In 2024, the procurement sector tangled with multiple headwinds that ranged from rising material and SaaS costs to mass layoffs in the tech industry and geopolitically-driven disruption. As we enter 2025, procurement leaders must make savvy decisions to avoid the ongoing challenges facing their discipline and capitalise on the opportunities presented by new legislation and emerging technologies like AI and automation.
As the year draws to a close, we sat down with Eldar Tuvey, founder and CEO of Vertice, a procurement orchestration and SaaS saving platform, to hear his six predictions for procurement in 2025.
1. Procurement continues shift from cost-cutting to ensuring value
With Elon Musk appointed as the US’s “Secretary of Cost-Cutting,” the conversation around bold and occasionally brutal budget slashes is likely to dominate the news agenda and the way in which businesses consider their purchases.
Yet procurement leaders are shifting from cost-cutting to evaluating investments by their broader value and impact – including efficiency, performance, risk mitigation and security. This risks becoming a point of contention in boardrooms if the importance of such evaluation is not well-communicated and proven out.
2. Procurement workflows will finally be recognised as data workflows
Procurement departments are seeing that despite traditional perceptions, they can be one of the most data-driven departments in the business.
The most advanced procurement teams are currently relying on streamlined, customizable, responsive workflows, well-integrated with the business’ wider technologies – especially project management and collaboration tools – and advanced analytics to assess and continually improve these workflows’ ongoing efficiency.
And it’s proving to be worth it — these businesses are achieving a 30% boost in speed to market, innovation, and efficiency. We know that in 2025, more and more procurement leaders are aiming to chase up with these early innovators.
3. Supplier Relationship Management will finally go ‘strategic’
With a greater determination to evaluate suppliers based on wider value rather than simply cost and SLA performance, Supplier Relationship Management will become more data-driven.
Organisations will rightly expect their procurement teams to be using real-time internal and external data to assess a relationship’s overall health. This may include price benchmarking, usage analytics, SLA performance, duplication, risk and more.
4. AI adoption is accelerating.
Expect to see more native AI features within your SaaS products in 2025, and more dedicated AI tools being requested. Four of the top five fastest-growing SaaS vendors in 2024 are either AI platforms, or have integrated / native AI features within them.
But AI will still only support rather than replace human-led functions for the time being. Using AI would require a change of working behavior – something notoriously hard to achieve. It will be some considerable time before using – and trusting – AI as even a co-pilot becomes the norm, let alone handing over responsibilities.
5. Outcome-based pricing up to 4%
AI will accelerate a transformation in SaaS pricing models, pushing the industry toward usage or even outcome-based pricing – where customers pay for measurable success, such as performance improvements, cost savings or efficiency gains, not just access or usage.
The shift in pricing models will be more gradual. Today, 49% of SaaS contracts are still priced per user, 29% on usage, and 22% are hybrid models – meaning traditional models still dominate the landscape. Of the 29% of contracts that charge based on usage, only 4% of these are outcome-based – demonstrating that we are a long way off from outcome-based pricing becoming the new normal, despite the hype.
6. Single-suite platforms will finally overtake point solutions
Customers want simplicity and centralization from their SaaS in 2025, vendors will answer this with white-labelled point solution integrations.
Businesses have, on average, 128 live SaaS applications in 2024 – an 8.5% growth YoY. To reduce the complexities and cost that can come with managing so many tools, many businesses are switching their procurement strategy away from best-in-class point solutions towards more multi-feature platforms. As a case in point, all-in-one finance and CRM platform NetSuite – which has been aggressively broadening its capabilities recently – has been the tool with the highest renewal rate for the last two years.
Many larger platforms may choose to integrate with the particularly successful point solutions – on a white labelled basis or otherwise – to save on development time and cost. But in 2025, the overall trend will be for a shift towards more muti-functional platforms to reduce the number of SaaS tools in use.
