurement and sourcing, supply chain, customer service and human capital, delivered on major clouds through a subscription and usually alongside Deloitte's consulting work. Deloitte has hired product managers specifically for the Zora AI sourcing and procurement product, which makes this a realistic interview prompt. The task: design the experience of Zora AI's sourcing and procurement agent for a category manager at a large manufacturer. It is a hard question because the user works inside existing enterprise systems (SAP Ariba, Coupa, SAP S/4HANA), decisions involve real money and supplier relationships, and the agent must be trusted by procurement leaders, finance and compliance. I'll clarify, explain why it matters, segment users, find pain points, and then propose, prioritise and measure a solution.

Step 1

Clarify Questions (3 minutes)

• Which category manager are we designing for?

• Why it matters: Direct materials (steel, resins, components) and indirect spend (IT, facilities, travel) work very differently.
• Hypothetical answer: A category manager for direct materials at a $10B industrial manufacturer, managing about $400M of annual spend across 120 suppliers.
• Impact: Supplier risk, price indices and contract terms matter more than catalogue buying.

• What systems does the client already use?

• Why it matters: The agent must work inside current tools, not replace them.
• Hypothetical answer: SAP S/4HANA for purchasing, SAP Ariba for sourcing events and contracts, and spreadsheets for analysis.
• Impact: Deep read access and controlled write actions into SAP are required.

• What can the agent do on its own?

• Why it matters: Autonomy defines risk and approvals.
• Hypothetical answer: It can analyse data, draft documents and prepare sourcing events, but cannot award contracts or send messages to suppliers without approval.
• Impact: Design a clear approval step for anything external or financial.

• Is this sold as a subscription or as part of a consulting engagement?

• Why it matters: Affects onboarding and configuration.
• Hypothetical answer: Deployed with a Deloitte team for the first 12 weeks, then run by the client.
• Impact: The experience must stay usable after the consultants leave.

Propose the Goal

Help category managers make better sourcing decisions faster, cutting the time spent gathering data and drafting documents, so they can focus on negotiation and supplier strategy, while keeping every financial commitment under human control.

Define the Scope

In scope: the category manager's daily workspace with the agent, spend and supplier analysis, sourcing event preparation, contract renewal alerts and negotiation briefs. Out of scope: supplier-facing portals, payments and accounts payable.