The REAL Questions to Ask When Evaluating Orchestration

Think your chatbot is the future of procurement? Nikhil Gaur says it’s just the warm-up act. 

When it comes to procurement technology, intake and orchestration solutions have moved from buzzwords to boardroom discussions. However, as our recent guest on The Never-Ending Climb, Nikhil Gaur from Spend Matters, A Hackett Group Division , points out, many organizations still get caught up in surface-level demos, such as chatbots, slick workflows, or polished UI, without addressing the deeper questions that will determine whether these tools actually deliver.

Nikhil has seen well over a hundred demos in the last few years, and his perspective is clear: intake may grab attention, but orchestration is where the real value lies. And orchestration, at its core, is about integration.

Why Integrations Make or Break Orchestration

According to Nikhil, one of the most common pain points practitioners face after buying an orchestration tool is realizing that the integrations aren’t as seamless as advertised. On the demo, it looks like everything connects in seconds. In reality, the mapping can break down when faced with the nuances of a specific ERP or contract system.

That’s why the first and most important question for CPOs and IT leaders isn’t, “Do you integrate with SAP?” but rather, “Exactly how do you integrate with SAP, and how deeply?”

There’s a world of difference between a flat file exchange and true, real-time, two-way integration that lets the orchestration tool both read and write data as if it were native to the system. For larger organizations juggling dozens of ERPs, sourcing platforms, and contract tools, this level of adaptability is the true differentiator.

Beyond the Demo: Flexibility and Real-World Use

Nikhil stresses the importance of pushing vendors off-script during demos. It’s easy to showcase a polished chatbot flow, but what happens when a request comes through email, or when a user is submitting on behalf of someone else?

Orchestration isn’t about a single shiny interface. It’s about supporting multiple ways of working, like chatbots, forms, Slack, and email, and weaving those experiences into a consistent, reliable backbone. If you’re playing 20 questions with a chatbot, it gets old fast. Users need options, and orchestration tools should meet them where they are.

What “Good” Looks Like Today

For Nikhil, best-in-class orchestration platforms distinguish themselves after intake is complete. They execute requests by integrating across multiple systems in real time, threading transactions and metadata seamlessly. The ability to adapt to a customer’s unique tech stack, whether it’s multiple ERPs, scattered sourcing tools, or complex contract environments, is now the gold standard.

And while AI agents are emerging as the next frontier, he cautions against getting ahead of the basics. Without rock-solid integrations, even the most promising agentic workflows will fail in practice. Reliability at scale, not just in the demo environment, must be the benchmark.

Questions Every CPO and IT Leader Should Ask

If you’re evaluating intake and orchestration solutions today, Nikhil recommends asking three questions above all else:

1. Integrations – What specific systems do we need to connect to, and how deeply can your tool integrate with each of them? Can it read and write metadata in real time?
2. Roadmap – Where is the provider heading in the next 12–24 months? Will that direction align with our organizational goals?
3. AI Readiness – Are the AI use cases proven at scale, with billions in transactions already flowing through them? Or are they still pilots that work 90% of the time?

As Nikhil puts it, integrations have become the single most important aspect of orchestration, because that’s where the value comes from. AI and agents matter, but only once the backbone is in place.

Why Orchestration Outshines the Demo

Procurement leaders are under immense pressure to modernize, but the path forward isn’t about chasing the flashiest demos. It’s about building a resilient orchestration layer that can handle the complexity of your unique environment.

Ask the deeper questions. Demand clarity on integrations. Understand the roadmap. And make sure AI promises are backed by enterprise-grade reliability.

Because in the end, intake gets you in the door, but orchestration is what keeps the business running.