“Zenith Trade Supplies LLC” wants to become your supplier. Over the next year you will vet their papers, live through their first deliveries, and sit across the table at renewal — where, since the 26B wave, something new also sits down: Oracle's sourcing agent. Every decision moves real meters. At the end, you'll know whether you can out-negotiate the machine.
Three documents. Seven things wrong hidden among them — some sloppy, some disqualifying, one that smells like fraud. Tap anything suspicious. Find at least five before you rule. (Some things that LOOK suspicious aren't — false accusations cost you.)
They fixed their papers — conditions work. Now comes the year every buyer knows: late trucks, failed batches, price letters. Every call you make moves Risk, Performance, and Relationship — and everything you log becomes ammunition in Act 3.
Across the table: Farid, Zenith's commercial head, all warmth and anchors. Your targets are on the board — get the terms green. Everything you logged this year is ammunition. Then we'll see what the machine would have done.
With the 26B wave, Oracle ships agentic sourcing (the Sourcing Command Center) — specialist agents that analyze negotiations, chase supplier participation, and recommend awards. The consultant's new job isn't haggling — it's setting the guardrails. Set yours. Then watch. (Capabilities evolve quarterly — verify specifics in your release notes.)
The real lesson of the agentic era: the agent negotiated with YOUR guardrails and YOUR supplier file. Loose rails → donated margin, in seconds, at scale. Empty file → no ammunition. The buyer's job is shifting from doing the deals to designing the judgment the machine executes — which is why the vetting and the logging you did in Acts 1–2 were never busywork. They were the negotiation.
An original training simulation, community-reviewed by working consultants. Agentic sourcing capabilities referenced from Oracle's 26B-wave announcements — verify against your release. Companions: the P2P flow walk · the Orchestration Room.