“Behaviours and mindsets are a fundamental thing that needs to be changed, and it starts with the leadership themselves.”
Lance Younger is the CEO of ProcureTech. Speaking to CPOstrategy at DPW Amsterdam 2024, Younger believes that in order for organisations to achieve 10X, transformation needs to be allowed to happen and quickly. However, this doesn’t just come from systems and processes, as Younger explains. “Leaders need to think differently about how they engage with their teams, with their peers, and with suppliers as well,” he tells us. “And then after that, it’s been very focused on execution. What we find is that with many organisations, they’re looking at too many aspects, and rather than doubling down on one or two things, they’re going to make a substantial amount of change to what they do.”
ProcureTech: Closer Look
His organisation ProcureTech catalyses digital procurement transformation through a proprietary platform of digital procurement solutions, intelligence, approaches, and experts. The company shifts procurement performance through the design and implementation of digital procurement blueprints, procuretech stacks, and road maps that incorporate the dynamic, data-driven insights from 1,000s of digital procurement solutions.

In December 2024, ProcureTech is set to release the annual ProcureTech 100 Yearbook, published by CPOstrategy, which showcases 100 pioneering digital procurement technology, data and analytics solutions that are supercharging procurement. The Yearbook provides essential insights into the vital components that will deliver first-class performance for procurement journeys. “Every year we analyse over 5,000 different solutions and have 80 corporate digital procurement judges involved,” explains Younger. “We crunch data, take the qualitative input and create a cohort of 100 pioneering digital solutions. It’s a fantastic resource for organisations to go and look at, and talk about these individual solutions, but also get best practices, insights and white papers which will help shape what you do over the next year.”
10X Drive
Younger believes this year’s DPW Amsterdam theme of 10X was a great fit because of the bold strides needed to make the most of the exponential digital tools available on the market today. “What we’ve seen over the last few years is too much incrementalism, and that’s meant that we’ve not been making the bold strides that we need to make,” he adds. “It’s different this year. We’ve seen that with the advent of generative AI and a number of other technological advancements, we can make that change. Fundamentally, technology will help that, but it won’t happen without people changing it which comes from the leaders that we’ve got here at DPW Amsterdam.”
While Younger believes procurement’s greatest strategies to uncovering the true potential of 10X are closely linked to its biggest barriers. “It comes down to investment and having the money and time to make the change happen,” says Younger. “The first place we tend to work with organisations is on that change, and to make sure it’s an accurate, timely business plan that justifies the ROI and then ultimately justifies the release of resources to be able to support doing the work and investment into technology as well. What we are also seeing is that there’s a gap when it comes to talent that is not going to be addressed in the short term. Yes, you can get the money released, but the time to mobilise talent is going to take too long. You have to invest in digital in tandem with great people.”

DPW Amsterdam
At DPW Amsterdam, the noise surrounding what generative AI can do for procurement was palpable. Over the past two years following the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT model, the buzz around large language models has only grown louder. With the benefits of significant cost savings and seismic productivity boosts, it is clear to see why. For Younger, he was impressed with the high-level conversations had at the conference.
“DPW has been fantastic because we’ve been able to see some of the digital solutions talking about generative AI use cases, how they’re applying it and where they’ve reached along the journey so far,” explains Younger. “Some of the solutions presented have been particularly impressive. For example, Certa shared what they are doing and also some research about the productivity you can get from generative AI at about 20%, but if you combine that generative AI with SaaS then you get another 50% as well. In another session with Nestle, they were discussing their five-year plan and are talking about the analytics they are applying today which is supported by deep digital and data architecture and a team that has built that with them.”
GenAI challenge
On the other side of the coin, Younger is well aware that generative AI is not a silver bullet. The technology has often been criticised for providing data quality challenges such as hallucinations, not to mention its governance challenge. “People have got to think about the ethical side and understand the implications of managing and integrating data,” he says. “If you combine that with the fact that there’s a lack of understanding of GenAI, then it becomes quite risky. Exiger extensively shared how to manage multiple different types of risks in the event of black swan events too.”
Moving forward, Younger is clear about what procurement’s future holds. As technology continues to mature, an ever-increasing number of companies are seeking digital solutions that have the potential to be real game-changers for the space. “There are some critical decisions that leaders need to be making now,” says Younger. “Technology is getting better and better and we’re now at the point where if you want something then it’s there. It’s now about making the decision and committing to technology. Many of the people who are working with generative AI say that now is a fundamental time to place their bets. Now is the time to make those decisions, design a roadmap and start executing against it.”
Find out more about ProcureTech here.