I speak with a lot of procurement leaders and, while every individual story is unique, it’s always interesting when you start to see a trend emerge. It’s not a new idea that, in the modern landscape, procurement is evolving to support other business needs beyond cost. However, more recently I’ve noticed a change in the way CPOs are approaching this idea. From biotech to the FMCG sector, procurement leaders are facing more and more challenges.
Whether it’s the latest salvo in the US’ trade war, an extreme weather event, tightening regulations, or a devastating cyber attack, the pressures on modern supply chains are increasing. The terrain is getting more difficult to navigate. As a result, procurement teams are facing more pressure than ever to fulfil their more traditional objective: cost containment. Focusing on keeping the bottom line as healthy as possible amid an increasingly unstable economic environment doesn’t necessarily leave a lot of room for tackling resilience, agility, sustainability, innovation, and every other buzzword on the table—so to speak.
So, what I’m seeing is procurement leaders taking a more focused approach. In addition to cost containment, CPOs are increasingly working to identify the core values of their business and tailor their procurement strategies to support that.
In some companies, procurement enables speed, in others sustainability or resilience. Within the luxury goods sector, explains Matteo Perondi, Chief Procurement Officer for Bulgari, it’s creativity and client experience that are paramount. “One of our main values is creativity,” he explains. “We do hundreds of events every year, and each one must feel unique and special to our clients.” I sat down with Perondi at an event held in Paris by the spend management platform Ivalua — of which Bulgari is a client — to learn about Bulgari’s ongoing procurement transformation, and to unpick this idea of procurement as a way to deliver on a business’ core values.
A real strategic partner
Perondi joined Bulgari in July 2023 as its CPO, primarily overseeing indirect procurement, which accounts for the majority of the 140+ year-old Italian luxury fashion house’s spend. “Our direct procurement is mostly focused on gemstones, while everything else falls under my scope,” explains Perondi, including events, pop-up installations, storefronts, and everything else that goes into creating high-end luxury experiences for the company’s customers and clients. Even as someone with a remarkably diverse resume, Perondi is quick to point out what a unique environment Bulgari is in which to run a procurement function.
“I have nearly 20 years of experience creating or transforming procurement organisations from scratch,” he explains. Perondi has worked across the banking, insurance, automotive, large-scale construction — including a project to expand the Panama Canal — and telecommunications sectors throughout his career. “In every company I joined, they always told me, ‘We’re different.’ But after a while, I started thinking—are they really?’” he laughs.
Bulgari has been a very different story. “When I joined the company, it was something of a bold move for them,” he explains. “Bulgari decided to bring in someone from outside the luxury sector because they wanted to invest in procurement, which historically hasn’t been a strong focus in this sector. Procurement isn’t always seen as strategic—largely because of the heavy focus on revenue and margins.” Bulgari wanted to change that narrative, and hired Perondi specifically with a mandate to transform its procurement function into something that could not only deliver on cost savings, but help to deliver on the business’ core strategic values.
Perondi, for his part, has something of a unique perspective when it comes to transforming procurement from a tactical, back office function into something far more impactful. “In many companies, procurement is seen as an enabler. They support cost savings, compliance, audits, sustainability, and so on,” he says. “But I didn’t want to just enable. I wanted procurement to be a strategic partner.”
Understanding the business
To make that happen, he explains, “I had to truly understand the business. Coming from concrete and steel into luxury was a huge shift.” The learning curve has been steep, reflects Perondi, who notes that it took him some time to adjust to leading procurement in a business with very different values to the industrial settings where he spent his preceding years. “When I first joined Bulgari, I noticed we were using around ten different Michelin-starred catering companies, so obviously I asked why we needed so many because, in a typical procurement mindset, you’d consolidate for efficiency and cost down to one and have them do all of your events.” He laughs. “Someone turned around to me and said, ‘Are you crazy? If we always use the same one, our clients will get bored.’”
Nonetheless, he points out that the lessons learned in other industries do still have value to Bulgari’s procurement process. “There are two things. First, planning. In sectors like automotive or construction, everything is scheduled far in advance. You know when you need a part, and you work backward. That discipline wasn’t common here. So we’ve started building procurement plans: if you need something in October, let’s start preparing in April,” he says. “Second, tools and technology. I came from Vodafone before this, so I was used to digital tools enabling procurement. At Bulgari, I’ve started introducing digital decision-making. It’s not just about cost control—it’s about helping the business work smarter: better supplier selection, smoother communication, and smarter assessment.”
Sponsoring the transformation
Of course, changing the way things are done in any organisation is a challenge. In an organisation with a long and rich history tied to aesthetics, design, and passion like Bulgari, getting the necessary buy-in to support a procurement transformation was, Perondi explains, vital. “With any transformation project, you need a sponsor—someone inside the business who believes in what you’re doing,” he says, explaining that he was fortunate enough that his first supporter was the former Chief Marketing Officer, now Deputy CEO, Laura Burdese.
“Considering that marketing is such a major area of spend for Bulgari—ambassadors, events, advertising—this was key,” he says. “She brought me into her team early on, and I started by understanding their needs myself, hands-on. My team was still quite new at the time, so I worked directly with them. I told them: ‘I’m not here to reduce your budget. I’m here to help you buy better. With the same money, you can buy more or improve quality. Let’s do that.’”
Perondi started small with pilot projects, always keeping in mind that change management was going to be essential, slowly building buy-in and proving procurement’s potential to support business creativity and quality. “And it worked. This year, for the first time, I have a shared objective with the marketing team,” he enthuses. “We’ve agreed on at least one common goal that we’ll work toward together—true cross-functional alignment.”
2025 — Procurement in service of creativity
Creativity demands many things: trust, collaboration and, in particular, agility. “Agility is absolutely necessary for us because, for example, we need to be able to pivot if an event changes due to weather, or if a talent can’t make it, or if a supplier has an issue at the last minute,” says Perondi. “That’s the kind of flexibility we need to support the business’ creative ambitions.”
2025 is about laying the foundation for Bulgari’s procurement function to be more agile—as well as efficient and digitally-capable. “We’ve fixed a lot of what wasn’t working. Now we’re focusing on performance,” Perondi explains. “We’ll invest more in digitalization, especially tools that support smarter, faster decision-making. I want to implement project management modules that support boutique openings, for example. Behind every boutique is a lot of construction, architecture, and sustainability concerns. It’s a full-scale project.”
He also plans on growing his team, as well as building stronger bonds with the business, and tracking the value procurement brings to Bulgari, from savings and efficiency to creativity.