Benefit from expert conversations at the Exiger Executive Forum
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Exiger, the AI-powered supply chain management platform, is hosting another of its executive forums on November the 18th at 6:30-11:45pm at the Great Scotland Yard Hotel, London. In partnership with CPOstrategy, the Exiger Executive Forum – entitled ‘False Security: The illusion of control in modern day value chains’ – brings together leaders from across the industry to discuss and learn about the way supply chains are being reshaped for the modern age.
CPOstrategy readers can click here to request a place at this exclusive forum
Supply chains are under stress the world over, due to ever-evolving regulations and geopolitical reorganisation. To assume your supply chain is immovable and under control is, at best, naïve.
This is why the Exiger Forum exists; to keep attendees informed and prepared. The speakers for the event are:
Koray Köse
CEO and Chief Analyst, Köse Advisory & Senior Fellow, GlobSEC Geotech Centre & Board Member, Slave-Free Alliance
Sven Markert
Head of Supply Chain & Logistics Siemens Smart Infrastructure
Angela Qu
Advisor, Strategist and Former Chief Supply Chain Officer
Faysal Rahman
Director, Corporate Coverage – Global Defence Coordinator, Deutsche Bank
Scott LaFoy
Vice President, Nuclear and Technology Security Programs, Exiger
During the evening’s discussions, the panel will dig into how supply chains become more proactive and less reactive, as well as exploring insights on:
Regional concentration
Sanctions
Tariffs
Hidden risks
And Critical points of failure in supply chains
Click here to request a space and join other supply chain professionals at the Exiger Executive Forum
Speaking exclusively to CPOstrategy at ProcureTEX, Roque Versace, Managing Director, EMEA at Zip, discusses the changing role of procurement amidst significant transformation.
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Agentic AI has the potential to transform the entire procurement ecosystem, and Zip has been among the early adopters.
At Zip’s inaugural AI Summit in New York earlier this year, the company announced agentic procurement orchestration and a fleet of over 50 purpose-built AI agents designed to automate specific, manual tasks across procurement, finance, legal, IT and security.
And since its founding in 2020, Zip has pushed the envelope in orchestration and the way in which businesses spend. It is something that isn’t lost on Roque Versace, Managing Director, EMEA, at Zip who believes that AI is simply technology that ‘accelerates processes and reduces risk’.
“AI will continue to get smarter, continue to get more agentic and continue to improve so I find that really exciting,” he tells us. “At the core, it’s just how we use automation to speed up things, but beyond that, it’s about what we will continue to learn in the future. The agents that we’ve released will handle complex things such as tariff assessments, contract reviews and compliance checks. It’s going to eliminate a lot of time.”
Indeed, the scale of this transformation is well underway. Last year, Zip approved more than 14 million requests and it is expected based on Zip’s growth that the number will shoot up to 58 million approved requests by 2026, with 30% of those handled autonomously by agents. While over the next five years, that number could reach over a billion approvals yearly with 90% of them completed entirely by agentic AI.
“When you look at the procurement process and you see with us launching 50 agents, it didn’t take long to find 50 different areas of very manual, time consuming and error prone tasks that need to be automated,” explains Versace. “If you’re a company that’s not automating your procurement process, then you are essentially killing the careers of your people because they’re going to be doing a lot of the manual stuff that AI will take over doing. It will be problematic if they haven’t had the chance to flex their more strategic muscle because they’ve been mired in 50, 60 or 70% of their time being tasked with doing these things that are very low value. I think AI is central because there are just so many very manual tasks that don’t require a lot of thought that can be solved easily.
“AI is everywhere, and the use cases for procurement are pretty straightforward. I think you’re going to find that a lot of the agents that are rolled out in procurement are so valuable. I believe one of the reasons for that is that with orchestration, you’re laying down a workflow that can be followed very cleanly where you can intersperse AI into that overall workflow really well. By doing that, you are using the workflow of the orchestration that we have as a frame from which to put AI in. The idea down the road is that the orchestration and the workflow is replaced by agentic processes, but we’re not there yet. The combination of a Zip orchestration platform powered by AI is going to help us get there quickly, safely, and effectively.”
Zip’s 2030 roadmap is clear, the future is clearly agentic.
Speaking exclusively to CPOstrategy at ProcureTEX, Vel Dhinagaravel, CEO at Beroe, discusses how to navigate a new era of procurement amid an AI transformation.
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“I think procurement’s being asked to do a lot.”
Vel Dhinagaravel, CEO and Founder at Beroe, is well aware about the challenges facing the procurement industry today.
With almost two decades of experience running operations at Beroe, it is fair to say that Dhinagaravel has seen it all since the company’s founding in 2006.
“There’s a lot of volatility and unpredictability in the market, but I think the key common denominator with the asks of procurement are to prove that there’s a competitive cost structure that they are providing,” he explains. “I think the old notion of measuring procurement performance in the form of savings is changing and evolving into a competitive advantage. This could come through cost, flexibility, innovation, speed, etc. I see best-in-class procurement organisations focusing on measuring their competitive differentiation on all of these different parameters.”
Today, Beroe has become a global powerhouse in procurement and stands as one of the world’s leading procurement intelligence platforms. The organisation empowers procurement leaders to make better, more informed decisions via real-time data and AI-driven insights. For years, Beroe has been actively enabling procurement’s shift from calendar-based optimisation where contracts are looked at shortly before renewal to continuous optimisation, where spend areas are optimised on an ongoing basis.
“The role of the category manager is to make sure that they understand what’s changing in the market, what are the emerging opportunities and risks while ensuring that they’re addressing each of those in real time,” explains Dhinagaravel. “As that shift is happening, we’ve had to change our operating model from something that was tailored to supporting discreet one-off events, to supporting the category manager throughout the lifecycle.”
With this in mind, Beroe is solving the need for proactive intelligence via its AI agent Abi. Built on a foundation of Beroe’s in-depth, curated market intelligence datasets, consisting of the likes of category developments, supplier alerts and in-depth benchmarks, Abi leverages cutting-edge LLM technology to distill critical insights and deliver them directly in a digestible and actionable format. For more challenging complex contextualisation, Abi can utilise human-in-the-loop capabilities to ensure accurate, nuanced responses tailored to the users needs.
As far as Dhinagaravel is concerned, AI is considered a ‘force multiplier’ that can significantly scale the capacity of sourcing organisations. “If today, the capacity of the sourcing organisation is constrained from a resource perspective, that makes them have to choose where they put their resources, and as a result, they may put some form of spend threshold below which procurement doesn’t play an active role,” discusses Dhinagaravel. “Now with AI, I believe that it’s almost like adding an exoskeleton to the category manager, which should dramatically increase their capacity and decrease those thresholds. This means there’s much greater spend under active management and more continuous management. For me, those are the things that AI should be enabling.”
Speaking exclusively to CPOstrategy at ProcureTEX, Alan Holland, CEO and Founder at Keelvar, discusses his company’s AI mission amid a global digital transformation.
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For the past 13 years, Keelvar has grown to become a market leader in advanced sourcing optimisation and autonomous sourcing for procurement. Led by CEO and Founder Alan Holland since the company’s creation in 2012, Holland has witnessed first-hand how the procurement function has mobilised and embraced AI amid industry-wide digital transformation journeys.
And that past isn’t lost on Holland.
Alan Holland
“As a company that came from an AI research lab, it’s fascinating to remember that in our early days when we were talking about AI to prospects and customers, they weren’t really listening,” he recalls. “In some ways they thought we were techies, maybe a little too far away from the problems that they had at that time. I guess, in some ways, they were right because they weren’t yet ready to adopt AI. But I still have no regrets that we needed to start building then because the frameworks for successful AI adoption require deep foundations. In the realm of sourcing, in order to do the process in the best way possible, you’ve got to have a sourcing optimiser that can reason about expressive bid information from suppliers, expressive constraints and preferences from your stakeholders. That’s the key to having efficiency and speed.”
Keelvar is committed to delivering ‘AI-first’ instead of ‘AI-enhanced’ sourcing solutions, demonstrating a firm mission is to scale sourcing excellence. For Holland, he believes that sourcing excellence revolves around approaching suppliers with transparency. “You must be clear about what you need from them, what your expectations are, what excellence looks like for you, and how you will measure their performance,” explains Holland. “At its core, sourcing excellence is about rich communication. But it can often be multifaceted so there’s always trade-offs to be had. If you look behind the curtain of any supplier, you don’t know just how much complexity there is. But if you can allow them to condition their offers based on the right structure of the package of items that would suit them, then that’s a good way of supporting excellence.”
One of the most important pieces of the puzzle to Keelvar is the power of interoperability and connectivity. According to Holland, interoperability in particular holds the key to success for enterprise procurement teams who want to lean into AI. “To successfully adopt AI, you’ve got to get your hands around your data and you’ve got to be able to pass that data between systems seamlessly,” Holland tells us. “The age of trying to copy and paste data from one system to another is not acceptable anymore. You’ll be left behind if you haven’t got neat and user-friendly integrations that are a single click in effect. You can pass the results of one process in a system as an input into the process in another system.”
In September 2025, CPOstrategy travelled to London to attend the first ever ProcureTEX for an interactive conference filled with important discussion and valuable insights.
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Introducing ProcureTEX.
A new kind of event has arrived – one built by the best-of-breed community, for procurement leaders driving real change.
Held for its inaugural event in Kings Place, London, on 17th September, and hosted by Keelvar, Beroe and Zip, ProcureTEX brought together the procurement community with proven best-of-breed technologies, so forward-thinking practitioners can build their own bespoke, integrated best-of-breed ecosystem to solve their biggest challenges. Designed for procurement leaders and digitalisation teams at large enterprises, the event was created for those seeking scalable, modern alternatives to legacy systems.
The idea of ProcureTEX was born following a casual conversation between Alan Holland, CEO and founder at Keelvar, and Vel Dhinagaravel, CEO and founder at Beroe, who both felt there was a gap in the market for an event that could combine the best of innovation with providers and vendors of a certain scale that can be interoperable. They mused that while some events focus on innovation, primarily attracting startups, and other conferences centre more on larger, more established players with a huge amount of pedigree – there was nothing quite like ProcureTEX out there.
Having been described by Dhinagaravel as an “unconference” in his opening address, ProcureTEX wanted to put practitioners at the forefront and create a place for transparent discussion about the direction of travel for procurement amid significant digital transformation.
One of the biggest successes of the event was the spotlight on peer-to-peer learning. In addition to speaker sessions and panel discussions, ProcureTEX provided practitioner-only sessions and workshops offering candid conversation, as well as a series of hackathons showcasing a deep-dive into real-world challenges. The result was an enthusiastic floor filled with a shared buzz and hunger for collaboration to achieve better outcomes for individuals and their procurement teams.
The first session was an engaging and educational keynote from Professor Mike Woolridge from the University of Oxford who stressed how “you can’t have an AI strategy without a data strategy.” Woolridge’s message set the tone for the day with speakers and attendees alike reinforcing the notion that clean, contextual data is procurement’s most valuable asset while also being its greatest challenge. No data, no AI.
Another notable theme from the day’s proceedings was that discussions about AI are now grounded in practice rather than hype. Real use cases were showcased, including a presentation on Roche’s AI orchestration journey delivered by Digital Procurement Solutions Lead, Martin Ward, and a discussion of how Siemens Energy is leveraging AI to tackle inflationary pressures. ProcureTEX highlighted that leading organisations are already “walking the talk”, when it comes to AI implementation.
Given the rapid development of AI-powered procurement technologies, it can be challenging for people and organisations to always keep pace with the latest innovations. ProcureTEX showcased the skills gap in data literacy and comfort with AI tools as an important focus area for the industry. Satvinder Panesar, Data and Analytics Director at AstraZeneca, said it best: “If you’re not competent from a digital perspective, you’ll struggle. Many large enterprises are like big slow ships, while AI is moving so quickly.”
Further, ProcureTEX demonstrated how the best-of-breed model is a viable alternative to purely traditional suites. The future is one of digital ecosystems with orchestration holding the keys to link it together. According to one attendee, orchestration is not simply workflow efficiency, but in fact, the data engine that powers AI and captures structured, high-fidelity data at every step.
Attendees praised the vendor-alliance format with one declaring ProcureTEX as a “breath of fresh air” and “refreshingly human.” Posting on LinkedIn after the event, Channing Brazier, Partner and Alliances Manager EMEA at SpendHQ, said: “I’ve been to more procurement conferences than most people have hot dinners – and usually, they’re all about chasing leads like seagulls after chips. So I was genuinely curious to see how this new vendor-alliance format would play out compared to the usual big-platform and organiser-led marathons and honestly, it was a breath of fresh air. Instead of the usual sales pitch parade, the vibe was open, collaborative, and refreshingly human.”
Sourav Das, Senior Product Manager at Maersk, who also joined Head of Operational Excellence at Maersk, Dilip Nair, on stage for a practical look at real world transformation, shared how the event felt more like a “working session than a conference.” He said: “Great job done by Keelvar, Beroe and Zip – this feels like the start of something lasting!”
Following the success of its first event, ProcureTEX is keen to build momentum. Given the overwhelmingly positive response from attendees, event organisers are already planning how to launch future ProcureTEX conferences elsewhere in Europe or in the United States, amidst a drive to create an ongoing community that meets regularly.
“We felt there was a real gap in the market for us,” Jenny Rushforth, Vice President, Communications and Content at Beroe, told us towards the end of the event. “We wanted to put practitioners front and centre to make our event incredibly practical with lots of key takeaways. There are hackathons which show how best-of-breed providers can be interoperable and can come together to make more than the sum of their parts. We are hearing from customers that this is what they need right now. They don’t want massive enterprise systems or to feel overwhelmed with too many point solutions so we are showing that companies can come together and create a better solution.”
Procurement’s future is transformative and ever-changing. It is set to involve a blend of robust data foundations, creative usage of AI and collaborative problem solving which is transitioning away from theory into producing scalable solutions with real-world impact.
The tools exist, the use cases are real – and ProcureTEX aims to facilitate the discussions and collaboration needed to bring more organisations along on the journey.
What brought you to ProcureTEX and what are your thoughts about the event?
Clare Cassano, Head of Procurement, Strategy and Execution, Invesco
“It was an opportunity to meet with other practitioners. We are in this world of new digital solutions and are at different points of the journey. It’s a great opportunity to learn from each other.”
Kim Harris, Global Procurement, Senior Director of Digital Transformation, The Coca-Cola Company
“I was really excited to hear about ProcureTEX a few months ago. It’s a brand new event on the London circuit so I’m always looking to take in new procuretech events and experiences. I’ve loved what I found this morning and there’s been great engagement with other customers and suppliers. It’s been really interesting to hear what the speakers have had to say today.”
Kasia van Rijnberk, Procurement Team Lead, Source to Contract, Global Categories, FreislandCampina
“Curiosity brought me. I’m really interested in what the hype is, what other companies are doing and how digital transformation is evolving the industry.”
Harry Saurai, Global Procurement Technology Lead, Astellas Pharma
“I think it’s very important that we as an organisation and a wider community evolve with what is happening in procurement technology. For me personally, it’s about understanding what our peers are doing and listening to any lessons that they can share.”
Darshil Khimasiya, EU Demand Services Procurement Logistics Manager, Colgate-Palmolive
“We wanted to understand how the industry is changing. It’s a great place to come and see what other companies are doing in procurement and how they are leveraging AI.”
Jemima Ahmed, Digital Garage Advisor, bp
“Keelvar invited us here today and I was keen to see what it was all about and see what others are doing. I’m enjoying it, it’s a great event.”
Martin Ward, Digital Procurement Solutions Lead, Roche
“The primary reason for being here today was that I gave a presentation about our journey in orchestration and explained our learnings on what has been a long running initiative for us. It’s also been great to come and see how scale ups are working together and collaborating to show how the procuretech ecosystem can be vibrant and efficient. There’s huge value here.”
Why are events like ProcureTEX important for the industry?
Clare Cassano, Head of Procurement, Strategy and Execution, Invesco
“They are super important because the world is changing so quickly in procurement, particularly in the digital solution space. It can be really hard to keep up with the latest trends and what good looks like so coming to events like this can provide a view over what other people are utilising and doing day-to-day.”
Kim Harris, Global Procurement, Senior Director of Digital Transformation, The Coca-Cola Company
“This is the best opportunity to share knowledge, best practice and experiences with each other as large corporations so that we can come together and exchange ideas to help us all mature digitally in this fast paced environment.”
Kasia van Rijnberk, Procurement Team Lead, Source to Contract, Global Categories, FreislandCampina
“It’s about bringing people together. We all speak the same language. We have the same issues and challenges to face so we can work together to do better.”
Harry Saurai, Global Procurement Technology Lead, Astellas Pharma
“It’s the future. It’s a huge, emerging market. Events like this will equip us with the knowledge we need to succeed. AI is the magic word and we need to grasp that because that’s the future. Events like this are very important in order for us to adapt going forward.”
Darshil Khimasiya, EU Demand Services Procurement Logistics Manager, Colgate-Palmolive
“It’s about networking. I love finding similar challenges that everyone is facing, so coming to events like ProcureTEX gives us the ability to learn and take things on board to improve.”
Jemima Ahmed, Digital Garage Advisor, bp
“I’m quite new in the space, so listening to what other people have challenges in is really interesting. This is especially true in some of the more intimate sessions, where people ask questions so you can connect and relate with them. In the garage, we like to look at what others are doing to see if we can help them while also seeing if what they say can instil something in us too.”
Martin Ward, Digital Procurement Solutions Lead, Roche
“It shows an evolution and an increase in maturity. You’ve got scale ups who are getting together not only to showcase their own capability but also about how they can work with others. It gives more choice, increases confidence while also displaying resilience which is what we’re after. We need to be able to minimise our risk when we make investments when we look to deploy technology.”
CPOstrategy is delighted to partner with the Global Procurement Summit ahead of this year’s conference.
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The fifth edition of the Global Procurement Summit brings together the brightest minds, industry pioneers, purchasing leads, and procurement leaders from across various industries for two days of high-impact discussions, cutting-edge procurement strategies, and unparalleled networking opportunities.
This year’s event will take place at the Holiday Inn, Amsterdam, on 20th November until 21st November, 2025, from 8.30am until 6pm (CET) time.
The Global Procurement Summit 2025 will go beyond traditional procurement to explore how organisations can navigate disruption, harness digital transformation, and create agile, cost-effective, and sustainable supply chains. Whether you’re a CPO, procurement director, or supply chain professional, this summit is the ultimate gateway to the future of procurement.
Some of the key topics set to be discussed include sustainable procurement and ESG compliance, AI and digital procurement transformation, as well as supplier relationship and risk management. There will also be deep discussions into cost optimisation and value creation, transparency, compliance and ethical sourcing, as well as procurement’s role in supply chain resilience and data-driven decision-making in procurement.
Secure your seat today and be part of a transformative experience that will shape the way you think, source, and strategise.
CPOstrategy attended Zip’s exclusive AI Summit in New York this year, to learn more about the future of agentic orchestration, and what that means for Zip and its guests.
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On the 10th of June, preceding DPW New York 2025, Zip hosted its own invite-only AI summit in Brooklyn, NYC. Taking place at the Ace Hotel, Zip gathered over 100 procurement professionals to discuss agentic orchestration and run workshops and roundtables, enabling guests to learn, share, and network.
That very morning, Zip announced major news: the release of a suite of 50+ AI agents to automate high-impact tasks, from tariff analysis to GDPR compliance, and everything in between. This announcement created an even bigger buzz at the AI summit, which kicked off with an introduction from Lu Cheng, Co-Founder and CTO of Zip.
Cheng stated that the Zip team has been looking forward to the summit all year, and – vitally – to this monumental product launch. He discussed the fact that the entire point of Zip, since its creation in 2020, has been to make technology and processes less painful, and since then the business has changed the industry. Now, Zip is trusted by hundreds of enterprise customers, delivering an average of 3.6% in savings, and 55% faster purchasing cycles.
“Today marks the most important milestone in Zip history, and the biggest leap forward procurement has ever seen,” said Cheng from the stage. These 50+ agents will be embedded into workflowers to complete specific tasks. Customers can choose from any of the templates, or build their own custom agent. These agents save millions of hours, and completely redefine what procurement can be.
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Lu Cheng, Co-Founder and CTO of Zip
Tell us about the launch of these AI agents.
“It’s something that we’ve been working on for the past year, and a lot of it has been grounded from where we were at the very beginning, five years ago. We started by creating the intake and procurement orchestration category, which is truly revolutionary as a standalone salon product. But it’s been really exciting in the last five years. With intake and procurement orchestration, we’ve been able to not only help orchestrate the workflow, but deliver real ROI along the way. We’ve been able to deliver 3.6% in savings, double the number of compliant purchases, and significantly improve cycle times along the way by 55%.
“We truly believe the next evolution is agentic procurement orchestration, and it’s embedding AI agents into every single part of the workflow. We’re really excited for this launch, and part of that is taking the actual intake request information itself and determining, hey, is it categorised properly? Are the payment terms within company compliance and policy? We’re really excited about these agents, because it’ll truly change how we think about running and operating the function.”
This technology represents a huge shift away from AI assisted workplace, to becoming fully autonomous. From your perspective, what does that shift look like?
“It’s really a multi-phase journey that every company will need to work on. With AI, the evolution is so fast. Every week, every month, every couple of months, there have been fundamental step function changes in the foundation models, and the internal adoption of AI. And for us, this is where we focus on agents and what they can do for our customers. Over the next two to three years, we see a world where agents will be able to autonomously run a lot of review processes themselves. We’re at the very first stages of our journey today, and are starting to partner with our customers to embed agents into specific aspects of their workflow with our 50 agents. Over time, we really see a large transformation across the entire function.”
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A fundamental shift in procurement
Nikki Garcia, Lead Product Marketing Manager at Zip, also took to the stage during the introduction to the summit. She discussed the fact that procurement has fundamentally changed, and that it’s at the centre of a complex network. Making sense of it is difficult, and mistakes can be costly. As a result, the stakes are higher than ever. Procurement teams are buried in work that could, and should, be automated, weighed down and overwhelmed by repetitive tasks.
The answer is AI. Many core procurement tasks are a perfect match for AI to tackle, and AI agents are the best possible use of this technology. Garcia stated that these agents should be thought of as interns that need very specific direction and rules. What makes Zip’s agents different is their specificity.
Phil Pappone, Director of Solutions Engineering at Zip, went on to talk about the fact that agents can be baked into the workflow at any point, reviewing documents to pull key insights, and being used to research current relevant events – like tariffs – to help humans make business decisions. They can even investigate whether a supplier is subject to DORA, and can streamline compliance associated with that. Zip is the connective tissue of this orchestration process, while its agents can be dropped into the workflow and deployed seamlessly.
Cheng closed out the introduction to the day with a reminder that Zip is leading the next evolution of agentic procurement orchestration. “This is the agent-first future we all need to plan for,” he stated, “and this is only the beginning”. Cheng also predicted that by 2028, agents will be working independently.
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Laurie Hill, VP, Procurement Innovations, Systems & Analytics at Prudential
What are your thoughts on the Zip AI Summit so far?
“It’s been really great. There are a lot of networking opportunities, and we’ve heard a lot of very interesting things from the presenters and the panels.”
Zip announced its 50+ specialised AI agents today. What do you think about this move?
I’m super excited about this. We had been looking for help in our organisation a lot when we implemented Zip in January, and I think this will be a tremendous addition. We’re already starting to have conversations within my team about how this might overlap with some of the things that we’re doing. I love the fact that it is very specific to steps in the process, and not super broad.”
From your perspective, what are some of the biggest challenges that procurement is facing right now?
“I think we have a huge amount of volume that we haven’t necessarily had before. Our businesses are looking to move a lot faster than they had been in the past, and they’re expecting us to be able to do that, so we have to meet that challenge.”
Tell me your thoughts on working with Zip.
“We’ve had a great relationship with them. The team that we’ve been working with has been fantastic. Our implementations so far have gone really well. We continue to try to leverage the team as much as we can, we’re looking forward to continuing to grow with them.”
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AI at the core of everything
Felix Meng, Co-Founder and VP of Zip, later led a panel of procurement leaders in a session entitled ‘Preparing for procurement’s agent-first future’. In the wake of Zip’s agent announcement, it was a timely deep-dive into what it means to make AI the core of procurement operations. Each panelist talked about what they’re excited about regarding AI within their companies, and what they’re sceptical about, e.g. being distrustful of AI, or a fear of being replaced.
The discussion then revolved around what having agents living within the orchestration layer can do, and how they drive AI. The key is getting people on board who can see the potential, but driving adoption of the vision is a challenge. The panel also touched on an important point: that not everything should involve AI, because some tasks require the human touch. However, the use of agents represents thousands of saved hours, and enables businesses to use that recovered time for things like strategy development, continuous improvement, and upskilling.
AI’s current wave
Then Rujul Zaparde, Co-Founder and CEO of Zip, took to the stage with Jay Simons, General Partner at Bond. This AI luminary session shone a spotlight on Simons as an AI visionary, as he discussed his view on AI with Zaparde. Simons began in enterprise software, and wanted to give back to and invest in a smaller business that shared the same vision as him.
When asked whether this current wave of AI is meaningfully different, Simons said yes. “AI is advantaged because of all that’s come before it, but it’s also profoundly different,” he explained. “We’re finally able to create thinking machines, and introduce capabilities that can think on our behalf. AI is an amplifier for fast-moving category leaders.”
Simons also acknowledged that some are still stubbornly resistant to change, but that’s shifting and being unlearned. It will only get better.
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William Yan, Senior Product Manager, Zip
What does the shift towards agentic AI look like?
“We want to do a crawl, walk, run. Not only from a technological standpoint – and obviously things are still developing and getting better – but even from a change management standpoint, people aren’t comfortable leaping straight into it. It’s about getting people used to using AI. Initially, it’s really about augmenting. It’s about supporting the person that makes the decision. So now, as we start shifting to more agentic, more autonomy, we have this internal framework around levels of autonomy. We definitely feel like we’re in the early stages of that, both from a confidence in our own technology and comfort level of our customers for adopting. Over time, as our customers build confidence, and as we build confidence, we can see that shift in terms of taking more complexity, more autonomy with these agents.”
When you were planning this summit today, what were some of the elements that you were determined to make sure that you could bring for your customers?
“We obviously wanted to share our vision and the products that we are launching with. We wanted the voice of the customer to come and see, because it feels like a lot of the time, we hear that everyone’s thinking about AI, but people aren’t necessarily talking to each other. And so a forum to hear from peers is really helpful. We also had the workshop, which for us, was really about demystifying the agents. I think people can be intimidated.”
Let’s talk about the workshop. How did it go? Do you think that people left with a better idea of what agents are and what they mean?
“I hope so. We had some good discussions afterwards, as people were thinking about the different problems. I feel like it helped people understand and part of the challenge is when you think about where to apply AI without boundaries, you think, ‘I have so many problems, where do I start?’ And it’s hard to build that intuition. I think the framing that we built helped guide that discussion. We’re encouraging people to think a little bit more simply about high value, but repetitive tasks; things that can be clearly defined.”
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Inspiring conversation
Following William Yan’s ‘design your own agent’ workshop, Anthropic’s Katie Streu, Head of Procurement, and Adam Dix, Head of Finance Operations, then led a session about the business’s AI maturity framework. The talk centred around Claude, a family of LLMs, and its position as a consultant, teammate, agent, and analyst. The pair discussed their vision for AI in procurement, including adoption, automation, and assurance.
They stated that, in the future, everything to do with these elements will be dealt with by AI agents – and we’re close to realising that future. It’s about building trust through verification, which involves a human being in the loop. AI isn’t going to replace everyone, but everyone needs to be on board with how AI can assist them.
Before the summit wound down, attendees broke into groups for discussion roundtables. The groups talked about procurement’s AI maturity curve, setting AI expectations, assessing AI maturity, and looking ahead at the next few years and what they might hold. The buzz didn’t abate, the chatter continuing long after the event finished and guests began leaving for the DPW New York opening party.
The Zip AI Summit proved the perfect precursor to DPW New York 2025, setting the scene and getting people excited to talk more about agentic AI. Congratulations to Zip for a successful event, which the CPOstrategy team was thrilled and honoured to attend.
AI’s rapid evolution is creating both opportunity and urgency. AlixPartners lays out what needs to change — and why risk-takers will lead the way.
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The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in procurement is gaining traction with many organisations already looking at how the technology can improve processes. However, there’s scope to go beyond efficiency and instead focus on transforming value delivery.
At DPW New York, we spoke to Amit Mahajan and Aaron Addicoat from AlixPartners, a management consultancy firm doing things a little differently. The organisation is advising its clients on how to implement AI to drive value, but it’s also using AI internally, too.
“AlixPartners has a unique business model,” explains Addicoat. “We have a very senior model, very few junior resources. So now you imagine taking people with 10 or 15 years experience and now you equip them with AI… for us, it’s a huge unlock.”
This is about more than just productivity gains. AlixPartners focuses on using AI to transform the way procurement teams work, while crucially, maintaining the human touch.
How procurement professionals are using AI
With the support of technology, it’s possible to shift procurement from a cost-saving exercise to a potential revenue driver. Procurement teams are already looking for these opportunities, as Mahajan explains. “They’re starting to think about new ways of doing things,” he says. “It’s not just automation, but asking how do I leapfrog and do something differently?”
There are plenty of use cases where AI is helping with automation. This is a great place to start as it frees up human workers to do more valuable jobs that need a personal touch. “I have a client who’s using AI every day,” says Addicoat. “This allows them to review documents and contracts rapidly, to find key clauses and termination dates. They’re also using it in spend control processes to identify which things need to be reviewed more thoroughly.”
Many organisations are also using AI agentically to create their own bots. This gives teams a more accessible way to review information. “One example is a client who’s using AI for their business to help with acronyms,” says Addicoat. “They built it as an acronym tool to help break down the language barrier between different functions using different terms. This led to better engagement.”
This empowers employees across an organisation to be more autonomous while still getting the full picture. Agentic AI, especially, allows them to interact with information in a way that previously would’ve required specialist technical knowledge. Now, it’s possible to query information within a contract directly.
“It’s about using agents and AI to look at anomalies within your procurement contracts,” explains Mahajan, “and be able to help the category analysts, the category specialists, and others to get more of those insights.”
While generative AI might be a hot topic, it’s not the only way to use the technology. In combining several sources of data and using AI to spot trends, it’s possible to create workflows tailored to the current environment. Addicoat explains: “We take a series of data inputs, such as weather patterns, lead times, contractual terms, inventory, and forecast. Then the AI generates the purchase order, queues it for review, and upon approval, places the order.”
This can help an organisation to place orders with the right supplier in the most timely fashion to avoid delays, and optimise for cost, for example. This fully automates the end-to-end process, using AI to interpret those important data signals.
While this is useful for procurement teams, it’s only the start. “Using AI in this way is really cool,” says Addicoat, “but what I found most fascinating is that you’re building a data model, and with AI layered into it, that over time can tell you how to optimise itself.”
This has huge implications for procurement teams looking to save money and drive revenue. “For example, it could tell us the commodity price at a certain point in time was low,” says Addicoat, “but because inventory capacity to hold resin was maxed out the client could only buy so much at that low price. So now investing in a new storage unit at a cost of a few hundred thousand dollars could, under the same scenario in the future, save millions of dollars..Data quality challenges
A roadblock that can stop procurement teams from fully embracing AI is a lack of quality data. With so many sources of information, often including paper-based documents, some might think it’s difficult to get the data AI needs to be truly useful.
“Don’t wait for everything to be perfect before you get started,” says Addicoat.
This is a sentiment echoed by Mahajan: “Use AI to solve your data problem before solving your business problems.”
This requires a mindset shift. While AI can help cleanse, enrich, and structure existing unstructured data, it’s important to take the right approach. Shift from asking ‘what can we do with our data?’ to ‘what value do we need to create?’ and work backwards from there.
With this approach, the questions are less about the data and more about the business problem. This then allows you to use AI to work with the information you have to help answer those questions.
“Start with the value proposition in mind and work backwards,” explains Addicoat. “You can get data from anywhere — it has to serve a purpose.”
Bringing back the human touch
AI can free up procurement teams to focus on tasks that need more nuance and expertise. Using technology to automate workflows and make information more accessible has a huge impact on employee productivity. “It’s fundamentally transforming the way they work, the amount of work they can do, and the type of work they’re able to do,” says Addicoat.
There’s always the worry that with any new technology, the human element will be forgotten. “With every new advancement that comes in,” says Mahajan, “whether that was a steam engine or when computers came along, everybody wondered what they were going to do. But as humans, we always find ways to start doing higher-level work.”
This means that many professionals will find new ways of doing things. “Imagine all the mundane tasks you have to do in your daily job now,” Addicoat continues. “With these new ways of working, imagine the speed with which you can turn an idea into something real. All that time you free up allows you to go talk to people and build relationships that mean something.”
On the other side of things, the sheer volume of AI-generated content out there is going to drive people towards those more meaningful interactions. “You don’t know what to trust and what to believe anymore,” Addicoat says. “That’s going to lead to a resurgence in face-to-face content, being at the office, and being at events.”
AI’s impact on procurement talent
The talent landscape is changing. With technology playing a larger part than ever before, organisations don’t just need procurement professionals, they need adaptable, tech-savvy people. The nature of the job means that those in procurement need a wide range of skills.
“We do everything,” says Addicoat, “legal, operations, supply chain, negotiation, analytics. Procurement professionals are generalists.”
Tech plays into every element of that skillset, which means tech skills are becoming even more important for candidates applying for procurement roles. “Nobody goes to college thinking they’ll be a procurement professional,” says Mahajan, “but with AI and tech, that’s changing.”
With procurement often seen as a proving ground for leadership, embedding these tech-minded generalists could have a huge impact on the future. “We have a shortage of talent,” explains Addicoat. “But with more and more CEOs and COOs coming from procurement, that speaks volumes to what procurement does and the value it brings, as well as what the future holds.”
At AlixPartners, the passion for procurement is very clear with Addicoat saying: “There are only two kinds of people in the world: those who love procurement and those who don’t know it yet.”
Change is coming
With AI of all forms steadily gaining traction, procurement could change dramatically in the coming years. It’s the organisations that are willing to take risks and embrace change that will come out on top.
“AI has the potential to disrupt the whole management consulting world,” says Mahajan. “Firms focused on transformation will thrive.”
With AI’s capabilities increasing rapidly, it’s difficult to predict what comes next. However, adaptability is key. “Hold onto your hat. In a year and a half, the world’s going to look very different,” concludes Addicoat.
We spoke to Chief Product Officer Prerna Dhawan about what it takes to move from experimentation to execution.
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As AI continues to dominate conference stages and boardroom discussions, the pressure to use it is everywhere. As this technology becomes further embedded in enterprise strategy, many organisations are still grappling with how to apply it in a way that delivers real, measurable value.
Rather than focusing on AI for the sake of innovation, the question is how to align new tools with real business problems. That means looking beyond dashboards and pilots to deploy AI where it can simplify decision-making and improve processes.
At Beroe, this principle is central to how AI solutions are developed, deployed, and scaled. As the company behind the world’s leading procurement intelligence platform, Beroe provides real-time market data, cost analysis, and supplier risk assessments, empowering thousands of organisations globally to streamline operations and mitigate risks. Its latest advances in autonomous negotiation, supplier discovery, and predictive analytics show what it means to align AI with business objectives.
We spoke with Prerna Dhawan, Chief Product Officer at Beroe, during this year’s DPW New York conference. The discussion explored how procurement leaders can move beyond hype and start unlocking the full potential of AI.
Misalignment with business needs
There are plenty of real-world examples of how AI can improve efficiency within a business, from automating manual tasks like invoice processing to identifying new suppliers based on complex sourcing criteria. Accessing this technology is easier than ever with a wide range of tools available to procurement professionals. It can be tempting to jump on the bandwagon and integrate AI across every area of an organisation, but success requires a more nuanced approach.
The key is to ask the right questions, Dhawan explains: “We talk about all the latest and greatest technology out there, but what does it mean in practical terms? We need to ask, ‘How can I apply it today in the work I am doing as a head of product or as a procurement professional?’”
The allure of generative AI is especially strong, but business leaders should ask whether that’s the right solution for their needs. As with any decision, it’s important to consider the business problem. “It starts with a little bit of knowledge about what you’re looking for,” says Dhawan. “What are some of your biggest challenges, and which of those challenges could AI technology solve?”
Matching the right tool to the job
Once an organisation has identified a specific problem, it’s possible to find the AI solution that fits. While generative AI gets a lot of attention, other AI technologies and machine learning based systems might be more appropriate.
In some cases, prescriptive, rule-based, or predictive AI could be a better choice to solve a problem without the need for a large language model. For example, forecasting commodity prices doesn’t require generative AI, just strong, contextual machine learning.
“We are looking at AI across two dimensions,” says Dhawan. “Firstly, what is our offering to customers, in terms of procurement intelligence and autonomous negotiation technology. Second, we are looking at AI internally. Let’s say in product development, how do we use the latest AI solutions to accelerate our product development cycles so we can release new modules and capabilities more quickly.”
Regardless of the type of tool chosen, it should cover a high-impact use case. Integrating AI to solve a problem that only surfaces for a small group of people a couple of times a year won’t have a great return on investment. Instead, look for regularly occurring problems that, if fixed, could have a huge impact on productivity or quality.
Reducing the cognitive load
We’re already bombarded by information, and the use of AI to add to this doesn’t make sense. “I don’t need another dashboard in my life,” says Dhawan.
When implemented correctly, AI can make data more accessible while reducing cognitive load for users. The result is increased productivity and faster decision-making.
“I think the power of AI is to simplify access to data. This is why ChatGPT has been a success: it democratises access to information. That’s what our B2B technology world is waiting for. It gives me something simple that allows me to talk to my data. Then I can focus on what insights I need to make a decision or take action.”
For most B2B users, the key is intelligent simplification. Look for ways to simplify access to data through agent AI tools and conversational interfaces. This brings the focus back to action rather than dashboards.
Inside Beroe
While many procurement teams are still exploring AI’s potential, Beroe has already embedded it across both its platform and internal operations. The company, founded in 2006, provides procurement intelligence to thousands of organisations worldwide. Its platform delivers the critical data that professionals need to make informed sourcing decisions, from commodity prices and risk indicators to ESG scores and supplier intelligence.
“We provide all data that procurement needs for decision making, whether it’s cost data, risk data, ESG data or price data,” says Dhawan. “Our reimagination of the future is not just giving access to more data but creating that layer of recommendations that help you make decisions at speed and scale.”
One of the clearest examples of this in action is Beroe’s new ‘autonomous negotiations’ platform resulting from its recent acquisition of negotiation technology business, nnamu. Delivering a significant evolution in the procurement technology landscape the platform enhances the foundational elements of AI and game theory with Beroe’s industry-leading market intelligence and, according to Dhawan, it’s being deployed successfully in live sourcing scenarios.
“This is a technology that is being used for multilateral negotiations,” Dhawan explained. “It’s no longer just a POC or prototype, it’s live and being used at scale.” These new tools reflect Beroe’s core mission: to help procurement professionals minimise surprises and maximise margins.
Crucially, Beroe isn’t waiting for perfect data to apply these technologies. Instead, the company is using AI to work with what’s available — cleansing, interpreting, and extracting value from both structured and unstructured sources.
“You can use AI for cleansing data – even paper contracts,” Dhawan says. “Historically, we thought data had to be structured. But now, with vision models and image analytics, that’s no longer the case.”
Rather than striving for 100% accuracy before taking action, Beroe embraces a more agile mindset that balances speed and precision.
Is mindset holding procurement back?
The technology is ready. The use cases are proven. So why do so many procurement teams still hesitate to embrace AI? “There’s this subconscious fear that I think is a barrier to adoption,” she said. “And to some extent, it’s to do with our friends in Hollywood.”
There’s the myth that AI is a job-threatening black box, especially in industries where trust and experience are the backbone of good decision-making. For procurement, where professional judgement and business context are critical, the idea of handing over tasks to AI can feel risky.
But Dhawan believes this fear is misplaced. At Beroe, AI isn’t replacing procurement professionals, it’s augmenting them. Whether it’s surfacing new suppliers, automating elements of negotiation, or flagging risks earlier in the sourcing cycle, the aim is to enhance human decision-making. She says: “I think with the new kinds of AI technology that’s available to us, it is an opportunity for us in B2B tech to embrace more human-centred design with higher focus on UX.”
Looking ahead
Looking ahead to 2026 and beyond, Dhawan sees procurement evolving into a more personalised and responsive function – one where AI plays a critical role in both strategy and execution.
“We see hyper-personalisation coming, both in supplier relationships and internal stakeholder engagement,” she explains. “AI will be at the centre of that.”
Rather than one-size-fits-all sourcing strategies, AI will enable procurement teams to tailor their approaches to specific business units, categories, or even individual suppliers. This means smarter segmentation, more relevant insights, and stronger commercial outcomes.
Another key shift is the growing ability to connect macro events, such as geopolitical shocks or regulatory changes, with micro actions inside the business. AI can help procurement teams identify these signals earlier, respond faster, and still align with long-term goals such as cost efficiency or sustainability.
“It’s about balancing your fire-fighting reactions to market events with your long term goals and strategy,” says Dhawan. “Procurement needs visibility and flexibility at the same time.”
Beroe is already moving in this direction. Alongside its growing AI capabilities, the company is refining how it delivers intelligence, building agents and recommendation layers. These not only inform decisions, but also help teams take action on them. Whether that means automating routine negotiations or proactively flagging supply risks, Beroe is evolving to meet the needs of a procurement function that’s more dynamic than ever.
As Dhawan points out, the goal isn’t to overwhelm teams with more tools, it’s to make their lives easier. “It’s about reducing complexity and giving procurement professionals confidence in what to do next,” she concludes.
For many procurement leaders, AI still feels like a long-term ambition. But the solutions are already here, and through companies like Beroe, they’re already in use. The challenge now is not whether AI can deliver value. It’s whether teams are ready to adopt the mindset and cultural shift that will allow them to unlock that value.
We caught up with Valdera’s Co-Founders to find out why chemical procurement comes with its own challenges.
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Chemical procurement is one of the most complex and overlooked categories in the supply chain. Between navigating regulatory constraints, aligning on technical specifications, and finding qualified suppliers, even the most experienced procurement teams face major hurdles. That’s exactly the gap Valdera was built to solve.
Founded by sister-brother duo Sruti Arulmani (CEO) and Dheev Arulmani (COO), Valdera is an AI-native sourcing platform purpose-built for chemicals and raw materials. Rather than applying generic technology to a specialised industry, the team set out to reimagine chemical procurement from the ground up.
“Chemicals are one of the most complex sourcing categories,” says Dheev. “In order for a company to gain leverage from AI in this space, it must build the data infrastructure and the AI specific to this industry. That was the inspiration behind Valdera. Our vision was to partner directly with procurement organisations and help digitise that entire sourcing workflow all the way from supplier discovery to market intelligence to qualification.”
“Direct procurement is really at the core of your product’s margin,” adds Sruti. “In today’s economy, business leaders are focused on staying profitable, and that starts with ensuring the materials behind your products deliver on both margin and performance. Most of the physical products we touch and interact with every day come down to what they’re made of. That’s why we’re so passionate about chemicals and raw materials.”
The power of vertical AI models
While general-purpose LLMs are powerful, they fall short when it comes to industries like chemical procurement where context, precision, and deep domain expertise are crucial. Valdera has taken a different approach: building vertical AI specifically trained to understand the language, data, and complexity of chemicals and raw materials.
“In procurement, especially for chemicals, one-size-fits-all AI doesn’t cut it,” says Sruti. “You need models that can interpret highly technical specifications, normalize data across formats and suppliers, and understand the nuances that determine whether a supplier can actually meet a request.”
That’s exactly what Valdera has built. “We will continue to layer the specificity of the chemical industry on top of an LLM that’s already good at structuring information and returning information in a useful way,” Sruti adds.
Dheev continues: “If you look at the generic LLMs available today, the challenge with these is that they fundamentally don’t work in this industry. The reason for that is that there are no LLMs that are trained on chemical specs. So what we’ve done is take those models and fine-tune them using our own proprietary dataset of chemical specs and properties, built over the last five years. That’s what positions us to drive real value for our users.”
Prioritising privacy
In the chemicals industry, data is sensitive. Trust is everything. Buyers are protective of their proprietary formulations, and understandably do not want their data used to train models that could benefit competitors. On the other side, suppliers are cautious about publicly listing their full product catalogs, especially when it comes to custom or high-value materials. Valdera was built with these realities in mind, and its platform is designed to protect both sides.
“In chemicals, suppliers are very protective of their proprietary catalogs,” Dheev adds. “And buyers are equally cautious about sharing proprietary formulations that go into their products. So there needs to be an independent third party that both sides can trust—someone who can facilitate discovery and sourcing without compromising confidentiality.”
“For us, it’s about protecting the interests of both buyers and suppliers,” Sruti explains. “We only use customer data to drive outcomes for that customer. We’re not here to train on anyone’s inputs or share information across the ecosystem. We’re here to help our customers get the best results for their business. That’s core to how we think about data privacy and partnership.”
The humanity of procurement
Even as AI becomes more powerful, procurement remains deeply human. Trust, context, and judgement are critical to strong buyer-supplier relationships, and no model can replace that. Instead, AI can enable teams to work faster, focus on strategy, and unlock new value across the supply chain.
“Procurement is a human business,” says Sruti. “At the end of the day, it’s two people coming together and making an agreement. We believe that’s never going to change.”
Rather than add complexity or replace roles, Valdera’s AI helps teams do more with the resources they already have. That means less time spent on manual tasks like gathering supplier documentation or comparing specs and more time spent on strategic decision-making, relationship-building, and growing the business.
“Our customers don’t want to be buried in paperwork. They want to focus on the work that actually drives outcomes,” Sruti adds. “We’re here to take the most repetitive parts of the job off their plate so they can do that.”
“The chemicals industry is inherently relationship-driven,” says Dheev. “But today’s procurement teams are stretched thin. With Valdera, one person can now manage a broader scope: sourcing faster, accessing a wider network of qualified suppliers, and making smarter decisions in less time. That’s what’s getting our customers excited.”
Driving impact beyond cost
In chemical procurement, cost will always matter but it’s only part of the equation. The organizations leading the way are the ones thinking strategically: securing supply, expanding their supplier base, improving agility, and driving long-term value. That’s why more teams are turning to Valdera not just to cut costs, but to unlock a new level of visibility, access, and control.
“Our vision is to enable procurement professionals to leverage this data in order to give them market intelligence, expand their supplier network, and enable margin expansion,” Dheev concludes. “If you ask any of our customers, they’ll tell you savings are just table stakes when using Valdera. The real impact comes from levers like security of supply, innovation and sustainability. Those levers are harder to quantify, but they’re critical to the long-term success of the business.”
Implementing an outcome-based approach
In a crowded and fast-evolving tech landscape, it’s easy to get distracted by the promise of sweeping, all-in-one solutions. But the most effective procurement teams stay focused, starting with a clear understanding of their business goals and choosing technology that’s purpose-built to achieve them.
“Success starts with knowing the outcomes you’re trying to drive,” says Sruti. “Whether it’s sourcing the right chemicals, improving security of supply, unlocking savings, or advancing sustainability and innovation. Being clear about those goals is what helps you identify the right tools and partners to get there.”
That kind of clarity leads to faster wins and less wasted effort. “We always encourage customers to start where the impact matters most,” Dheev adds. “Don’t spread yourself too thin. Be specific about the problem you’re solving, define the KPI that matters, and test any solution against that. Just because a tool is popular doesn’t mean it’s the right fit. The best results come from targeted solutions that align with your most pressing priorities.”
The march towards agentic AI can be a daunting thing, but it’s important to get over that fear in order to make strides. We spoke to Rinus Strydom, CRO at Pactum AI, and Steve Velte, Executive Director Procurement Transformation at Honeywell, about how to move past the concern to level up your business.
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A common question when discussing AI is ‘where do humans fit in?’. The fear of technological advancements stealing our jobs is an old one, but the conclusion is always the same and always true: there will never be a time when human judgement and teamwork isn’t required.
At DPW New York 2025, we sat down with Rinus Strydom, Chief Revenue Officer at Pactum AI, and Steven Velte, Executive Director Procurement Transformation at Honeywell – a customer of Pactum AI – to discuss AI’s evolution and the human connection. As AI develops, for Strydom, the focus is on agentic, rather than generative. There’s a key difference there, especially when Pactum AI is talking to large enterprises.
“A lot of people feel a little bit afraid, because generative AI can go a little off the rails,” he explains. “But when you put agents to work, they’re always within the rails that are defined by the customers. Once we get over that hurdle and can make clients see that they can take their procurement operating model and have it just run at scale with agents, rather than being afraid that their image will get tarnished, AI can be put to work much faster.”
Putting AI to work
When it comes to strategies procurement leaders can adopt to make AI work for them, it’s a major discussion point for Strydom and Velte. As a customer, it’s important for Honeywell to feel like its work with Pactum AI is a collaboration; it’s part of what makes its strides into AI work successfully. “This collaboration goes deeper than what we’ve typically had in the past,” says Velte.
“When we go through organisational changes, we need a true partner, And when that partner gets into the elevator with you, they don’t just push the button with you – they go up to the next floor with you and sit at the table to talk about what’s happening. So a barrier to AI adoption is not having that deep collaboration and partnership.”
“I think another thing leaders can do today is really help with that psychological change management to make it feel like a safe thing,” Strydom adds. Mindset shift is such a vital part of this change, especially when it comes to successful collaboration. “It’s important to embrace agentic AI, to encourage people to become managers of agents and not run away or become fearful.”
Identifying the opportunities
The true benefits of AI are now beginning to present themselves, as people increasingly embrace AI. For Velte, businesses have to get going with their AI plans in order to realise where the real opportunities lie. “I can make a business case with tons of ROI, potential productivity gains, revenue uplift, bottom line, profit line – all of that. But the real benefits that come from AI are those hidden benefits we don’t realise. When you start looking at it, there’s a common theme of saving time, and time becomes the real benefit. Unlocking better use of time gives you more potential to work on other creative aspects of the business.”
For Strydom, the true value lies in achieving things that used to be extremely difficult to achieve. Pactum AI’s customer base is broadly looking at 10X ROI, which, now, is easily done thanks to the use of AI agents. Agents also allow procurement teams to scale extremely fast, which is something that has, historically, been hard-won.
“For example, if you need to change payment terms across your entire supply base, you can do that with thousands of agents in parallel. You could never do that before. It gives you the agility to react to global macro risk issues, like tariffs.”
Start now; perfection comes later
One of the loudest topics of conversation at DPW New York 2025 was data quality and the challenge of cleaning that data up. It’s a huge topic, and a daunting one. Many businesses fall into the trap of thinking their data has to be perfect before they can get fully involved with AI, but the conclusion many procurement leaders are coming to is that getting started is more important than perfection.
“Data quality is always the holy grail going forward,” says Velte. “Everyone’s going to look for it, and try to attain it. When you start implementing within an AI framework, you just need to go in there and know that you’re going to constantly evolve in a good way, thanks to the agents, AI programs, and initiatives. They’re going to uncover and unlock a lot of data and inconsistencies that you have. You won’t get there unless you start looking into them as an opportunity area. Data perfection is not the way to go; it’s about getting in there, starting to look at the opportunities, and being willing to be creative, disruptive, and innovating quickly.
“There’s never going to be a time when everything is 100% correct and accurate, because data is always evolving,” adds Strydom. “Start now. The data can be enriched over time with the agents’ help.”
Maximum savings, maximum momentum
Pactum is using AI specifically to enable it to be a strategic advisor for customers like Honeywell. The use cases coming out are very new, and changing fast. What Strydom and his team want is to be able to guide customers on the right strategies for them, how to get maximum savings, and maximum momentum. As this landscape becomes more complex, human intervention and guidance is more important than ever, which links back to the topic of mindset and change management.
There’s been a lot of debate within Pactum AI as to how the business embraces this. “From a marketing perspective, too, there’s the question of whether we should make our agents look human,” says Strydom. “Actually, what we’re seeing is that suppliers actually enjoy interfacing with a bot. Walmart, one of our customers, did a survey where they found that 85% of their suppliers actually prefer to negotiate with Pactum than with a human. It’s more efficient, but there still has to be a balance of efficiency with fairness and empathy.”
Managers of agents
Speaking of humans, shortage of talent has been a talking point within procurement for some time. That was, until advanced tech became more widely adopted, and bringing in procurement experts became less important than bringing in technology experts who are willing to learn. With the advent of agentic AI, according to Strydom, procurement leaders are now acting as managers of agents.
“All the analyst surveys say that procurement organisations are being asked to do more with less every year,” he says. “So the type of talent is definitely transforming. What we see is that the procurement organisations of the future are much more strategic. They’re focusing on creating strategy and procurement policies and procedures, and then having the agents actually go out and do the menial day-to-day work – entering things into ERP, turning requisitions into purchase orders, onboarding suppliers, and so on. All of that can now be done very quickly and efficiently by agents. This really elevates the role, and allows procurement to become a partner to the business.”
Velte adds: “When you talk about talent shortage, it’s also that shift in the mindset we’re going through right now. The expertise is changing, and we want to be able to bring in talented people with that technology flare. When we look at the next generation of leaders coming out of university and college, they’re AI enabled already. They’re expecting AI to be available to them to accelerate their development, career goals, and ambitions.”
Making sense of the landscape
As DPW New York 2025 unfolded around us, the discussion inevitably turned to the ways in which DPW helps procurement make sense of the AI landscape. Pactum AI is actually a perfect example of how useful DPW is. Only four years ago, the business was a startup, and won a pitch contest at DPW Amsterdam. “That catapulted the business, and got us a lot of visibility,” says Strydom. “It’s a great place for visibility with practitioners, investors, and partners.”
Again, it comes back to people. Being able to meet them in real life, communicate face-to-face, and learn from one another. “It’s about reconnecting with a lot of our partners,” says Velte. “But it’s also about seeing what is out there on the forefront that’s becoming available. It’s an amazing opportunity for us to really benchmark ourselves, while also getting a glimpse of what’s coming around the corner.”
Candex exists to solve tail spend by removing friction and giving procurement leaders time to focus on what truly drives value.
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Candex isn’t chasing trends for the sake of innovation. Instead, the company is focused on solving one of the oldest and most persistent challenges in enterprise procurement: getting rid of the noise.
Most in procurement will be familiar with Candex. Co-founded by Shani Vaza, Chief R&D Officer, and Jeremy Lappin, CEO, Candex is a technology-based master vendor that simplifies onboarding and payments to small and one-time vendors. It delivers a fast, compliant, and easy buying experience for requisitioners, while procurement gains automation, visibility, and control, reducing the vendor master by up to 80%.
For years, procurement teams have battled fragmented data, manual onboarding processes, and administrative bottlenecks. This results in time and resources spent on tasks that add little value, while strategic initiatives suffer from a lack of focus.
For many organisations, 70% of vendors account for just 5% of spend. With Candex, procurement can manage that long tail of spend without adding operational burden. This frees up teams to focus on strategic priorities, redirect spend to preferred suppliers, and drive more value across the business. At this year’s DPW New York conference, Jeremy Lappin and Chief Customer Officer Danielle McQuiston shared how their platform is helping procurement evolve beyond compliance and cost savings into something far more valuable: clarity.
Addressing the core problem
While many conversations at the event kept coming back to the use of AI, Candex is doing things differently. “AI will transform procurement by uncovering better, more innovative vendors,” says Lappin. “But every new vendor comes with the burden of onboarding and compliance. That’s where Candex makes a real difference—we streamline that process by enabling fast, compliant purchasing without the heavy lift of onboarding. As companies adopt AI, they’ll need a system like ours to truly benefit from what it reveals.”
It’s about bringing the conversation back to the core problem. Lappin continues: “Candex makes it possible to onboard and pay new vendors in minutes, and without setup delays, while keeping procurement firmly in control. That’s where we unlock both agility and compliance.”
Solving procurement’s data problem
After speaking to many procurement leaders at events such as DPW New York 2025, one topic of conversation stood out: that messy data can be a major hurdle to overcome before successful AI adoption can occur. Companies dealing with multiple affiliates for a single vendor can find their data ends up split, duplicated, and difficult to work with at scale.
“The fragmentation of data is a very old problem,” says Lappin. “One of the reasons it occurs is because the data is organised by affiliates and isn’t aggregated properly. This creates enormous processes.”
A dedicated platform can take on the heavy lifting of sorting through this data, without the use of complex AI models. Lappin continues: “One thing that Candex does to help this problem with smaller vendors is auto-aggregating affiliates under one corporate umbrella. It’s going to massively reduce the data problem by directing that small spend through us.”
McQuiston adds: “Data is the foundation of all the decisions that procurement makes. And the fact that they can consolidate that data within Candex, and look at it only when it’s relevant to what actions they have to take, is a huge contribution to the space for procurement.”
The right data at the right time
Candex isn’t trying to flood procurement teams with dashboards. Instead, it delivers data when and where it’s needed, stripping away the noise to surface what’s important.
“Our customers tell us we filter out 95% of the noise and highlight just the actions that matter. It’s not just visibility, it’s visibility at the right moment,” says McQuiston. “We have amazing reporting that has hundreds of lines of precision data in there, but it’s also aggregated in a way that it calls out to the things that need attention rather than being bogged down with the rest.”
“Oftentimes the stuff that goes through us is the stuff that procurement doesn’t have the time to give its attention to,” explains Lappin. “I think one of the most powerful things we do is get rid of the things they shouldn’t care about so that it’s very easy to see what they should.”
Simplicity wins
Some procurement tools are complex, slow to adopt, and full of friction, but Candex takes a different approach. “The users just want to be able to operate and do the work that they need to do to serve their objectives,” says McQuiston. “Procurement doesn’t have enough resources to deal with all of the small things.”
Bringing the focus back to the core function of procurement simplifies processes and reduces noise. When working with a lot of small vendors, procurement teams can get bogged down with admin and data. This is where Candex takes on the weight of that burden, and allows the business to move forward.
“At the end of the day, Candex is a tool that is so simple from a user perspective, but still has the confidence of the procurement organisation,” McQuiston continues. “It also shines a better light on the procurement function, which often gets a black eye for being in the way of things.”
Real people
For Lappin, the hype around AI isn’t what makes a product great; it’s real-world validation from customers. “There’s only one way to get through the hype,” he says, “and that’s to find other companies that are using the products and loving them. I think that’s one of the things that has made us successful.”
It’s one of the strengths of DPW; these events showcase real use cases, not just demonstrations. This enables attendees to see the impact of new technologies for themselves, and connect with the people behind them. “DPW has the ambition to use real use cases rather than just relying on demos,” says McQuiston. “That’s what’s a little bit different about DPW compared to some other conferences; the proof is in the pudding.”
Lappin and McQuiston also highlighted the importance of customer-led innovation through Candex Connects – roundtables all over the world that allow procurement peers to meet, discuss the challenges affecting them, and learn from one another, as well as sharing their own inspirational use cases. “We’re not just providing a solution. We’re providing a space where our customers get together, discuss best practices,” McQuiston adds. “And I think we’ve done that really well.”
Procurement, repositioned
Ultimately, Candex is about more than just a tool. It’s about reshaping the perception and potential of procurement teams, giving them the freedom and focus to lead strategically. By removing some of the friction of dealing with myriad small vendors, procurement teams are empowered to drive deeper value.
“Our whole business is focused on agility and value creation,” says McQuiston. “We have to be compliant because our customers demand it, but it’s not really about cost savings when you talk about tail spend. Procurement has always been in a position where they believe they can squeeze something out of every purchase. We’ve gotten to a point in the evolution of the function where they realise there’s a portion they can’t squeeze anything out of. It’s powerful to be able to let that go.”
“Procurement needs to be involved in decisions around spend,” adds Lappin. “They help negotiate. They figure out the right vendors. They really are needed in this process, which is why it exists.”
Candex isn’t just solving tail spend, it’s redefining how procurement operates at scale. With built-in controls, full audit trails, and seamless integration with existing systems, Candex empowers procurement to lead strategically, reduce supplier bloat, and stay agile in a complex world.
Candex is proving that the biggest transformation comes from helping procurement teams reduce the noise and get back to the work that matters.
Most organisations don’t know if their contracts are delivering what was agreed. At DPW New York, we spoke with the founders of Digital Mirror about why tracking contract performance can unlock strategic value.
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Many organisations have lost sight of the ‘why’ behind their contracts. These complex documents are the result of multiple business functions coming together to form an agreement. However, when each area of an organisation has different goals and requirements, it can be challenging to monitor how each contract performs.
To manage the vast quantity of contracts in a modern business, there has been a rise in digital contract lifecycle management (CLM) tools. However, these only store and manage contracts. To solve the problem of value leakage, Digital Mirror’s contract performance management (CPM) platform enables organisations of all sizes to get back to the ‘why’ behind their contracts.
We sat down with Digital Mirror’s co-founders, Ulf Zetterberg and Kevin Gidney, at this year’s DPW New York conference to find out more about why contracts should perform and not just exist.
Zetterberg and Gidney came together at Seal Software, a pioneer in contract analytics that introduced machine learning for extracting data from contracts at scale. After Seal Software was acquired by DocuSign in 2020, the company launched Digital Mirror to take that vision further, helping businesses actively manage performance to prevent value loss.
Disconnection from outcomes
Without proper tracking, it’s possible to lose some of the originally agreed-upon benefits from a contract. “Businesses have lost the connection to why they needed the contract in the first place,” explains Zetterberg. “How do you measure to make sure that you get what you sign up for? That’s what we do.”
If these organisations aren’t monitoring the performance of their contracts, they could end up paying for services they no longer need or miss out on discounts and other benefits. While CLM tools might make accessing contracts more straightforward, that’s often not enough.
“CLM tools allow you to create contracts and look what’s in them,” says Gidney. “What they don’t tell you is what’s actually happening in the business itself.” This means there’s a gap between what’s in the contract and real-world events affecting the business.
Digital Mirror’s co-founders, Ulf Zetterberg and Kevin Gidney
Bridging that gap
Digital Mirror’s contract performance management platform brings the intent back into the contract lifecycle. Using real-time insights, benchmarking, and workflow triggers, the CPM can identify issues and recommend actions. This reduces the risk of value leakage.
“There are many types of value leakage,” says Zetterberg. “Things like payment terms, price adjustments, missed credits, or even contractual rights you’re entitled to, like the right to terminate. But where is that right documented? Is anyone tracking it? It’s not just about identifying these issues; it’s about acting on them. That’s where contract performance management comes in. It doesn’t just surface leakages; it helps you take action to fix them so they don’t occur again.”
The right approach is also key, as Gidney explains: “You need to have quality in the actions you’re doing, which means you need to start from a point of quality. So you need to have quality questions and quality answers to drive the actions afterwards.”
For example, an organisation that wants to find out if they have any unused discounts might ask: How many contracts have opportunities for negotiating additional discounts? Or for overpayments, the question might be: Are there any contracts with automatic (or tiered) price increases or decreases?
Digital Mirror supports organisations across all functions, from procurement to finance to operations, in creating and leveraging contract performance insights. This means helping guide those departments on the things that matter most to them. “We’ve worked with industry experts to help us generate these questions and help us then work out how to best interpret the results,” explains Gidney.
This goes beyond analytics. Digital Mirror’s approach involves benchmarking, applying quality metrics, and then working with the insights to generate actions. “In recognising what’s in a contract,” adds Gidney, “it’s possible to see where value is leaking. That’s what we do differently.”
Leveraging artificial intelligence
Digital Mirror has a long history of using machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI). “We founded and sold a company that used AI. It’s not just about trends that are with us today,” says Gidney. “It’s knowing what to use as well as when and how to use it. For example, using a large language model when required and smaller ones when necessary.”
Zetterberg echoes this with advice to any company looking to use AI tools. “AI is powerful, but you need to know why you’re using it. What’s the purpose? If you had badly aligned workflows and processes before, AI isn’t going to magically fix it for you.”
While AI is a valuable tool for extracting insights and improving workflows, simplicity is key. Rather than building AI into every platform and feature, businesses need to understand where AI can be best used and, as both Zetterberg and Gidney say, it’s essential to start with the why.
When it comes to contracts and confidential deals, security is paramount, and this is something Digital Mirror takes into consideration when using AI. “It’s important to make sure the customer’s data is secure in your platform,” explains Gidney. “Also, when using external systems such as LLMs, we only send the information required to do the task.”
Strategic impact
Once contracts are tied to real-world outcomes, such as service delivery, supplier reliability, and pricing accuracy, they cease being static documents. Instead, they can be queried and tracked to minimise the risk of value leakage.
In many organisations, contract knowledge is fragmented. The details that matter most — how a supplier operates in practice, which clauses are routinely bypassed, what exceptions have been agreed on, for example — often live in individual inboxes or people’s heads. When team members move on, that context is lost.
Digital Mirror aims to make that kind of knowledge visible and durable. By surfacing patterns in performance data and linking them back to contractual terms, the system helps teams spot where things aren’t working as expected.
This insight changes the nature of procurement and contract oversight. Instead of reacting to problems after the fact, teams can take a more informed and forward-looking role. This helps them identify early renegotiation opportunities, flag compliance risks, or even advise on whether a supplier is still the right fit.
When everyone, from finance to operations, can see the same data and understand the same risks, it becomes easier to make decisions, resolve disputes, and stay focused on outcomes.
“You can also collaborate inside the platform on any answers,” says Gidney. “Because once you have a quality set of answers, you can drive performance increases across other areas of the organisation.”
For too long, contracts have been treated as paperwork. To many, they are final steps in a negotiation, filed away and forgotten. But as Zetterberg and Gidney argue, the real value of a contract lies not in what it promises on paper, but in how it performs over time. AI can be a useful tool here, but it’s important to remember: “AI can be very powerful, but it’s not a magic wand,” as Zetterberg says.
Digital Mirror’s approach challenges the idea that contract management ends at storage or compliance. By reconnecting contracts to outcomes, it becomes possible to make smarter decisions, protect value, and build more resilient supplier relationships.
Supplier complexity is increasing, making clarity and efficiency more important than ever. Understanding whether you’re getting what you signed up for is more than a procurement concern; it’s a business imperative.
What began as an intimate summit in 2024 has already grown into a much more sizable conference – and CPOstrategy was there, at DPW New York 2025, to capture the action from the front line.
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The unstoppable evolution of DPW truly knows no bounds. The story of its inception is well-known by this point. Six years ago, in 2019, Founder Matthias Gutzmann developed the concept for DPW in response to a lack of high-quality, startup-centric procurement conferences. The very first conference, held that year in Amsterdam, attracted over 400 attendees from 33 countries, proving just how starved the industry was for exactly this type of event.
DPW has since gone from strength to strength. Thousands of people gather in the prestigious Beurs van Berlage in Amsterdam every October, and its North American counterpart is quickly gaining traction, too.
Last year, DPW dipped its toe in the water with an intimate summit in New York City. 128 people attended – exceeding the planned 100 people – filling an ultra-cool penthouse venue in NeueHouse Madison Square. We talked to both the attendees and the DPW team about the demand for a North America event, and how the success of the summit meant that this conference would only get bigger and better.
And it did. On the 11th and 12th of June, DPW New York 2025 took Brooklyn by storm. Hosted at ZeroSpace, a creative design studio where television and film companies generate art, the event attracted over 700 attendees from across the world. There were close to 80 sessions held over the course of the two days across two stages, a meetup lounge, and a podcast studio kitted out like a New York subway carriage.
The theme of the event was ‘Put AI to work’. This shaped the entirety of the conference’s content. Speaking to attendees, we got the impression that this theme represents a real shift. Previous events have focused on the way technology is evolving and the possibilities ahead, but this one felt like it was much more about the truly practical applications of agentic AI today.
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Amit Mahajan, Partner, Alixpartners
“These events bring everybody together to really discuss different ideas and share their challenges and their pain points. I think that sharing and collective thinking helps everybody to move forward. Additionally, with all the different technology providers and innovations that some of these vendors are bringing on, DPW helps people to understand what’s possible, what’s out there, what you can do, and how you can leverage what’s been tested already.”
Prerna Dhawan, Chief Product Officer, Beroe
“I attended DPW the first year it launched in Amsterdam. When I went there for the first time, I thought it was amazing because it brings together, in one platform, people who are practitioners and are looking for technology that can help solve problems, as well as vendors. Not just the big established vendors, but startups, which is where a lot of innovation is happening. So I think DPW provides that forum and creates an ecosystem where you can make sense of AI. Most of the solutions you see here, you can put to work tomorrow morning if you want to. DPW gives us that forum as the community.”
Jeremy Lappin, CEO, Candex
“Especially when we were starting up, DPW did a good job of helping us get in the game. Having a place to go to meet the clients was incredibly valuable for startups. And now we’re a bit bigger, we can pay it back a little. We can afford to do more with DPW now, but in the beginning, we were especially appreciative of that opportunity to be welcomed in and meet the people that are coming here. It’s also nice to be able to walk around and see what other companies in the space are doing all in one place, and to meet some of the leadership of those companies and figure out ways of partnering with them to make both of our tools more effective.”
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DPW New York 2025 didn’t disappoint with its speaker lineup. Some of the many highlights included Brian Solis, Head of Global Innovation at ServiceNow discussion what it means to put AI to work, and what it means for procurement’s future; Elouise Epstein, Partner at Kearney, demystified the fundamentals of agentic AI; Maria Jesús Saénz, Director Digital Supply Chain Transformation Lab at MIT, dug into why AI needs human collaboration to work at its best; Brandon Card, Founder and CEO of Terzo, discussed why CLMs are dead and why AI tools are superior; Lauren Hymen, VP Strategy and Transformation at PepsiCo, explored why transformation is a catalyst for strategic value far beyond just cost savings; and DPW’s own Chairman, Mark Perera, examined SaaS models, why traditional ones are giving way to self-learning platforms, and how that impacts procurement.
The conference was also filled with panel discussions, roundtables, podcasts that could be listened to live – including one that CPOstrategy hosted for ORO Labs – pitches, and peer meetups. The venue never stopped buzzing with inspiring conversations and talks with packed audiences.
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Michelle Vita, Head of Procurement and Strategic Sourcing, Datadog
“The show has been great so far. There have been so many amazing panels where I feel like the topics actually resonate with me, and it’s great because I was on the board this year for DPW, so I got to help put it together. I’ve had a great time.”
Rinus Strydom, Chief Revenue Officer, Pactum AI
“Pactum is very happy with the partnership we’ve shared with DPW over the last few years. We were a startup around four years ago, and we won a pitch contest at DPW in Amsterdam when we were a tiny company. That really catapulted us, and got us a lot of visibility. We got to meet our latest investor Insight Partners at one of the DPW shows. So it really is a great place for visibility with practitioners, investors, and partners.”
Ann Fleishell, VP of Procurement, OpenAI
“This year’s DPW feels like an inflection point for AI. The conversations have shifted from excitement on concepts and ideas about AI, to real examples of execution. I appreciated the honesty from leaders wrestling with both the potential and responsibility of AI transformation. For those of us building in high-speed environments, it is energising to see others embracing the challenge of working smarter, not just harder.”
Alexander Pilsl, Advisor and CPO, Teamviewer
“DPW New York is pretty damn amazing. I did not expect that they would be able to transfer the energy from Amsterdam over to here, but in some places it feels even better. It’s so energetic; it’s such a hype. There are so many great conversations happening, so many exhibitors; it’s an amazing experience. I really love being here.”
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The DPW team – which has grown larger than ever out of necessity – was rushed off its feet for the full two days. However, we managed to grab a few minutes with CEO Herman Knevel at the end of day two. “It’s been two crazy days, and I’m excited because there were so many more people in the room than we expected,” he said.
When we asked how DPW is continuing to help procurement professionals make sense of the landscape, Knevel replied: “It’s become more complex, so what we’ll do is continue to get as many people in the same room so they can learn and understand what is being built, what the solutions are, and what they can learn. We’ll also continue bringing the relevant content to the stage, and help peers learn from each other. There’s an ongoing need for people to communicate with each other, and that’s where we can step in and help.”
Plans are already underway for DPW New York 2026 next June, and before then, the huge Amsterdam event in October. The CPOstrategy team can’t wait to join in the endlessly inspiring atmosphere again, and discover how the industry is continuing to put AI to work.
Just after Zip announced its exciting news about its new fleet of AI agents, CPOstrategy sat down with Rujul Zaparde, Co-Founder and CEO of Zip, at DPW New York 2025 to discuss what this technology means for procurement.
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For Zip, this year’s DPW New York event has been a particularly exciting one. The business hosted a side event the day before – the Zip AI Summit – and that morning revealed major news: that Zip has launched 50+ AI agents. These agents have been purpose-built for the next phase of procurement, and Zip believes the shift to agentic procurement orchestration is what will take the sector from 10X – the main topic of DPW Amsterdam just last October – to 100X improvement.
“I think this is the beginning of the most exciting chapter for procurement,” says Rujul Zaparde, Co-Founder and CEO of Zip. “The next two-to-five years are going to be really defining for the world around us. I’m so excited that this launch is the first real application of tangible AI in the procurement space.”
Taking agentic orchestration to the next level
Agentic procurement orchestration is an entirely new category for procurement, and Zip is enormously proud to have created something so groundbreaking. “If you take the entire procurement orchestration process – the workflow, the teams, all the reviews that occur – agentic procurement orchestration really just applies specific AI agents to components of procurement orchestration to automate the process,” Zaparde explains.
For example, one AI agent Zip has launched is the contract renewal comparison agent. What that agent does is look at a new contract, look at the original contract, and compare the data and the difference between every single component, from price to liabilities. “It does that one thing, but it does it really, really well,” says Zaparde. “And if you think about how that process would work without an agent, you’ve got a human spending hours looking at two different contracts side-by-side on a screen. So this is real ROI; real time saved for people.”
Tariff agent
Another agent Zip has released is the tariff agent. Tariffs are a tricky subject in the US right now, and they’re causing concern and confusion. However, the tariff agent can be deployed into the Zip workflow, and it will look at the most recent live regulations and the situation around tariffs. It will examine the requests of what it is that’s being purchased, determine whether that request is subject to tariffs today or in the future, and automatically report back on the risks. “It’s all pretty much instant,” Zaparde says, making it one of the most currently relevant agents that exists.
These types of agents are proof that AI is now central to procurement strategies as we move forward, and that will only intensify. “When there are innovation cycles like AI, they typically start with the front of house,” says Zaparde. “Customer support is a pretty obvious application for AI, because a lot of money gets spent on thousands of support employees who are doing pretty redundant work. So it makes sense for innovation to start there, and eventually make its way to back of house. Procurement is at the very core of how any company operates, so I absolutely believe that with Zip’s AI agent launch, AI has truly arrived for procurement.”
Eyes on the future
Zaparde foresees Zip’s new AI agents driving speed, growth, and value for modern procurement teams across the board. Zaparde and his team have spent a lot of time testing and configuring Zip’s agents to do specific things, and as a result, he feels that for the first time, he’s got a front-row view of the future.
“While testing, I can pretend to be a requester and submit a request in Zip, and actually watch the steps of that request, see them automatically approve themselves in real time as I’m simply staring at the screen,” he says. “All because the agent for a specific kind of review is computing the results and making a determination. And it may choose to escalate and pull a human into the loop, or it might have enough information to take action and make the approval itself. It’s incredible to watch it happen live.”
To see something he’s created come to life in front of him is a revelation for Zaparde. There’s so much noise in the AI space, and Zaparde is the first to encourage anyone considering the application of AI and AI agents to get the product live in order to really see it. Stirring up hype and having good marketing is one thing, but seeing the real product actually work is a game-changer.
Maintaining a sense of humanity
For all AI and AI agents can do, the human connection is still vitally important. “AI will never be able to replace judgement,” says Zaparde. “A lot of the strategic thinking we do today is still absolutely vital when it comes to what we should procure and when. Someone told me that back when the wheel was invented, a lot of people who were carrying things from point A to point B were afraid they’d lose their jobs because you could put so many things in carts. Of course, those people were still needed – there was just a higher order of work required. The same analogy applies here today.”
Getting the layers right
For Zaparde, it’s critical that AI agents live in the procurement orchestration layer. The role data integrations and orchestration play when it comes to enabling AI to work effectively across procurement workflows is a crucial one. “If you have a risk system and an agent in that system providing an insight, that agent only has access to risk data,” Zaparde explains. “It doesn’t know whether they’re out of good standing with you in their contract, because it’s not in the risk system.
“The orchestration layer has access to the risk level data, the contract and legal level data, the payment and ERP invoice-level data. And so, an orchestration system like Zip is best positioned to drive the best, most comprehensive insight that any AI agent can deliver. For that, you have to have integrations. We’re fortunate that we built our AI agents on Zip’s native integration platform, so you can actually connect and pull data out of other systems Zip is connected to, and deliver a comprehensive insight at the end of the process.”
Feeding the appetite for next-gen procurement
Zip was a vocal presence at DPW New York 2025. As well as the side event before DPW kicked off, Zip was a leading sponsor with a dominant booth, and was involved with two onstage discussions with customers Prudential and OpenAI. Both of these sessions proved inspiring stories of forward-thinking companies utilising Zip to truly push the envelope, and to be able to sit onstage at such a prestigious event, and openly dive into the true benefits that Zip and its agents are bringing to customers, is invaluable for all involved.
That’s just one reason why DPW is so special to procurement professionals. “It’s incredible to see the energy,” says Zaparde. “Innovation requires adoption, and to get adoption, you have to get people excited, benchmarketing, and learning from each other. Ultimately, that’s the real value of DPW.”
The proof, as they say, is in the pudding – and the evidence of TealBook’s increasingly-successful evolution lies in its client relationships.
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We talked endlessly about data and AI at DPW New York 2025. A universal truth is that the successful implementation of AI requires clean data. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but businesses certainly need to have a decent handle on their data before adopting AI tools successfully.
To help make this a reality, North American data and software company TealBook has recently announced a legal entity-based data model. It’s designed to resolve supplier records to the correct legal entities, map parent-child relationships, and enrich profiles with verifiable attributes, enabling accurate supplier data to flow seamlessly into procurement systems and AI applications. “This is part of a 12-year journey for TealBook,” says Stephany Lapierre, the company’s Founder and CEO. “Our vision has always been to build a way to enable procurement organisations to have high quality data with a lot of integrity. That way, you give them the trust they need to put data directly into their systems.
“Twelve years ago, we underestimated the complexity of getting large enterprises to trust a third-party data solution. As part of our journey, we started using AI early on to find information where it exists on supplier websites and databases. We also started creating digital profiles in a structured way for procurement to access it, match it to their vendor master, and use it.”
TealBook’s data evolution
But, again, at the beginning, TealBook couldn’t be sure whether the data was high enough quality. In 2017, the company was primarily known as a supplier discovery application. It was positioned as a pre-sourcing engine to help procurement teams identify alternative suppliers. At the time, TealBook’s data and models enabled it to determine which companies were similar to others. This meant users could search and find comparable suppliers to expand their sourcing options.
“But that was just a way for us to deliver something that was underserved in the market,” Lapierre continues. “Then our customers started asking for certificates, which are hard to collect and match. They needed cleaner data. They felt they were under-reporting. So in 2018, we started to see whether our technology could refine the data more. We focused on certificates and supplier diversity. We collected great use cases along this journey, and the vision never wavered.
“Just last year we released a new technology – completely different, really sophisticated – allowing us to pull from a lot more data sources. We have provenance so our customers can actually verify where the data’s coming from. We can match it to vendor masters. And now, we also have this new model that includes 230 million verifiable global legal entities from across 145 countries’ registries. We marry this with global parent and child hierarchy, which is really hard for our customers to match themselves.”
Partnership with Kraft Heinz
Now, after 12 years of that vision, TealBook is deeply proud of what it’s achieved. Part of its ability to get to this point is due to early adoption from key customers. Kraft Heinz is a business which Lapierre describes as a “co-innovation partner”, and has been invaluable in helping TealBook achieve its recent goals.
From the perspective of Stefanie Fink, Head of Global Data and Digital Procurement at Kraft Heinz, the partnership has been an immediately valuable one. “It really started with having a visionary, like-minded relationship,” she says. “That’s an important piece of it, because my vision for procurement is that we are partners in our enterprise.
“In order for us to do our jobs, we have to bring in the right data for use. This is where Stephany’s partnership and vision really resonated. We were really looking for diversity and we could make things easier for our partners, while making sure we had the right people in our ecosystem. We also had to lift up the hood and see what was underneath everything we’ve got. Stephany brought our vision to life. TealBook has evolved too, as we’ve seen; it’s more about orchestration and software-as-a-service. It has been a partnership of need and we cannot continue to do other things without this kind of partnership around data.”
When initially dabbling with this relationship, Fink was clear that Kraft Heinz had no desire to be taking care of more stuff. What she wanted from TealBook was a strong focus on good quality data. After last year’s product release from TealBook, Kraft Heinz already saw its data enriched by 25%. The recently-announced new data model gives the business and TealBook’s other customers the right structure tied to a legal entity, which is a highly credible anchor. “We’re able to do entity resolution – all automated – remove all the duplicates, and then you start with a clean, digitised vendor master,” says Lapierre. “That’s what brings further enrichment.”
The challenge of assessing data quality
Assessing its data before involving TealBook was important for Kraft Heinz, but challenging for such a large organisation. “We had to fail first and fail fast,” says Fink. “We tried some AI around fixing things early, but that didn’t work for us. It was a real eye-opener, realising where this next evolution could take us. Particularly regarding focusing on AI and agents for the right things, not the meaningless things. Before, we were asking agents to tell us if things were duplicates, when we should have been asking: what do these suppliers offer? Where is the innovation? Where is the value?”
What surprised Fink most when looking under Kraft Heinz’s hood was the lack of attention that was being paid to what the business was doing. “It was amazing that nobody had questioned it sooner,” she says. “So I said, let’s take this as a crawl, walk, run approach. I have a wonderful CPO who really understands where we want procurement to go as a function. She was excited about us just getting it done and getting people involved, and that’s what it takes: real pride in ownership of the data.”
Getting engrossed in GenAI
True partnership and an all-in approach has enabled Kraft Heinz to work successfully with AI. This is something some businesses are struggling with as the conversation around artificial intelligence grows louder. For Lapierre, as the CEO of a tech company, adopting AI successfully has meant trying and failing and being fully entrenched in AI as it has evolved.
“We’ve been using AI in our technology since 2016,” she states. “We’re an early adopter. We’d be talking about scraping data, and data in the cloud, and AI models, and our customers’ pupils would widen in surprise. We’ve come a long way and the market has come a long way.
“The technology we deliver today wouldn’t be possible without the AI tools now at our disposal. We used to build models; we don’t do that anymore. We spend a lot of time investing in engineers to build and test models. That’s made us so much more efficient. I use GenAI every day for so many things now. I’m encouraging my team to be so involved in AI. That’s how you build expertise. You need really strong expertise to use GenAI well.
“Getting good with AI is about taking risks and having a leadership team that pushes for new things. Suddenly, the successful use of AI becomes a habit.”
Why businesses should prepare themselves for AI by not getting lost in the whirlwind of hype and focusing only on what works for their needs.
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With AI being the topic of conversation for procurement professionals right now, it’s easy to get lost in the maze of conflicting information. Vroozi is a procure-to-pay platform powered by robust AI capabilities to deliver meaningful use cases. CEO and Co-Founder, Shaz Khan, takes approaching AI the right way very seriously.
For Vroozi, the use of AI is a two-sided coin. It’s an organisation that talks about AI both in production and consumption. AI is a tool that has been a game-changer, because it has enabled Vroozi’s software and technology engineers to be able to rapidly prototype and develop code. And that code is beneficial for creating feature sets and capabilities that the company wants to introduce to the market.
“Similarly, we take steps to look at how a customer interacts with our software for the first time,” Khan explains. “The implementation process is also ripe for consuming and producing great results with AI. Imagine you go through some type of interview wizard where you prompt the system based on your region and industry. The system will self-configure according to your business unit. This is real intelligence that understands your business at a different level, as well as the competitive landscape, and brings in best practices to deliver incredible results.”
Getting the approach right
Having said that, Khan freely admits that we’re in the early innings of AI adoption. For him, leaders should adopt a multi-pronged approach to implement AI. The first move is to assemble a team. “One key area with AI is that a lot of companies are relying on outside experts that don’t know the business and the goals that they’re trying to achieve,” he explains.
“You should invest in your own people before you invite outside parties in. Bring that education and assemble a use case, before assessing the problems you’re trying to solve and determining whether AI is a good tool set or capability to solve the problem. If these things match up, execute the game plan, bring in the right technologies and the right expertise, and only then bring AI capabilities into your workforce.”
The challenges
With this being the “early innings”, there are also barriers and challenges. The main issue, from Khan’s perspective, is security. “There’s a trust aspect that has to be looked at,” he explains. “There’s also an ethics aspect. Are you delivering the right results? And how much autonomy are you giving AI and its agents to go out and deliver those results for you without any human interaction? I think the companies that get it right will strike a balance between the trifecta of automation, really great AI technologies, and a balance of human interaction to create an overall output.”
There’s also the question of data. If the data isn’t clean, output will be compromised and lead to poor results. We haven’t seen the worst of what can happen, Khan believes, and AI has the potential to create scenarios that are hard to recover from, if used poorly. “We need to prepare ourselves now to prevent those types of potential calamities from happening,” says Khan. Which is the entire point of DPW: for procurement and technology leaders to educate and learn about best AI practice.
This allows people to cut through the, as Khan puts it, “hysteria” around AI that can cause problems for businesses. They’re rushing to solve problems, and while leveraging AI can be a component of a complete holistic toolkit, it can’t be the only answer. “A lot of companies today still struggle with getting their businesses off spreadsheets,” he states. “AI should be an equaliser and enabler to get it right.”
Structuring unstructured data
For Khan, in order to ready themselves for AI, procurement professionals and practitioners need to be absolutely committed to data management and governance. “What companies often forget is that much of today’s data is unstructured. It’s not neatly stored in databases – it might be a chat, an image of a spec sheet, or a contract never digitised. This unstructured data often can’t be used by AI models today, so companies risk only addressing a small part of the challenge. Data governance has to be an ongoing exercise.”
Having said that, Khan is keen to differentiate between clean data and perfect data. In fact, many procurement professionals we spoke to at DPW New York 2025 said the same. The message is: don’t wait around for everything to be perfect, or you’ll never start.
“Good enough data is just fine,” Khan says. “But if you’re going to continue to feed your AI engines and algorithms bad data, your outputs will be compromised. Companies need to have data governance strategies and upfront policies in place so that they can manage this, independent of the people that offer them.”
AI creating a complete picture
While treading carefully is important, Khan is equally keen to extoll the many virtues of AI for procurement professionals. There are many incredible use cases already, and AI tool sets and algorithms can effectively interrogate a company’s data and give them the answers they require. AI enables these users to have a complete picture of their buying cycle, and allows them to get additional information for where they can pivot.
“This is where the true power of agentic AI will come into play,” says Khan. “When you can fully trust the system inputs, AI will be able to orchestrate those processes autonomously, and present that information to an end user for final decision.”
Khan is very excited about what Vroozi is doing within its own AI layer. The business looks at AI and intelligence as a pervasive thread across its entire tech stack. Every aspect of its platform has some kind of AI enablement, although it’s not an AI-first company.
“We follow three distinct areas where we are thriving on the AI front,” says Khan. “First is intelligent document processing. Can we take structured and unstructured data such as contracts, quotes, work orders, and invoices, and populate them automatically onto a screen without any human touch? Processing invoices might require an army of people typing in data, and they might not capture it all. But an AI toolset can take millions of records and process them simultaneously. That’s the power of AI.”
The power of hyper-personalisation
The second area is what Vroozi calls hyper-personalisation, where it intensely personalises the platform to meet a company’s preferences and needs. It’s about how AI can find trends and not only predict the user’s needs, but also help take the next steps. This includes finding suppliers and ordering things that are needed, so that workflows aren’t disrupted.
“Then we also have what we call the push economy,” says Khan. “AI’s power is in pushing and giving people head starts. So when you talk about AI algorithms and look at analytics, it’s about how AI can present to companies in the procurement space when they need to lock in favourable pricing on products and services, and predict when you are seeing potential fraud scenarios based on trends and patterns. You need a lot of data for those AI models to train on, which is why I say we’re in the early innings. It takes time, but it’s incredibly powerful when you get to that point.”
The benefits ahead
At such an exciting time for procurement, 2025 and 2026 look bright for leaders in this space. Not only procurement, but also supply chain and FinTech, are set to benefit from what AI can do with data.
“There’s going to be a focus on how to capture and harness data, and feed it into AI in a way that produces results,” says Khan. “What we’ll see in the next two years is that AI has now learned from the data that’s been fed into it. You’re going to see higher-quality results and better outcomes. Again, I would caution companies to define the problem first. Then determine if AI is an absolute enabler and game changer. We believe AI can be an influencer and supercharger in terms of productivity. However, there needs to be specific use cases that make sense for corporations.
“In 2025 and beyond, you’re going to see great technologies embedded into organisations that really work.”
ProcureTex promises to bring together best-of-breed procurement technology providers and forward-thinking procurement teams at a new event in London.
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It’s no secret that the procurement industry currently faces some of its biggest challenges to date. From Trump’s tariffs to the climate crisis, companies are struggling to maintain their supply chains in an unpredictable environment. More than ever, procurement teams find themselves responsible for dealing with pain points in their organisation. Not only that, but businesses are increasingly looking to procurement to unlock new sources of strategic value.
In this climate, the procurement sector needs, more than ever, to come together. Procurement leaders need to share expertise, learn, and exchange ideas to develop new strategies and solutions to pressing challenges.
Developed by founding partners Keelvar, Zip, Beroe, and more, ProcureTEX is a gathering of top tier best-of-breed vendors — it’s “a rallying point for a community that emphasises interoperability, innovation, and best-in-class technology” working together to solve real challenges.
ProcureTEX 2025
ProcureTEX is a first of its kind event for the procurement sector. Unlike other events, the event exclusively targets best-of-breed procurement technology providers and forward-thinking procurement teams.
The event will debut on September 17, 2025, in London.
“The future is here, it’s just not equally distributed. For procurement, it’s best-of-breed systems working together,” said Alan Holland, Founder & CEO of Keelvar and founding member of ProcureTEX. “An ecosystem of interoperable tools that seamlessly work together can unlock huge improvements in speed and value.”
ProcureTEX targets procurement and digital transformation leaders, providing a space for them to explore, build, and experience custom best-of-breed tech stacks that solve specific enterprise challenges — in real time. Live hackathons, practitioner-led workshops, and curated content sessions will put actionable insights at the heart of the agenda.
A Groundbreaking Shift for the Industry
Lu Cheng, CTO & Co-Founder of Zip and fellow ProcureTEX founding partner continues, “At Zip, we believe procurement leaders deserve a modern, AI-powered tech stack that keeps pace with the business — not legacy all-in-one suites. The future is best-of-breed, seamlessly orchestrated. That’s why we’re proud to partner with Keevlar and Beroe on ProcureTEX — a space for the procurement community to explore, learn, and build the next-generation stack together.”
Vel Dhinagaravel, Founder & CEO of Beroe and founding partner of ProcureTEX adds, “My biggest bugbear with traditional conferences is the way in which all the regular “frictions” associated with procurement seem to disappear – poor data, lack of trust in procurement metrics, disconnected processes, CIO’s dictating the choice of procurement software, and many, many more. ProcureTEX will be different: we’re going to acknowledge all of these frictions and focus on ways to work through them.”
ProcureTEX is for procurement leaders and digital transformation teams looking for integrated modern solutions that can scale with ease. Tickets are available now, with early bird pricing and group discounts (4-for-3) available. The event organisers will announce the full speaker lineup and agenda in the coming weeks.
Get ready for the procurement industry’s biggest upcoming events, from Ivalua NOW to ProcureCon Indirect West.
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2025 is already shaping up to be a pivotal year for the procurement sector. From the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) to supply chain disruptions, procurement teams are grappling with a wide array of ongoing market challenges and competing priorities that continue to exert pressure on the sector.
More than ever, procurement events are an essential way for the industry to meet, network, learn, and share their experiences of dealing with the sector’s biggest challenges. March promises to be a packed month for conferences and summits. Here are four upcoming events procurement professionals won’t want to miss.
ProcureCon Indirect West — March 3-5
Held in Las Vegas, Nevada, ProcureCon Indirect West brings together seasoned Chief Procurement Officers and the industry’s rising stars. Attendees hail from all sizes of organisation, from industry giants to agile startups. ProcureCon brings industry professionals together to explore actionable tactics that will allow them to navigate digital disruption and exceed their cost containment goals.
The two day event promises a dynamic mix of innovative speakers, interactive sessions with peers, and invaluable networking opportunities. Its aim is to provide the ultimate toolkit for long-term procurement success. This year’s event will feature a wide array of veteran industry speakers. These include: Charen Buyce, Senior Director of Procurement at Stitch Fix; James Chang, Head of Strategic Sourcing and Procurement at Symetra; and Sarah Kaye, Head of Procurement (Americas) at TikTok.
Ivalua NOW 2025 — March 11-12
One of Europe’s premier events for procurement leaders is taking place in Paris, France, on March 11-12. For US procurement professionals, a second event will take place in New Orleans, Louisiana, on May 21-22. Both events will also be accessible virtually.
Ivalua NOW is free to attend for procurement and finance practitioners, and aims to explore challenges facing the industry. In particular, the event’s agenda will focus on the disconnect between the promise of technology and cold hard reality. While new technologies like Generative AI promise to enhance employees’ productivity and decision-making, most organisations have experienced only marginal benefits, mainly from automating select tasks. To unlock the full potential and permanently elevate procurement’s role, innovation must extend beyond simply adopting new technologies. In order to do that, Ivalua argues that organisations must embrace new ways of working. Not only that, but they must constantly challenge operational methodologies to continuously innovate. Ivalua NOW 2025 aims to provide a roadmap for procurement teams to do just that.
Ivalua NOW 2025 provides a unique opportunity to learn how industry leaders are engaging with procurement’s biggest hurdles. It will unveil how these eladers are pushing boundaries to increase profitability, ensure supply chain resilience, and improve sustainability. This year’s event will bring together over 1000 global leaders from world-renowned organisations including Prada, Veolia, Koerber Group, Bulgari, GN Jabra, Manulife, Cleveland Clinic, CACI, and many more.
“Ivalua NOW is an invaluable opportunity to engage with industry leaders, learn about innovative solutions, and share actionable takeaways. We’re excited to contribute to the conversation on Gen AI-driven procurement transformation,” commented Jan van Hueth, Senior Project Manager at Koerber AG.
BME European Procurement & Supply Chain Excellence Summit 2025 — March 31-April 1
Taking place at the end of the month in Frankfurt, Germany, BME’s European Procurement & Supply Chain Excellence Summit 2025 is an invitation-only event with the goal of providing a comprehensive networking platform for C-Level Procurement & Supply Chain Executives.
This year, procurement and supply chain leaders will meet to explore strategies for driving purposeful, sustainable, and impactful change.
Topics slated for discussion include: geopolitics and supply chains, with an emphasis on how shifting global powers will reshape supply chains around the world; discovering the procurement model of the future with an eye toward adapting to next-gen procurement models in a changing world; maximising business value by building a data-driven, value based procurement function; developing leadership, talent, and culture; and driving sustainability, digitalisation and AI in the value chain.
There were many inspiring themes on peoples’ lips at DPW Amsterdam 2024, including collaboration. One of the major reasons procurement…
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There were many inspiring themes on peoples’ lips at DPW Amsterdam 2024, including collaboration. One of the major reasons procurement professionals flock to DPW is the opportunity to learn from their peers, strategise with them, and make connections in order to partner up and grow. We sat down with Dr Matthias Dohrn and Sudhir Bhojwani, business collaborators of several years who prove the benefits of coming together for growth.
Dohrn is the CPO of BASF, a global chemical company, making him responsible for direct, indirect, and traded goods. Prior to this role he headed up a business unit – and things weren’t going well. It got to the point where the question of how to drive performance became a priority. The business needed to consistently drive value, not just be, in Dohrn’s words, a “one-hit wonder”.
“I’ve been in a lot of meetings where people come together and say, ‘we should do something’ – but the next month, you have the same meeting and nothing has changed,” Dohrn explains. “Structuring an organisation in a manner that really drives and extracts value, that’s key.”
This eventually led to meeting with ORO Labs and asking how it could help BASF build a solution that enabled the growth it needed. Sudhir Bhojwani, CEO and Co-Founder of ORO Labs, knew Dohrn already from his SAP Ariba days He even credits him with explaining what ‘supplier management’ means. When he co-founded ORO Labs, his team wanted to focus on being a procurement orchestration platform and build smart workflows.
“When Matthias was running his business unit, as he mentioned, he had this Excel-based process where he was running thousands of measures,” Bhojwani explains. “It was an interesting process. We let him know that our workflow could solve his problems way more efficiently. So we worked with this business unit at that time and saw some positive results. Roughly a year later, Matthias took over as CPO and wanted to bring in the same structure that we’d implemented at the business unit, but on a bigger scale.”
Kicking off the project
Getting this project off the ground meant having a business case, first and foremost. This required actually sitting down with the people who do the ordering, because procurement needed to understand the options it had. “So, with every plant in BASF – all approximately 150 of them – we had to talk to them, and look at the individual spend of each plant,” Dohrn explains. “This included direct procurement of raw materials, energy, logistics, indirect spend for services, and so on. Then we had brainstorming workshops, generating between 30 and 50 improvement measures per workshop.
“Then, because it’s bottom-up, you bring in the performance management tool to prioritise the measures. Then you go through the business case and confirm the value. As these measures go through the implementation levels, it’s very satisfying because you can see how you’re making progress in driving value every day. The people who own the measures set the timeline themselves, and there are incentive schemes behind the best ideas.”
Driving value to motivate people was a priority from the start, and something BASF discussed with ORO Labs early on. People are able to see the status of their measures thanks to ORO Labs, which means they’re able to see the results and also see other peoples’ great ideas. “You create a wave of people who are driving value, much faster,” Dohrn adds.
Addressing the challenges
From Bhojwani’s perspective, there were multiple challenges when approaching BASF’s requirements. Fundamentally, ORO Labs was building a brand new workflow, as BASF required a very different take on what that means. ORO understanding how that translated to what BASF needed was the first challenge.
“We needed to understand the structure Matthias has, and what the work streams should look like,” Bhojwani explains. “We had to figure out how to model these work streams within our tool in a way that made sense. An indirect work stream is not the same as something in direct material; those things are very different. So here’s where our workflow tool worked quite well. We could customise how direct material work streams should behave, compared to indirect work streams, how country A should behave compared to country B, and so on.
“It was important that we could bring flexibility, and that we could solve workflow problems in innovative ways. Another challenge was the user experience part. We had to make sure that the system worked for everybody, otherwise nobody would participate in the system. We had to keep working on it, keep fixing it, and that took a good 18 months of tweaking. The biggest thing has been understanding how BASF actually generates value, and how a workflow can help. It’s been very interesting.”
Identifying the value
Collaborating with ORO Labs has unlocked an enormous amount of value for BASF. Dohrn has seen the business come together thanks to the work that was put into communicating and collaborating with every site across businesses and functions, and BASF is continuing to conduct workshops for further improvement. There’s also, of course, the EBIT being gained from the business cases, putting BASF on track to generate sustainable savings.
“There’s been a real mindset change,” Dohrn states. “We’re now really focused on value, and we’re using this ORO Labs tool to hold each other accountable. You can see the progress every day. We call it the iceberg because you can see below the implementation levels. Everything starts off below the water line – no value created yet, just potential. Then you see it moving beyond the zero line into the positives, and every day I can see the difference between now and yesterday with just a click. It’s so fulfilling to see what we have created.
“We’re able to see the interaction with the plants, the interaction between people, and interaction with the requisitioners, and we can create something positive together. I think that’s huge. It’s only going to bring more and more value over the next few years. People are used to the tool now, they find it easy. It has created value and everyone’s happy because the cost pressure on the plants has gone down.”
Tonkean is built differently. Tonkean is a first-of-its-kind intake and orchestration platform. Powered by AI, Tonkean helps enterprise internal service…
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Tonkean is built differently.
Tonkean is a first-of-its-kind intake and orchestration platform. Powered by AI, Tonkean helps enterprise internal service teams like procurement and legal create process experiences that transform how businesses operate. The transformation hinges on four key functionalities, intake, AI-powered orchestration, visibility, and business-led configuration (no-code), which internal teams leverage to use existing tools better together, automate complex processes across teams and tools, and empower employees to do better, higher-value work.
Jennifer O’Gara is the Senior Director of Marketing, Director People and Talent at Tonkean. O’Gara’s route into procurement came when Tonkean became active within the space. “While we initially focused on solving complex process challenges across entire enterprises, we quickly realised how much procurement could benefit from this approach,” she explains. “Procurement processes are inherently complex and collaborative and cross-functional, making them a perfect fit for Tonkean’s orchestration capabilities. We were right. Since we entered the market, we’ve been blown away by how enthusiastically process orchestration has been received. That’s keeping us excited about procurement.”
This year, DPW Amsterdam 2024’s theme was 10X, with a focus on the importance of companies aiming for a moonshot mindset instead of an incremental approach. As far as O’Gara is concerned, achieving 10X improvements in performance is within reach for procurement, but it requires a shift in how the function thinks about growth. “It’s not just about doing more of the same faster—it’s about fundamentally rethinking the processes that drive your business,” reveals O’Gara. “Your processes are like your company’s infrastructure. When you optimise at the process level, you don’t just create incremental gains; you can fundamentally transform the way you operate at scale. You can remove bottlenecks permanently, facilitate easier collaboration org-wide, and drive true, reliable automation across all your teams and systems. The result is exponential performance improvements that can be sustained over time. Aiming for 10X isn’t just a lofty goal—it’s achievable. The key is focusing your improvement efforts at the process level.”
However, the journey to 10X isn’t straightforward. Some organisations believe they can just layer new technology on top of old processes. According to O’Gara, this won’t unlock 10X growth and will still leave your company lagging behind. “Getting to 10X starts, instead, with building better processes—and moving away from the idea that any one technology will do the trick,” she says. “For example, AI. AI is powerful, but it’s just a tool, and it’s only valuable if used strategically. To truly unlock 10X improvements in performance, you need to integrate technologies like AI into your core processes in a way that’s structured, strategic, and scalable. You will only ever be as innovative or adaptive or as effective as your processes are dynamic, dexterous and dependable. How do you build better processes? That’s where process orchestration comes in.”
Process orchestration refers to the strategy — enabled by process orchestration platforms — of coordinating automated business processes across teams and existing, integrated systems. These processes can facilitate all procurement-related activities. Importantly, they can also accommodate employees’ many different working preferences and styles.
Instead of simply adding to an organisation’s existing tech stack, process orchestration allows companies to use their existing mix of people, data, and tech better together. One promise of process orchestration is to finally put internal shared service teams like procurement in charge of the tools they deploy.
This goes a long way towards solving one of the enterprise’s most vexing operational challenges: the inefficiency of over-complexity born of too much new technology. It also allows procurement teams to truly make their technology work for them and the employees they serve. As opposed to making people work for technology. Process orchestration breaks down the silos that typically separate working environments. No longer do stakeholders have to log in to an ERP or P2P platform to submit or approve intake requests, just for example. The technology will meet them wherever they are.
“It helps you create and scale processes that can seamlessly connect with all of your existing systems, databases, and teams, while accommodating the individual needs of your employees and meeting them in the tools they already use,” adds O’Gara. “Orchestration allows you to automate processes across existing systems—like ERP, P2P, and messaging apps—so data flows automatically between them. It allows you to surface technologies like AI when and where they’re most impactful for stakeholders.”
Speaking of AI, it remains one of the biggest buzzwords in procurement. Indeed, anything that offers Chief Procurement Officers cost savings and efficiency will prick their ears, but the question remains: can the industry fully trust it? O’Gara believes it is ‘overhyped.’ “When it first emerged, it wasn’t just seen as a new tool—it was almost treated like magic,” she explains. “The hype still hasn’t died down, and that’s been a problem. It’s created unrealistic expectations and skewed perceptions of what innovation with this sort of technology actually entails; I can’t tell you how many procurement leaders have admitted to us that they’re getting pressure from the C-suite to invest in AI-powered tools just because they have ‘AI’ in the name.”
While clear with her scepticism regarding generative AI’s current place in the market, O’Gara recognises its potential. “Generative AI’s potential is huge—especially if it’s deployed strategically at the process level,” she reveals. “It could truly transform procurement, shifting teams from transactional roles to strategic partners who are involved early in the buying process and appreciated for their unique expertise—and for the unique business value procurement alone can deliver. But AI on its own isn’t going to save procurement. The reality is, many organisations jumped into the AI hype without a real strategy, and that’s why they haven’t seen its full value yet. The key is integrating AI thoughtfully into core processes—that’s when we’ll start seeing its real potential.”
With an eye on the future, O’Gara expects the next year to continue to revolve around AI adoption, but in ways that deliver real value. “I think we’ll see procurement truly stepping into a more strategic role, with businesses recognising procurement as a key partner, not just a back-office function,” she says. “This shift will be driven in part by new technology, especially process orchestration and AI, helping procurement bridge gaps in communication and collaboration across teams. Another big trend will be the rise of personalised, consumer-like experiences in procurement—making buying and approval processes smoother, more intuitive, and better tailored to the needs of individual users. It’s an exciting time, and we’re just scratching the surface of what’s possible.”
CPOstrategy speaks with Brandon Daniels, CEO at Exiger, to explore how it helps customers achieve greater visibility into their supply chains amidst ever-changing global challenges
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Exiger is on a mission to make the world a safer and more transparent place to succeed.
The company aims to do this by revolutionising how corporations, government agencies and banks navigate risk and compliance in their third parties, supply chains and customers through software and tech-enabled solutions.
Brandon Daniels serves as Exiger’s CEO. A regulatory expert and technology practitioner, Daniels brings decades in senior management across the financial services, technology, life sciences and energy markets. Over the last 20 years, Daniels has managed some of the largest crises, compliance and risk management matters in the private and public sectors.
Given the unpredictable nature of geopolitical challenges and global disasters and the subsequent knock-on effect these events have on supply chains, Daniels stresses it is imperative to keep your finger on the pulse in order to stay ahead and mitigate problems.
“Even if you look at the past month alone, in the United States there’s been Hurricane Helene, the Longshoreman strike and Hurricane Milton,” says Daniels. “It is one hit after another. Since the pandemic, we’ve really pulled back the veil on how fragile our supply chains really are. With climate change set to disrupt over 25 trillion dollars of assets over the next 20 years, I think the likes of natural disasters, man-made disasters and geopolitical tensions will continue to disrupt our supply chains, so we’ve got to get ahead of it. We’ve got to regain control and procurement professionals are at the front line.”
This is where Exiger comes in.
Supply chain visibility
Exiger is a supply chain visibility, orchestration and risk management solution that helps customers to increase the resilience of their operations, reduce risk, and help drive cost efficiency throughout their organisation. Exiger helps customers with their most complex and critical issues from ESG to managing supplier financial health. The company empowers them to regain control of their supply chains when facing global challenges. According to Daniels, every challenge brings opportunity. But the real winners out of disruption are those who can achieve greater resilience.
“Having visibility where you think you’re purchasing from seven vendors, but you’re actually purchasing from one and that vendor is in a high-risk zone that could be disrupted is key,” explains Daniels. “Firstly, you could contract directly with that vendor and use your volume to your advantage. That’s a pricing and cost management opportunity. And two, knowing that you only have one vendor and maybe diversifying away, that’s also a risk management opportunity. Companies are missing major opportunities by not gaining visibility into their supply chain.”
But with procurement and the wider world seemingly transitioning from one ‘black swan’ event to the next over the past few years, Daniels recognises the workforce is ‘exhausted.’ “People are overwhelmed,” he admits.
“Since the COVID-19 pandemic, we have all gone into this hyperdrive. Even though we’re working at home and people are remote, employees are still working all day. It’s a constant battle and a constant crisis. So the idea of saying ‘Well, if I have 1,000 vendors at my tier one that I’m managing today, and that’s already hard, how can I manage the 800,000 vendors at tier five?’ You just stare at this morass of data, this volume of suppliers and amount of risk. And you might say, ‘I just don’t want to know.’ And that’s where also AI can help us with ruthless prioritisation of what actually matters. That’s why we get up every day to help our customers to prioritise these issues and opportunities.”
DPW Amsterdam
DPW Amsterdam’s theme for 2024 was 10X and how a moonshot mindset can take companies from incremental to exponential impact. 10X amplifies the necessity for organisations to think and act 10 times bigger than their current capacity. For Daniels, he believes companies could be aiming even higher due to the potential value that can be tapped into.
“I think you should shoot for a 100X and land at 10X. But I think there are so many opportunities as we gain visibility into our broader supplier ecosystem that we’re missing today,” he says.
“Just because I have visibility or transparency into my supplier ecosystem, or because I can manage on a multi-tier basis, it doesn’t mean I need to. For the most critical things, it means that I need to prioritise those areas where I’m going to deliver the most cost savings, the most resilience or the most significant reduction in our risk. What we’re encouraging procurement and supply chain people to do is to drive reward out of this risk and focus on those opportunities where you can have your cake and eat it too. This means I can contract with suppliers that sit deep in my supply chain that are supporting all of the metals and microelectronics buying that I’m doing, and establish a relationship that’s going to reduce cost.
“But here’s the important point. With that visibility, I can also demand more ethical supply chains. So now that I have visibility into those suppliers that are manufacturing the critical noble gases that I need in order to etch these semiconductors, I can also demand an ethical wage. I can demand a carbon-neutral supply chain, and I can give some of that savings back. If I’ve made 15% percent savings, I can say there’s a 3% premium because we want to source ethically. When I say we can 10X, it’s the compound value of both reducing risk and increasing cost efficiency.”
AI-powered Platform
Exiger delivers AI-powered supply chain visibility, orchestration and due diligence through the 1Exiger Platform and the AI engine, DDIQ. The world’s first purpose-built supplier risk technology has been developed to navigate the biggest risk and compliance challenges in 2024 and beyond. 1Exiger accelerates growth to organised fact-finding which allows for important decisions to be made quicker.
“We actually started with just an AI tool that built business profiles on companies,” explains Daniels. “But it’s more focused on the data that we give the system as opposed to training on the broader landscape of open source data that can cause some hallucinations. We wanted to get to high fidelity business profiles. What generative AI is doing that is so unique is it’s making that multi-tier visibility and supplier assessment possible. It wouldn’t be possible for us to come here three years ago saying you can 10X in the same way today. It’s really been the fact that people’s eyes are open to the idea you can create net new data with generative AI. If I’m trying to find something out about 1,000 companies, I used to have to go out and research that.”
GenAI drive
Now, with the capabilities of GenAI, time-consuming and cumbersome fact-finding missions can be completed within minutes. Daniels is well aware of how GenAI has changed the game in generating data while also bridging a skills gap. However, Daniels insists that while procurement professionals are incredibly intelligent in what they do, they can’t do everything.
“Procurement and supply chain people are geniuses at cost, schedule, performance, vendor value creation, supplier negotiation, and market research focused on value-based sourcing. They’re geniuses, but they’re not trained risk managers or compliance people,” he explains.
“The second thing generative AI can do is it can help to bridge that skills gap. If you’ve had risk experts in your organisation feed it on how to handle situations, then those procurement people can rely on those decisions to say, is this within risk tolerance? Is this a vendor that we can accept? Is this a supplier risk that we should either mitigate or we should make a change to? And then finally, it can support that decision-making. I need to be able to document my decisions. I need to be able to create a history of why I did that. Generative AI can help us to automate those unnecessary tasks. Generative AI has a sweeping impact on procurement, supply chain, and in the business world overall.”
Find out more about Exiger here and follow Exiger on LinkedIn
Leaders at SpendHQ, Coupa and Deloitte explore the importance of collaboration to achieving 10X in today’s procurement landscape.
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The future of procurement is here and it isn’t hanging about.
In a world with so much complexity, traditional operating models are quickly becoming displaced due to a lack of flexibility to cope with the demands of the modern world.
As procurement functions grapple with an ever-increasing list of issues such as the likes of cost pressures, market volatility and supply chain disruptions, businesses are desperate for ways to achieve sustainable, profitable growth in the market.
Understanding the urgency of the situation is dynamic trio Pierre Laprée, Chief Product Officer at SpendHQ, Kathryn Thompson, EMEA Sourcing and Procurement Market Offering Lead at Deloitte, and Michael van Keulen, Chief Procurement Officer at Coupa. In a joint conversation at DPW Amsterdam 2024, they reveal the power of working together to unleash 10X thinking quicker.
“Practitioners should start embracing this ecosystem mindset because alone, you cannot succeed,” reveals Laprée. “It’s important to be aware that you can’t know everything. It’s about learning how to surround yourself with the right voices, don’t stay on your own or you will never achieve 10X. Find the people who can help you move the needle. No one will do everything on their own, but when we come together we have a better chance of succeeding.”
The notion of 10X was apt as that was this year’s theme at DPW Amsterdam. The meaning of 10X is how AI and a moonshot mindset can transform a company from incremental to exponential impact. 10X showcases the necessity for organisations to think and act 10 times bigger than their current capacity.
SpendHQ is a leading best-in-class provider of enterprise spend intelligence and procurement performance management solutions. SpendHQ’s Strategic Procurement Platform empower procurement to generate and demonstrate better financial and non-financial outcomes. Laprée references the battle between integrated suites and best-of-breed solutions and stresses the importance of collaboration to reach the promised land. “You need proper foundational data, but then you also require more agile solutions that can help you overcome the problem of the day,” he says. “It is the power of all of us that makes the difference.”
Procurement transformation
As someone who is no stranger to driving procurement transformations, van Keulen is well aware of the ingredients needed to succeed in the digital-driven procurement world of today. Van Keulen’s company helps other organisations better manage direct and indirect spend, mitigate third-party risks and address supply chain volatility and resiliency. Through the compounding effect of AI, Coupa has combined its total spend management platform with its community-generated AI to introduce The Margin Multiplier effect. This is real-world AI informed by $6 trillion worth of spend, created over 15 years and across a community of 10 million suppliers.
“What that really means is how can you go from where you’re operating today to where you could and should be operating through the power of people, process and technology,” explains van Keulen.
“What is extremely critical is that you have the right data foundation, but it’s also important that we understand how AI is going to influence your end-to-end process. How is AI trained and what underlying data is used to train your AI? In our case, it’s based on real data, real companies, real suppliers who are all doing real business with each other. And that’s where the AI comes in. When you think about 10X, I think technology is a key enabler. I truly believe that you need to have reliable data to train AI and then it’s the power of all of us together, which we’ve always called the community element, to get the 10X multiplication or the margin multiplier that we can be in procurement.”
10X Vision
In order to make achieving 10X a reality, Laprée stresses in no uncertain terms that people are at the heart of that journey. According to Laprée, SpendHQ helps its clients build their data infrastructure to support acceleration and velocity. “Businesses move fast, the world moves fast and data moves even faster,” explains Laprée. “We help our client make sense of all of that. How does your spend evolve? How do your suppliers evolve? What are the areas of risk that you should be looking at? And that’s a constant monitoring process. Having a strong data foundation is an absolute prerequisite to achieving 10X speed because otherwise you will crumble under your own weight. That’s the key.”
Thompson, who has worked at consultancy giant Deloitte since 2012, believes that one of the biggest barriers in the way of achieving 10X is getting bogged down in the mechanics of reporting instead of value delivery. “Finance directors want you to put numbers to whatever you’ve done but you shouldn’t get too drawn into those conversations,” she says. “I think keeping a focus on value delivery rather than value reporting and measurements is where the magic happens. It can get a bit distracting so you need tools to help.”
According to van Keulen, the importance of trying new things and being proactive is essential. He draws comparisons to his own career and explains that part of the journey is to be comfortable with the uncomfortable.
“I fundamentally believe that if you want to drive transformation, then you have to be bold,” he reveals. “You will potentially make some mistakes along the way, but you have to get started. I’ve been fortunate enough in my career that I’ve had the ability to do procurement transformation a couple of times and support our customers in that journey. The ones that do it at a high level are the ones that are getting out there and talking to people out there in the community and want to share, be vulnerable and are okay with all of that. Those are the ones that are in our community, but also those are the ones that are the highest performers. But you have to get out there and you have to be bold to start with.”
GenAI Drive
Looking at the potential of GenAI in procurement, Thompson admits while the future is exciting the function still has some catching up to do as other sectors are further ahead in terms of GenAI adoption. As part of her role with Deloitte where Thompson also leads life science practice in the firm’s UK operations, her organisation leverages GenAI to accelerate clinical trials and research product development.
“That speed to market and the difference it makes for timing on product launch is more than tenfold value return – it’s huge,” she explains. “Now the difference in procurement, a lot of the case studies we saw early on were like, summarise a contract or an RFP, but while you can save some time, it isn’t touching the sides. Of course, the CEO might say, ‘Show me all your GenAI use cases and this speed to market on R&D or product launches is more interesting than some of what we have done so far’. Now, we are beginning to see some exciting stuff like negotiations and the way that we can triangulate data for spend reporting. Indeed, there are insights we can get that we couldn’t get before. But ultimately, I think procurement is still relatively early on the journey.”
Digital future
Laprée adds that it is important users think carefully about the problem they wish to solve rather than shoehorning a GenAI solution into it. According to Laprée, SpendHQ has spent the past year evaluating what AI means to its clients and how it can help get to the desired outcomes quicker. “What we found is that our clients want faster refreshes where we can make our AI into a touchless entity that is essentially real time,” explains Laprée. “It’s about how we collect risk, financial and past sourcing information to generate insights that actually make sense. It’s about bringing this depth into the insights and stop forcing your user to look at pie charts and dashboards to get an answer. We have to make procurement more conversational and intentional.”
“But GenAI is just one tool in the toolbox. It’s one flavour of AI whereas natural language processing and machine learning have been here for longer than we can remember. Not all tools can solve your problems. When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. That’s pretty much the GenAI situation today. Understand that GenAI is not the be all and end all of artificial intelligence. Intentionality is key. What are you trying to do and what do you want to do? Define and think in terms of outcomes, not technology.”
Christel Constant, Executive Board Member at Unite, tells us how her organisation is evolving its approach to indirect procurement amid a significant procurement transformation.
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“There is so much that can be done in this space.”
That is why Christel Constant, Executive Board Member at Unite, is so excited.
Having originally transitioned to procurement from a career in financial technology, Constant explains that what inspired her to shift her focus to procurement was the potential of delivering real change, particularly with an eye on sustainability.
“Procurement decisions can shape supply chains in ways that reduce environmental impact, support fair labour practices, and encourage responsible business behaviour,” she says. “Even when it comes to indirect procurement of catalogue-based products, the potential is still significant. By choosing suppliers with sustainable practices, we can reduce waste, improve energy efficiency, and contribute to the broader sustainability goals of the company. It’s about recognising that every procurement decision, no matter how small, can be a step toward creating a more responsible and resilient supply chain.”
Transformation
Constant is passionate about leadership and has become a transformation enabler within organisations by exploring new market opportunities, presenting pioneering concepts, spearheading change, coaching teams and enabling significant growth. The company she works for is Unite, a buyer-first platform for catalogue-based demands across Europe, offering a single contractual partner, single contact and creditor. With over two decades of experience, its compliant e-procurement solution combines framework agreements and catalogues with a pre-integrated assortment from vetted suppliers for effortless sourcing and purchasing for private and public sector organisations. The company was founded as Mercateo in 2000 and is headquartered in Leipzig, Germany. It now operates in 12 European countries, with over 700 employees and revenue of €440.8 million.
Over the last 20+ years, Unite has acquired a solid foundation of fair competition and trustworthy partnerships. The platform’s scalable infrastructure supports connections, business stability and a robust supply chain. In 2022, Unite became the first platform business accredited with the Fair Tax Mark, representing the global standard for responsible tax practices. Earlier this year, Unite was awarded the EcoVadis Gold rating for the first time, recognising its significant sustainability efforts. This achievement places Unite among the top 5% of companies assessed during the period and within the top 3% in its industry.
How Unite is evolving indirect procurement
“Unite is transforming indirect procurement by integrating catalogue-based demand—encompassing ad-hoc (tail-end) needs and recurring (core) demand, which has traditionally been managed through framework agreements—into a single platform under one creditor. Currently, we handle contract management and order fulfilment, ensuring that buyers can easily track orders and manage returns. Financial processes, such as billing and payment, are simplified through a centralised system, enabling seamless transactions and mitigating financial risks.
“The next phase in this transformation is a shift to a service-led model, providing dynamic procurement solutions that address the full spectrum of catalogue-based requirements. Our PraaS (Procurement-as-a-Service) model will span the entire procurement lifecycle,” she explains. “From supplier and manufacturer qualification, ensuring compliance with industry and buyer standards, to generative demand analysis that enables automated, adaptive sourcing for repeat purchases. This approach unlocks significant, previously untapped cost savings for our buyers.”
Procurement’s shift
In October, Constant spoke and hosted a panel discussion at DPW Amsterdam 2024. The session focused on market-led strategies within indirect procurement. At Unite, the company views market-led strategies as creating an ecosystem where demand and supply meet seamlessly, providing full transparency for buyers and neutrality for suppliers. Unite centres its focus on three main aspects: providing access to a broad and diverse offering, delivering a user-centric experience, and enhancing supplier management efficiency. “We also touched on the growing pressure within procurement departments. As the number of professional buyers decreases, decentralised, requester-led purchasing has become more common,” explains Constant. “This shift demands more integrated compliance and ease of use, leading to a reduction in the administrative burden by managing fewer suppliers and centralising access through single creditor solutions.
“In implementing these strategies, the discussion highlighted the importance of finding the right partner to integrate with existing IT systems, provide clear change management policies, and ensure user onboarding and training to maximise adoption. At Unite, we designed our platform to enhance transparency and optimise indirect procurement. Until now, our focus has largely been on functional requirements. But we’ve already started incorporating non-functional requirements—such as sustainability measures like CO2 reporting, compliance, and broader ESG criteria—into catalogue-based procurement, with further enhancements planned to make these criteria transparent at the point of purchase. Ultimately, combining these elements can unlock efficiencies and create a more sustainable procurement ecosystem. This will drive long-term value for businesses and suppliers alike.”
DPW Amsterdam
This year’s theme at DPW Amsterdam was 10X and how organisations should think 10 times bigger than their current capacity. Paul Polman, the former Unilever CEO, spoke about how 10X is about a mindset shift. “Paul Polman explained the need to have very ambitious goals to build partnerships to create this systemic change,” explains Constant.
“At Unite, we’ve been at the centre of an ecosystem that includes buyers, suppliers, other e-procurement platforms, and IT partners that we integrate into our system. Here, we feel we can be at the centre of this change because we connect with the different stakeholders. For us, what is very important is that aiming for 10X is not just about growth. It’s about being purpose-driven. At Unite, our purpose is to connect the economy for sustainable business, which drives us. We need to achieve 10X our growth and impact because only then will we bring our purpose to life.”
Future proof
It is clear Unite has no plans to stand still. Next year, the organisation aims to launch a foundational service step. This will enable companies to reduce the complexity of their indirect procurement processes. “With our end-to-end support, businesses can focus on core operations while their indirect procurement is being handled efficiently,” she explains. “This approach not only improves operational efficiency but also ensures compliance and flexibility in managing supplier relationships.”
And with GenAI set to continue to shake the procurement space, Constant expects an ever-increasing adoption rate as time progresses. “In 2025 and beyond, I believe we are going to see lots of new offerings and changes,” says Constant. “Of course, GenAI and large language models will impact many industries. We are already working with these technologies to accelerate our impact on society and to power our statement and purpose. Next year will be a real amplification into getting some new technologies to support a more sustainable way to procure.”
Caitlyn Lewis, Founder and CEO at Supplier Day, and Alexandra Tarmo, Vice President of Procurement at Kenvue, explore how good communication with suppliers plays a crucial role in achieving long-term success in procurement and supply chain.
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“How you communicate determines whether or not you achieve your goals.”
It is fair to say that Caitlyn Lewis, Founder and CEO at Supplier Day, believes in the power of honest conversations.
Since 2020, her company has partnered with some of the world’s leading brands to help them elevate their supplier relationships through high-impact in-person, virtual and hybrid events. Supplier Day’s mission is to create experiences that drive powerful relationships between procurement teams and their suppliers. In order to achieve this, Supplier Day’s team combines deep expertise in event design, procurement strategy and innovative thinking to offer a full suite of services that empower customers to succeed.
The idea to create the organisation came just after the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic when supply chains were under pressure more than ever before. Due to the sudden shift from in-person to virtual events, Lewis realised the procurement space needed a partner who had the necessary tools to support the journey. This led to the birth of Supplier Day to help create strategic events and communications while delivering spectacular supplier events that drive real impact. Four years on, Supplier Day has grown into a trusted partner for procurement teams and worked with industry giants such as Siemens, Bayer and PepsiCo.
“Good communication is something that we aim to bring to every single event that we design for our clients,” explains Lewis. “But it’s also something that we hold really close within our team because essentially everything that we do and the value that we deliver for our clients is helping them to achieve their goals through building better relationships with suppliers. And that all starts with communication.”
A positive supplier experience can lead to resilient long-term supplier relationships, increased collaboration and improved supply chain performance. In the modern world, it is vital for companies to prioritise supplier experience as part of their procurement strategy in order to harness sustainable, mutually beneficial relationships with suppliers. Through Supplier Day, organisations can work with the company’s team to deliver impactful experiences that drive engagement, collaboration and measurable success.
One of Supplier Day’s alliances is with Alexandra Tarmo, Vice President of Procurement at Kenvue. Speaking to CPOstrategy alongside Lewis at DPW Amsterdam 2024, Tarmo credits Supplier Day with bringing the outside in to drive transformation.
“Coming from a company that was newly formed, you need to find a new identity and work out how and when to engage with suppliers,” explains Tarmo. “The fact that Supplier Day brings us the outside in and reveals that your peers and competition are on the journey too is so important. Ultimately, if you don’t do it, you’re missing the boat and that has been a very big advantage in convincing leadership teams to go for it. The fact that Supplier Day knows how to drive this programme with our peers and competitors is hugely advantageous too. I’m a person of simplicity so if it has already been done and it works, let me just copy and paste it and use the same processes. It has helped us to convince management to feel confident it will work.”
With procurement and supply chain in the midst of its most exciting, dynamic era yet, Lewis believes the real challenge procurement faces is how companies differentiate themselves from competitors in a bid to win business. “I think what is really exciting is that it now comes down to the quality of that relationship and how you can pull real value out of a strong relationship,” reveals Lewis. “We’ve heard so much at DPW Amsterdam about technology and how that really helps to drive productivity and efficiency and I think that the big game changer will be for the companies and for the procurement teams that can then use that extra time to drive capabilities around relationship building so that they can extract more innovation.”
Looking ahead, Lewis is full of optimism for the future, particularly after going through a recent rebrand. “I’m just so proud as I think that it is a true reflection of the differentiation that we bring for our customers,” she explains.
“We talk about being unmissable and a large part of that is bringing that outside in. This is done for multiple companies across a range of industries for many different purposes across various cultures. We have a vast understanding of what different communication needs to look like. It means that we have that good foundation and then we are focusing on making it 10X better. What does being unmissable mean for this client? How is that going to look? Which again is that differentiation for every single client. It is that unmissable element and that’s what excites me. It’s what I get really enthusiastic about every time we’re sitting down with a client because I’m thinking ‘What’s that unmissable quality going to be for them?’
This year’s theme at DPW Amsterdam explored the mindset of aiming for 10X growth instead of an incremental approach. According to Tarmo, prioritisation is key in order to achieve goals for the coming year and beyond.
“The concept of 10X is non-negotiable,” she explains. “If we want to continue to be relevant and drive value, it’s the way to go. What I get is that we talk a lot about digital, data and systems. There are a lot of solutions and there is a lot of technology available for us as a function. The decision we need to make is where do I put my efforts? What do I prioritise? It is important to keep in mind that this is a space where the full value comes only when you bring everybody inside. What is the first priority I follow where I know I will get adoption and I will get all my team and my supplier on board to get the full value?”
Given the hype around new digital innovations such as GenAI tools like ChatGPT and Microsoft CoPilot, Lewis recognises how exciting the landscape is for procurement. However, she is quick to point out that despite the transformational advantages to leveraging new technology, they can’t be at the cost of replacing humans. “Having listened to Marcelo Stefani, CPO of PepsiCo, and Marc Engel, CEO of Unilab, on the main stage earlier, there is still this idea that AI can’t fix my toilet or do the laundry,” explains Lewis. “As great as this excitement about what AI can do and how this technology can make our lives so much easier, the human element remains so important. I think that the companies that are really going to differentiate themselves, both with their customers and with their suppliers are the ones that understand that. That’s my main takeaway from DPW Amsterdam this year.”
Moving towards 2025, Tarmo reveals that being transparent about what kind of relationship you wish to have with suppliers and where they fit into the journey is vital. “There is a necessity to be very open and transparent on what we want and what type of relationship we want to have with our suppliers,” she says. “It’s important to ensure that whatever we build as new technology, you always remember that you also need to engage your suppliers on that journey. You should question how to onboard them and make their experience easier.”
Lewis aligns herself with Tarmo’s view of honest communication with suppliers in order to grow in a mutually beneficial way. “We talk so much about user experience when we are designing products or services for consumers and essentially it’s that same value, but doing it for suppliers,” explains Lewis. “We have an approach at Supplier Day that is “Starts with Suppliers” and as Alexandra said, once you’re super clear on what it is that you are trying to achieve, you then want to put yourself in the shoes of your suppliers and work out how you can communicate with them in a way that relates to them and allows them to see where the value is in having a relationship with you as their customer.”
Spencer Penn, Co-Founder and CEO at LightSource, reveals the rise of his company amid a transformative time in procurement and supply chain.
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Being successful in today’s supply chain requires work. It doesn’t just happen by mistake, especially in the fast-paced tech-driven business world of today.
Spencer Penn, Co-Founder and CEO at LightSource, knows this well and recognises the importance of full use of the digital tools at his disposal.
Indeed, his company is on a mission to ‘illuminate the global supply chain’ through building software that helps procurement professionals collaborate with their suppliers and create a win-win in the process. LightSource is an online platform for strategic sourcing designed for both buyers and suppliers and includes sides of the app with tools for everyone in the supply chain ecosystem.
The birth of LightSource
Penn’s journey to founding LightSource is certainly an interesting one. Penn spent a portion of his early career at Tesla under the leadership of Elon Musk where he helped push the company’s Model 3 programme which was Tesla’s first mass-market electric car. Upon starting with the carmaker, Tesla was making approximately 1,000 cars every week which Penn explains later scaled to 10 million vehicles throughout the lifetime of the Model 3 programme.
“One of the big challenges that we faced was that we were sourcing 30 billion of direct materials on Excel spreadsheets and emails,” he recalls. “So naturally I went out to the market to find a direct material sourcing solution because I assumed something like LightSource existed. I got demos from every vendor under the sun and I was shocked to discover that there were only really two options that I knew nobody would use. And so at a certain moment, years after leaving Tesla, I thought what would it look like if we went out on our own and built something that’s by procurement for procurement which is easy to use and fast to deploy. And here we are.”
But what sets LightSource apart is its ability to solve the direct materials use case. According to Penn, he believes his firm’s competitive advantage lies in being a source to contract that works for direct materials and large strategic indirect spend. “What we don’t focus on is the tail spend or on this requisition intake to procure process,” he explains. “We are focused on the source to contract which is everything from the bill of materials through the PLM, to sourcing and supplier relationship management which is all focused on direct.”
DPW Amsterdam
At DPW Amsterdam, this year’s theme was 10X which is the idea that organisations need to accelerate thinking that is 10 times their current capacities. As far as Penn and LightSource is concerned, he believes aiming for exponential advances holds the key to long-term success in 2025 and beyond.
“Incremental improvements don’t stick,” he reveals. “If you’re going to go to an organisation and say, ‘Hey, we’d like to improve your procurement process by 5%, 10%, 20%, it’s not that interesting.’ The inertia of what people know and are used to no matter how much they love or don’t love it, they’re not willing to change for a small incremental improvement. That’s what I see a lot of companies angling for is only a slight improvement. But when I think about the theme of 10X and the fact it is also very closely paired with generative AI, this will enable the next generation of software that’s not just an incremental improvement, but a complete revolution.
Transformative space
“I think in two years the way the software landscape’s going to look is totally different. If you present someone with a 10% improvement, there’s not really a lot of interest or adoption, but if you can actually think about what’s a paradigm shift, a 10X improvement, then the conversation switches from why should we use this to how can I make sure I’m not left behind by not adopting this? That’s the key.”
But in order for procurement to reach its digital potential, executive buy-in is required. According to Penn, it is both the biggest driver and obstacle in equal measure that stands in the way of progress. “If we encounter a Chief Procurement Officer and they’re very forward thinking and have a really clear and defined vision, those end up being really revolutionary deployments,” says Penn. “When there’s a leader that is very comfortable with what they already know, they’re living in their comfort zone and they don’t really want to reinvent the wheel or just think about what’s possible, then it’s always rolling a rock up a hill. I always get a little bit of PTSD when I think about really engaging them more directly.”
GenAI drive
But Penn is empathetic to ripping up the carpet and starting from scratch, particularly when strategies or processes have worked successfully in the past. However, if an organisation isn’t proactive in their approach to digitalisation and embracing 10X thinking, they risk being caught out by competitors. “There’s this great Bob Dylan that I love which is ‘If you’re not busy being born, you’re busy dying’. And I love it because being born is uncomfortable. It’s like being a beginner again, it’s new. And if you’re not busy being born, then you’re busy dying. And I think the same can be said for procurement leadership.”
GenAI is one of the hottest topics in procurement right now. Its potential is exciting and is discussed at length in meetings and conferences the world over. However, there are still risks attached such as data quality challenges like hallucinations along with security concerns.
“You have to think about where these models live and are stored,” explains Penn. “Are they using your data in training? How do you make sure you’re creating safeguards around IP leakage? I think that’s extremely important so we handle that in a very sophisticated way. The second thing is you have to think about access control for the models. One of the techniques that’s been popular over the last year is something called retrieval augmented generation. The model is not just creating a response from its own training set, but rather being instructed to query the company’s known data. If it can query the known data, whoever’s accessing that model, you need to make sure that they have permission to access things like payroll data or HR data if that’s the kind of question that’s going and seeking through databases.”
Managing the AI challenge
However, AI is not a silver bullet and should not be used for technology’s sake. Penn is well aware of the temptation of leveraging AI, and in particular GenAI, because it is shiny and new. But doing so could be a costly mistake.
“You should ask yourself ‘What are the problems that you face that are real pain points?’ And then work backwards and be flexible about the solution,” he explains. “You should then ask ‘Can AI actually solve it?’ There’s a very common product management question I like to ask customers during discovery interviews which is ‘If you had a magic wand, what problem would you solve?’
“That basically asks the participant to forget about the possible and just assume anything’s possible. This is simply to get to the heart of what are the biggest challenges that you would solve. That magic wand thinking is a good approach to scoping out the problem sets that you want to address with AI, especially as the space is moving so fast. My final recommendation is just to know it’s moving quickly. If you’re going to make a big investment in AI, assume that it is very possible that within six to 12 months there is a different company that obsoletes whatever you’re looking at today.”
Jag Lamba, CEO at Certa, on how procurement can unleash the full value from GenAI.
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Certa was born with a founding mission – simplify the way businesses work with third parties.
For CEO Jag Lamba, that mission hasn’t shifted since the company was created in 2015. Lamba came up with the idea for Certa after witnessing the many inefficiencies and complexities of the third party lifecycle at large organisations. He discovered that managing third party risk and compliance was always more challenging than it should be, so he was determined to do something about it.
Certa’s goal is to improve the way businesses manage third party relationships by simplifying workflows, automating processes, and delivering full visibility. Now, more than 100,000 users do business via Certa.
“What differentiates Certa is that it is a full spectrum of risk compliance and sustainability as it relates to third parties,” explains Lamba. “It’s comprehensive, but it can be deployed in a modular manner. Secondly, it’s very agile, so it’s easy to make changes with all the different regulations which is really important because companies need a very agile solution in today’s world. Lastly, it is intelligent. What I mean by that is beyond rules-based decision-making, we have generative AI embedded into the platform, and that makes lots of tasks much, much easier.”
A common joke in procurement is that the majority of practitioners fall into the space by accident. Not for Lamba. His journey into the industry was more of a conscious decision. “Previously, I was a consultant with McKinsey and I was working across clients. I noticed that one of their biggest pain points was that working across third parties was really challenging,” says Lamba. “As soon as I realised this, I understood that what’s challenging is all the risks and the compliance requirements that you need to cover when you work with third parties because you can’t work with just anyone. That’s what got me interested in this space as I wanted to solve this challenge.”
Lamba speaks to CPOstrategy at DPW Amsterdam 2024. This year’s conference focuses on the theme of 10X, the notion that companies should aim for a moonshot mindset instead of an incremental approach. “This is the first time that I actually see the 10X vision possible,” explains Lamba. “The main reason for this is because of the improvements in generative AI. For the first time, we can see this tectonic platform shift into what we’ve been calling the new productivity revolution. Companies in the procurement space and otherwise can now deploy AI Copilots and agents. Copilots can improve productivity by up to 50%. But AI agents can actually improve productivity 10X because AI agents are like coworkers. You can actually give them tasks and manage outcomes. That is your path to 10X.”
However, one of the biggest barriers to achieving 10X is getting buy-in. Change management is about delivering new ways of working in a considered and strategic manner while showcasing the benefits of giving up legacy systems and processes. “Change management is a difficult hurdle,” he says. “How do you sell that internally? How do you get adoption and how do you change your company based on all the new capability and automation that’s available to you? It’s the biggest problem procurement faces.”
Generative AI is changing the game in procurement. Through Certa AI, users can use natural language to create workflows, directly engage with data for sharp insights and supercharge supplier onboarding with automatic form-filling. For instance, instead of asking suppliers to answer hundreds of questions manually, businesses can use Certa AI to synthesise past responses and live data from the web to auto-complete questionnaires. Certa’s Risk AI also analyses and reasons via documents, extracting key information to enhance decision-making and streamline risk management.
“We were quite early adopters of generative AI,” explains Lamba. “We have generative AI live with 10 large enterprise clients which is rare. Now we are seeing incredible productivity benefits. Overall, generative AI is a tectonic-like technology platform shift that is ushering in this productivity revolution. Over five years, it’ll be as impactful as the communication revolution behind it, even potentially the industrial revolution before it. This is going to be massive. Generative AI will go through disillusionment phases, but can you imagine your life without the internet now? That’s how transformational this technology is and we’re only at the beginning.”
However, Lamba is well aware that generative AI adoption is not a straightforward and smooth process. According to him, there are four key considerations that should be thought about before leveraging generative AI into operations. “The reason why evaluating generative AI is tricky is because it’s relatively easy for software providers to create a sexy demo,” explains Lamba.
“You can actually do that in as little as six weeks, but to create a production-level system requires a lot more than a sexy demo. Now to get a product to completion, you need efficacy and reliability, ideally in the real world. As an evaluator, you want to ensure that the solution provider is giving you hard metrics on how efficacious and reliable the technology is.
“Secondly, you need a detailed audit trail because generative acts on your behalf so you want to understand all the steps that it did. Thirdly, you want some guardrails because the technology is still new and you need to follow company policies. And lastly, which most providers aren’t doing yet, is ongoing monitoring because the underlying models change and evolve over time. Traditional software has a defined set of inputs and outputs. With generative AI, the reverse is true, and you have an unlimited number of inputs and outputs. It’s a lot more challenging.”
With so much digital transformation and innovation at procurement’s fingertips today, Lamba is keen to stress how excited he is for the future ahead. “Working across companies, which is what procurement and supply chain does, is mainly an unstructured data problem because there’s no centralised database across companies,” he discusses. “Finally, we have a technology, generative AI, that is designed to work with unstructured data. As far as I am concerned, in the last 20 years this is the most exciting time to be in procurement. This function will be at the forefront of this revolution.”
Lance Younger, CEO of ProcureTech, discusses the scale of the opportunity presented to leaders amid procurement’s digital drive.
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“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.”
It’s impossible not to be inspired by the energy at a DPW event. DPW Amsterdam 2024 was buzzing with that…
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It’s impossible not to be inspired by the energy at a DPW event. DPW Amsterdam 2024 was buzzing with that same energy, its attendees soaking in information and inspiration from speakers, peers, other experts. We caught up with Rujul Zaparde, Co-Founder and CEO of Zip, at the event to dive into the procurement landscape and chat about the specific qualities DPW brings to the sector.
Zaparde is the Co-Founder and CEO of Zip. At the beginning of Zip’s journey, Zaparde and his fellow founder, Lu Cheng, based the company around their own experiences as end-users of the procurement process. They took their lived confusion around having multiple intakes for a contract, for the purchase request, and all the different complicated components of the process, and created a solution.
“And so, we started Zip and created the category of intake and procurement orchestration. We’re very grateful to have been named the leader in the category,” says Zaparde, in reference to having just been named a category leader in IDC’s first ever Marketscape for Spend Orchestration.
So, as is often the case, procurement is something Zaparde fell into. In this case, he got involved with procurement specifically to solve pain points. Prior to Zip, he was a Product Manager and Cheng was an Engineering Leader, both at Airbnb; they knew very little about procurement. “We were just end-users,” he explains. The upside of this was that they were able to come into the industry fresh, without the baggage and legacy issues that can come with being in a sector for a long time.
UX first
“At Zip, we really try to take a user experience first approach,” Zaparde continues. “What we found is the highest leverage change you can make in any procurement organisation is to make it easier for your employees to actually adopt and follow whatever the right process is. If you do that, then all of finance, procurement, accounting, and even IT find that they’re suddenly swimming with the current, not against it. And you can’t do any of that unless you solve for user experience.”
Taking away problems, the way Zip does, also takes away a barrier to ambition. The theme of DPW Amsterdam 2024 was 10X, a term on the lips of many across all sectors. Once immediate issues and pain points are addressed, 10X is something businesses can aspire to, with many talks and workshops during DPW Amsterdam focusing on how to approach this.
Getting the mindset right
For Zaparde, 10X thinking is a necessity for growth. “You have to aim for 10X to even end up at something X,” he explains. “That requires ambition. I also think that when you think in terms of 10X, and your mindset is angled towards incremental change, you’re much more open to thinking of solutions that are perhaps a little more risky. It changes your perspective.”
A mindset shift needs to happen before anything else. This involves considering the needs of procurement and the wider company, having a north star in mind, and then breaking changes down to an incremental level.
“Then you can start to think about the steps you need to take to get there,” Zaparde explains. “A big component of this is bringing along your peers and stakeholders across every function that’s tangential and critical to the core procurement workflow and path.”
Innovating for good
The work Zip does is indicative of the shift towards continuous improvement and advanced technology that procurement has been going through in recent years. There are things that are possible now that weren’t possible even a year ago, thanks to the vast innovations being made. One of the hot topics right now is generative AI, something that’s opening up a world of possibilities.
“It’s the elephant in the room right now,” says Zaparde. “With the capabilities that gen AI unlocks, you can automate a lot more. That allows you to cut down a lot of the transactional and operational work that procurement and sourcing organisations are doing. Procurement is tired of the status quo. It’s been an underserved function for over 20 years, and I’m glad that’s finally changing. I feel privileged for myself and Zip to be part of the conversation, and that we’re seeing all these amazing changes happening.”
Zaparde believes we’re already seeing the benefits of the major changes that have occurred over the last couple of years in procurement. In fact, he knows this, because Zip has helped its customers save around $4.5bn of spend over the last two years, which is an astonishing statistic.
“One customer of ours, Snowflake, achieved over $300m in savings alone,” Zaparde continues. “We’ve seen tangible benefits already. The way procurement is evolving isn’t a hypothetical thing – it’s really happening.”
Fragmentation on fragmentation
The key, again, is overcoming base level issues for the sake of evolution. This is precisely what Zip provides, after all. But sometimes, the issue is at a data level. Unclean data is something that technology leaders are talking about a great deal right now, with some feeling that it holds them back from implementing new technology. Zaparde believes that businesses should be questioning why their data isn’t clean from the start, rather than worrying about trying to cleanse existing data.
“You don’t just clean your data – the real question is why is your data not clean in the first place?” he muses. “You have to have a clean entry point for it. I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to a Fortune 500 CPO that said they had clean data. I think it’s because of the upstream processes in intake and orchestration. If all the cross-functional teams – the IT review, the legal review, the finance – are being manually shepherded by the procurement operations organisation, then how can you possibly end up with clean data?
“People are keying the same information into multiple systems, which might mean they answer in similar – but different – ways. So you end up with fragmentation on fragmentation. But if you have one single door to that data, you’ll be able to drive only clean data, because it’s a funnel. If you let everyone have different swim lanes that never intersect, you won’t have clean data.”
As 2025 approaches, Zip has multiple product capabilities and features coming up that Zaparde and his team are very excited about. This includes leveraging gen AI, something we’re seeing incredible utilisation of across the sector.
For Zaparde, attending events like DPW Amsterdam to talk about what Zip does and interact with peers and clients alike is a joyous part of his job. “DPW is really accelerating the rate of change in the procurement industry. That’s very much needed, and it’s energising to see so many incredible people from the procurement world in one place. I love spending time with these forward-thinking procurement leaders at this event.”
Catching up with Mitha-Ai’s Co-Founder, Arash Saberi, we dive into the vital importance of a solid data foundation.
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Whether we’re talking about gen AI, 10X, or any other kind of advanced tech solution, data is at the core of the discussion. And when data isn’t clean or ready for the implementation of something being built on top of it, businesses can end up significantly held back. Mithra-Ai is an organisation that helps its customers to build trust in their data, which is a core issue for many.
“That sets us apart,” says Arash Saberi, Co-Founder of Mithra-AI. “We help procurement leaders and category managers create, execute, and realise their strategies. This is backed by reliable, comprehensive data, both internal and external, tailored specifically for their categories.
“Maintaining high-quality data is crucial as it influences the accuracy and reliability of AI-driven insights and recommendations. That’s where Mitha-AI comes in. Our cleansing, enrichment, and auto-classification engines ensure that procurement stakeholders, including data scientists, begin with a reliable data foundation.”
Cleaning and classifying data
Mithra-Ai is an AI-native SaaS solution, which starts off by proposing a meaningful spend hierarchy for every category. What’s key is that this is paired with an automated cleansing and classification engine. This is so important because the only way to achieve truly clean data is to make sure it enters the system clean in the first place.
“Clear visibility into categorised spending eliminates uncategorised expenses and wrong assumptions,” says Saberi. “When supplemented by relevant external data intelligence, category managers are empowered to negotiate with confidence, achieve greater savings, and monitor initiatives effectively.”
A world beyond cost savings
When launching Mithra-Ai in 2021, the company’s founders rightly foresaw that the role of procurement would evolve beyond focusing merely on cost savings, and become the central hub of every organisation. Because of that, they knew that accurate, reliable information was needed – hence the necessity for Mithra-Ai.
As procurement has shifted, the status quo is no longer good enough. It’s an exciting time for the sector, but also one of high demand in the race to adopt increasingly advanced technology. But it’s necessary for efficiency and growth.
“Tesla and Nvidia exemplify the power of embracing change over maintaining that status quo,” says Saberi. “Procurement is facing intense pressure to evolve with organisational needs. Those organisations can opt for incremental changes, which will likely slow them down, or pursue a 10X leap to maintain competitive advantage. The latter requires bold and decisive leadership from heads of procurement.”
The road to 10X thinking
The way to drive 10X thinking, Saberi believes, is through having a clear vision of your goals. Sometimes businesses, especially ones which are going through major change or those navigating outdated legacy systems, are at risk of losing sight of their goals. But having that vision is a foundational necessity, regardless of what stage you’re at.
“Set aspirations high, and question existing norms,” says Saberi. “Procurement leaders can draw inspiration from startups by fostering a culture of innovation through small-scale initiatives that can rapidly expand. Reevaluate the skills and team structure necessary for future success.”
Another important aspect to bear in mind when considering these things is the level of risk you’re willing to undertake when setting goals and aspirations. “That’s often overlooked,” Saberi continues. “Determining the acceptable level of risk is crucial. It significantly influences partner selection and the outcome of RFPs.”
Thinking big, starting small
While ambition is vital to 10X thinking and beyond, businesses must also make sure they don’t bite off more than they can chew. Launching into adopting huge volumes of advanced technology can lead to overwhelm and can make a business stall rather than evolving. A more careful approach is required.
“Think big, start small,” says Saberi. “Prioritise high-impact, low-effort initiatives over those requiring significant effort. Many transformation projects fail to deliver the expected benefits and incur high costs during the program.” This is another reason to decide on the appropriate risk level early on, in order to guide prioritisation decisions and transformation pace.
It’s an incredibly exciting time for procurement, and that includes Mithra-Ai. In a very short time, it’s developed several foundational modules for its data-driven category management solution. This includes the Collaborative Initiative Tracker that was launched during DPW Amsterdam 2024 – just one of Mithra-Ai’s inspiring undertakings as we approach 2025.
“The tracker means that procurement teams can now involve multiple stakeholders in collaboratively tracking and enhancing the impact of key initiatives, such as cost-saving measures,” says Saberi. “Exciting times lie ahead.”
DPW Amsterdam is the perfect stage for launching a solution like this. It’s an event that inspires a culture of innovation, bringing procurement professionals together to teach, learn, and shout about their latest additions to the procurement landscape.
“DPW stands out as the premier procurement tech event of the year,” says Saberi. “Practitioners can explore and engage with procuretech suppliers, showcasing valuable use cases and personal stories across multiple stages. DPW is a catalyst for ideation, creating trust and confidence in the benefits of applying cutting-edge technologies to improve business outcomes. This year’s event felt even more international than previous years. I look forward to seeing it continue to grow.”
Saberi’s main takeaway from DPW Amsterdam this year is that a solid data foundation is essential – something he was well aware of as part of Mithra-Ai. “Without it, transformation projects and new technologies will struggle to succeed,” he concludes. “In the past two years, there has been increased focus on sustainability and risk intelligence, driven by numerous new solution providers. However, during the DPW Amsterdam 2024 conference, we observed new trends coming up and, again, more focus on data quality, which works to our advantage.”
When we’re talking about technology in procurement, the importance of partnership is a major component for success. No business is…
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When we’re talking about technology in procurement, the importance of partnership is a major component for success. No business is an island, and joining forces with experts is, increasingly, the direction many move in for the sake of growth.
At DPW Amsterdam 2024, we met many businesses who were looking around at the procurement sector in search of either what direction to move in next, or who they can help. The event is one that brings people together to learn, to teach, to discover the cutting edge of procurement, and be inspired by it. So when we sat down with the CEO of Fairmarkit, Kevin Frechette, it wasn’t surprising that he brought Nick Wright, who leads bp’s Procurement Digital Garage, into the conversation.
For Frechette, one of the best things about working in the advanced procurement technology sphere is joining forces with other businesses to help them keep improving, and vice versa. “Having the chance to work with people like Nick, who are pushing the envelope when it comes to autonomous sourcing, is amazing,” he explains. “We’re fired up to be at DPW, absorbing this atmosphere.”
While it’s something of a running joke in the procurement world that most professionals in the sector don’t deliberately choose it, Wright actually did. “I went to university and thought ‘wow, I fancy a career in procurement or vendor management’. I know a lot of people don’t have that story, but I’ve been doing something I’m passionate about from the beginning. I love making deals, whether I’m buying a car, a house, or something for BP.” The Procurement Digital Garage he leads exists to look at problems being faced across procurement, and figuring out possible solutions.
For Frechette, the intention wasn’t to start a company in the procurement space, but his team quickly saw the opportunities within it. “We had this ‘aha’ moment,” he says. “It was a tough pivot. There was a lot of debate, a lot of late nights. I’m super glad we made it because we got to be in a space where people can be forgotten about, and we’re able to give them centre stage.”
The realistic approach to 10X
DPW itself exists to put procurement under the limelight. Each event is themed in a way that gets conversations flowing around the next big thing in procurement. For Amsterdam 2024, this theme was 10X – something Frechette believes isn’t achievable right off the bat.
“It’s something to strive towards,” he says. “It’s something where you work on getting a little better every single month, every quarter. You keep getting those small wins, and you build credibility. There’s no silver bullet. You just have to start the journey and learn as you go.”
For Wright, it’s about not getting caught up in the hype, but figuring out what’s realistic. “There’s a lot of hype out there, and the beauty of something like my team at the Procurement Digital Garage is to weed out that hype, because what’s right for us might not be right for someone else. Having a team that’s out there in the market, testing and figuring out what’s real, will put you in good stead.”
“There’s a leap of faith element that can be challenging to achieve, before you can really strive for 10X,” Frechette adds. “It’s like Amara’s Law: humans typically overestimate the value of technology in the short term, but underestimate it in the long term. So the hype is needed. We have to help people on that journey and sometimes, a leap of faith is needed. For the people that risk it, it’s exciting, and they’re then well positioned for the future.”
However, again, managing expectations is important. “People might be on the sidelines expecting a 10X solution,” says Wright. “But the reality is, you’re going to get 5% here, 10% – smaller pockets of improvement.”
The benefits of advanced technology are absolutely being seen at this stage, but being realistic about the future outcomes is important. “The benefits are there – not at the scale of 10X – but if you just make a start, you’ll achieve wins,” says Frechette. “You broadcast those wins across the organisation. That generates excitement, and then you can work on the next thing because you have ground swell.”
How ‘the future’ has changed
What’s interesting is that this 10X focus, this drive towards incremental wins, has reframed the way businesses plan for the road ahead. ‘The future’ used to mean having a three or five-year plan. Now, the future is only 12 months away.
“The thought process right now is ‘what can we do that’s super optimistic in just 12 months’?” says Frechette. “Then you can put in realistic time frames and set off on a sprint to get there. You have to be able to move fast. We have launches every two weeks now, and we have to be flexible with our roadmap along the way. But we always know where we’re going – we have a north star.”
“To me, that’s the only way to do it,” Wright adds. “I don’t have a crystal ball. Nobody knows what’s going to happen in two or three years. So what’s the point of creating a plan that’s going to get you to a certain point in those two or three years? You have to work on small iterations, make adjustments, change direction as necessary.”
It’s part of what makes Fairmarkit and BP an active partnership – the ability to be flexible and open up discussions at every point. It’s all about real-time feedback and trust-building, to the extent that both parties feel like they’re on the same team.
The right people in the right places
Because ultimately, it’s the human element that makes transformation happen. Having the right people in place is one of the elements that’s key to making sure implementing advanced tech for the sake of business strategy works at all. “It’s about access to talent and making sure you’ve got a capable user group that can make the most of that technology,” says Wright. “You don’t need to be a data scientist, but you do need to have the right mindset to take advantage of the tools you’ve got.”
“I agree – you have to get the right people on the bus,” adds Frechette. “You all have to be committed to going on the journey together. Prioritise where you start and where you’re going to have the most value with the lowest risk, and have people on your side who can give suggestions and ideas.”
While the much-discussed talent shortage can create challenges there, DPW as an entity proves that not only does procurement keep becoming more appealing and exciting, but where there are gaps, there are digital tools. “I’ve noticed a lot of folks under 30 who are here at DPW Amsterdam, and they’re genuinely interested in procurement,” says Wright. “We’re at a tipping point that makes me really excited about the profession I’m in.”
‘Digitalisation is just the beginning’ according to Crowdfox, a business which aims to improve procurement by bettering the ordering process…
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‘Digitalisation is just the beginning’ according to Crowdfox, a business which aims to improve procurement by bettering the ordering process while lowering costs. That tagline speaks to Crowdfox’s dedication to advancing procurement using the exciting tools the sector now has at its disposal, and this push to innovate is being driven, in part, by Martin Rademacher, Crowdfox’s CSO. We sat down with Rademacher at DPW Amsterdam 2024, the exciting vibe of the event spreading far and wide around us.
Rademacher is responsible for everything to do with Crowdfox’s customers. From sales, to marketing, to customer onboarding and success, and everything in between – that’s Rademacher’s wheelhouse. His background is in management consulting, with a focus on procurement and supply chain. So, while he started out in sales, he soon decided that procurement was the direction to move in.
“During my time as a consultant, I found procurement very interesting because it’s so versatile,” explains Rademacher. “Of course, it’s about the transactional phase with suppliers – but also you’re so connected with R&D, production, logistics, and so on. You have so many fields of application.”
10X thinking
At DPW Amsterdam, the overall theme of the two-day event was 10X. The concept of the 10X rule is around taking a goal you’ve set for yourself and multiplying it by 10. It’s an aspirational tool, coaxing all of us to aim higher. In procurement, that means innovating.
“In the last two years we’ve seen tools like ChatGPT trigger some big adaptations in the procurement world,” says Rademacher. “I think there is the opportunity now to achieve 10X in terms of efficiency gains. Especially when it comes to making better decisions, more quickly, in order to analyse data. We’re now finding out what AI can really do, and focusing on how that can help with strategy.”
For Rademacher, he believes people have the right tools to achieve 10X – it’s now about implementing those tools properly, and having the right culture.
“In the last couple of years, implementing tools has become much easier than it was a decade ago,” Rademacher continues. “They’re so well designed that they fit into large procurement systems, and can connect with other best-of-breed tools. I’d say implementation should be the focus, but it’s not that complicated anymore. AI tools especially are really intuitive. As a result, you don’t need much in the way of change management. People just intuitively cooperate with AI.”
The question of security
The big challenge, Rademacher believes, is data protection. When it comes to barriers preventing a 10X approach, concerns around data privacy are among the biggest issues. As a result, organisations have to take the necessary precautions before plunging into making major technological changes, or risk falling at the first hurdle.
“In the EU, it’s all about data protection,” says Rademacher. These concerns led to the Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act) coming into force in the EU in August 2024. It was created in response to the rise in generative AI systems, and ensures that there’s a common regulatory framework for AI within the European Union. “Companies are very concerned about their data, but I wouldn’t call this an obstacle – more like a challenge.
“The key is making sure you have a protected environment. Start with a pilot in a limited space, for instance, and then make sure you can find a solution you can control in a safe environment that suits your operations.”
Shooting for the stars
With these measures in mind, it’s never been easier to implement new technologies and aim for that ambitious 10X goal. Certainly, advanced tools have never been more accessible, or more straightforward for businesses to educate themselves about. Even as recently as two years ago, integrating multiple elements of advanced tech – like genAI – wasn’t really possible.
“It definitely wasn’t easy to combine sources the way we can now,” says Rademacher. “Now, you can provide a much better user experience experience not only for procurement professionals, but for anyone who takes advantage of what procurement introduces to the company. Finding the supply to fulfil your demand is so much easier now. You no longer have to have difficult conversations starting with an email to your procurement professional to identify whether you’re allowed to purchase from a certain vendor, and whether they’re vetted or not. Streamlining processes like that makes that information quick and easy to identify.”
Additionally, we’re at a point with advanced technology where the tools we have access to are capable of handling more and more volumes of data at an extremely fast pace. “In consulting, for example, every project started with an analysis of the status quo of a firm,” says Rademacher. “We’d figure out who the vendors are, the categories, and the spend. Depending on the workforce, this could take one or two weeks. Now, with the tools we have access to, you can gather this information in 24 hours.”
The evolution continues
While we’re seeing many of the benefits that come with genAI and other advanced technologies already, it’s only the beginning of what we can achieve using these tools. GenAI is at a peak right now, but according to Rademacher, it might take another five years to achieve its full productivity level. “There’s also this ambitious idea going around of fully autonomous procurement, and it’ll likely take a good 10 years to reach that level of productivity,” he adds. “On the other hand, nobody is talking about robotic process automation anymore because we’re almost there with that already.”
Another challenge is data quality. The cleanliness of an organisation’s data can make or break its use of advanced technology, which is where making the right connections with service providers comes in. “It’s a good example of when to find the right partner,” says Rademacher. “Find someone from the innovative tech space who you think you can rely on. Don’t try to do it all on your own – that’ll just hold you back more and more. Be bold; find the right partner to make the most of your data and that helps you constantly improve. There’s a lot of talent out there, a lot of solutions that are really helpful for organisations of all sizes. You’ll improve step by step.”
There’s no doubt that it’s an exciting time for procurement. The atmosphere at DPW Amsterdam 2024 was electric for that exact reason. The event, in Rademacher’s words, has “a really strong influence on the sector and enables attendees to learn about how the landscape is developing in real time”.
“The AI-driven future is already a reality for us,” he states. “We’re beyond the pilot phase with our AI tool, ChatCFX, and now we really want to drive market share. 2024 going into 2025 sees us in a good position with high user visibility, and now we’re adding ChatCFX to the game, pushing it into the European market. We’re at DPW Amsterdam to meet the players who are looking for a solution exactly like ours, making it an invaluable place to be.”
Certain procurement pain points can prove debilitating for a business, freezing it in its tracks when it’s trying to grow…
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Certain procurement pain points can prove debilitating for a business, freezing it in its tracks when it’s trying to grow and improve. This is where companies like Candex are able to step in and turn a headache into something so simple, it requires no further thought.
Danielle McQuiston is the Chief Customer Officer at Candex. She’s been with the fintech startup for five years, spending two decades prior to that working in procurement at Sanofi. Candex is a technology-based master vendor that allows customers to engage with and pay one-off or small suppliers without setting them up in their system. This means that the system doesn’t get clogged up with suppliers that are rarely or never going to be used again.
“We’re primarily used for what companies consider tail spend, and we typically deliver it as a punchout catalogue for a really simple user experience,” McQuiston explains. That ability to support lots of customers was what drew her to the role. “Coming to Candex, I was very excited about what they were doing and wanted to help as many companies as possible.”
Addressing tail spend
That ability to address tail spend in a unique way is the main thing that differentiates Candex. It’s an enormous problem for procurement professionals. The way Candex delivers it is through a digital plug-and-play solution, removing the need to be dependent on human intervention. “It’s a horizontal solution for any good or service, and it’s available in over 45 countries now,” says McQuiston. “It becomes part of the customer’s ecosystems and leverages the P2P process. It’s super compliant, and allows a lot of control.”
With this tool in place, Candex’s customers are able to gain much better control over their smaller purchases, defining what is allowed to be purchased. For many, this tool allows them to put tighter restrictions on purchases than their e-procurement systems are able to do. Additionally, Candex runs suppliers through screenings every day, which generally doesn’t happen for small, rarely-used suppliers.
“We run really detailed compliance and sanction screening against all those vendors, taking away a really daunting task from customers,” McQuiston states. “Customers probably check those suppliers once when they’re being set up, but then they never look at them again. Every day, we’re checking them, and keeping an eye on them when our customers can’t.”
Candex’s reporting is extremely detailed, and provides customers with the kind of real-time visibility they wouldn’t normally get – even in their own systems. Reports are generated weekly or monthly, including the diversity status of suppliers. This is data that a lot of clients then feed directly into their Power BI tools and data lakes, meaning they’re able to integrate it seamlessly into their other data.
Cleaning up the data
The whole purpose and aim of Candex’s tool is to make life easier for its customers, streamline its processes, and improve efficiencies. To that end, standardisation is key when it comes to business improvements, and that includes preparing data prior to implementing new technologies and processes. When it comes to ensuring a business’s data is healthy – before launching into major tech changes – accepting the necessity of making foundational change is key.
“Data cleansing processes are ugly, cumbersome, and long – and everyone has to do them,” McQuiston comments. “But you have to accept that you’re going to have to do something, if you want to get a handle on your spend. First and foremost, you need to standardise the way you name things, the way you put data in the system, and you need a really strict discipline around that. All of those things will make backend processes a lot easier.”
It’s just one of many considerations CPOs need to bear in mind when seeking out technology solutions and implementation. Modern procurement departments have a seat at the wider business table now, and what they do impacts the entire business. So when it comes to utilising solutions for the sake of the business at large, there are many factors to think about.
“As with any data or technology, it’s all about garbage in and garbage out,” says McQuiston. “Any advanced technology should be used with caution and viewed with a critical eye. You have to start with knowing what you want out of it.
“A lot of times, people put technology in place because it looks interesting, but you need to start with the problem and work backwards. If the issue is user experience, you need to make sure that whatever you’re implementing focuses on a positive UX. If the problem is unclean data, you need to make sure you’re putting in place all the foundational elements you need to make that better. Always start from the perspective of implementing a technology based on a problem, rather than the other way around.”
Improving UX in 2025
It’s a seriously dynamic time to be involved in procurement right now, as evidenced by the intense buzz around us at DPW Amsterdam as we sit with McQuiston. As we look ahead, she envisions that procurement will have an increasingly powerful impact on user experience. This is particularly important at a time when tasks are becoming increasingly automated, with less and less direct human interaction.
“We’re also seeing a pretty big leap forward in terms of best practice sharing amongst our clients,” says McQuiston, something that events like DPW also encourage. “For Candex, a big theme of 2024 has been getting our clients together to share best practices and information, helping them to develop further expertise in the field. 2025 will have more of the same, but there’s now a higher level of maturity out there in the way customers are considering tail spend. As people continue to onboard solutions, it will be interesting to see how that impacts the UX in relation to Candex. We’re always looking for ways to make our tool more user-friendly and add better functionality.”
All of this is why Candex’s customers love the company. On a base level, Candex takes a complex pain point and makes it simple. In a broader sense, the reason Candex is becoming so popular is the way it works with people. “The most common feedback we get from customers and suppliers is that we’re great to work with because we’re so flexible,” says McQuiston. “We hired a team of procurement experts, so our team is made up of people who really understand the pain of our clients, and can anticipate their fears, their needs, and cater to those.”
The buzz of DPW Amsterdam draws in the most innovative minds across the industry. They’re there to have riveting conversations…
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The buzz of DPW Amsterdam draws in the most innovative minds across the industry. They’re there to have riveting conversations with their peers, to inspire, to teach and learn in kind. And they’re there to keep an eye on an industry that doesn’t stop changing for the better.
This is a big part of the appeal for Fraser Woodhouse. Woodhouse leads the digital procurement team within Deloitte in the UK. His team historically focused on large-scale transformations, providing a backbone for suite implementation. Increasingly, however, it’s turning its attention to helping clients navigate a plethora of technology solutions. The goal is to help them build and scale, and take advantage of some of the more niche functionalities available. These are things that can be highly daunting for many customers, which is why Deloitte is there for support.
“We’re helping clients ask the big questions,” Woodhouse explains as he sits down with us at DPW Amsterdam 2024. “How do you connect the technology in a way that allows data to flow from one system to another? How do you deal with processes that are connected to solutions which all have their own release cycles? How do you approach change management? That underpins so much of where the value is going to be achieved, and a lot of the providers will be focusing on it. They just might not have the same capability that Deloitte can provide.”
For Woodhouse, getting involved with procurement was a total accident. He even left the sector at one point, but his strong foundational knowledge – and the exciting landscape procurement is enjoying right now – lured him back in. “It changes faster than I can get bored with it, that’s for sure,” he explains. “Procurement is fascinating.”
Aspiring to greatness
Especially now, with constant conversations around genAI, 10X, and beyond. Procurement is only becoming more interesting, more enticing, drawing young professionals in to fill gaps in the talent pool. 10X was actually the theme of DPW Amsterdam this year, a notion that’s on everyone’s lips. And for Woodhouse, it’s absolutely something to aspire to.
“Aiming for 10X is sensible. You just have to consider your timescale. I’d caution against running before you can walk, but a culture of experimentation is important. Running small-scale pilots can help you hone in on where you really want to see value, or where value is likely to be generated. Starting with requirements is a fundamental thing at the moment, but you shouldn’t underestimate how long that will take. And it’s a continuous consideration, because requirements change. Just keep trying to refine your solution in order to take advantage of everything that’s out there right now.”
Fotograaf: MichielTon.com
Having the wrong mindset is one of the major barriers to adopting 10X thinking. It all starts with the company’s culture, and whether that’s one of growth or not. “I imagine most of the people here at DPW Amsterdam have already made that mental shift,” says Woodhouse. “Last year, people were still trying to understand how they, as big companies, could utilise startups. That’s changed now, and it’s amazing to see companies that were startups three years ago working with all these big enterprise customers.
“They have scaled and grown in partnership with those customers. Mindset is so important, and having the wrong one will only create barriers and missed opportunities.”
Always improving, never slowing down
When it comes to the advantages that technology has brought to procurement in the last few years, the list is endless. Procurement has gone from an overlooked segment of any given organisation, to having a seat at the table and helping make major business decisions. 10X thinking – whether it goes by that name or not – has been spreading across the segment and fuelling businesses to aim higher.
“The layers of automation have really improved,” says Woodhouse. “A year or so back, there were a handful of use cases that you could truly automate, but now you can do it at a much larger scale. Another big change is around security concerns. There are more tried and tested case studies to draw upon now, and solutions are more readily available. You don’t necessarily have to be a pioneer, because someone else has already taken that first step.”
The question of data
Something else that holds businesses back, despite the innovation at their disposal, is an element that can be harder to change: poor quality data. When trying to implement advanced technology solutions, bad data can make or break their success.
“It’s always useful to focus on that and have a dedicated work stream,” Woodhouse advises. “You need someone who really understands data. I think there’s a tendency to try to boil the ocean before you even get going in your transformation, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Cleaning up your data before you start, and having a fresh foundation will help you make decisions on what to implement on top of that good data.
“Doing all of that is obviously hugely beneficial, but it’s going to slow you down, in many cases. There are ways around that, like embedding the cleanup of data within the new processes. Data is important – we shouldn’t underestimate that – but there are different approaches to solving the issue of poor quality data, like buying it or using genAI to restructure your data into something more powerful. Either way, you need a strategy.”
Novel thinking 101
Some businesses fall into the trap of thinking that they can’t achieve specific things because their data isn’t in the right position, but novel thinking around data can allow them to still drive forward. “You’ve just got to focus on it. You can’t assume the data’s going to fix itself,” Woodhouse adds.
Novel thinking is certainly something that can be seen at DPW events, and DPW Amsterdam 2024 was no exception. People congregated there to learn, to share stories, to inspire. For Woodhouse, the magic of the digital procurement sector right now is that everybody recognises that their journey has no end. While that may be daunting, it’s a positive thing and keeps procurement professionals striving for more.
“It’s a continuous improvement journey, and I think the best-performing organisations will recognise that, and invest in the business capability to continue that journey,” Woodhouse concludes. “That’s how you get proper value. I love hearing about how people frame problems differently, and how they approach the solutions.”
Making procurement slicker, more streamlined, is the name of the game right now – and this is precisely why Globality…
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Making procurement slicker, more streamlined, is the name of the game right now – and this is precisely why Globality exists. It’s an organisation which leverages advanced, native-built AI to make sourcing more autonomous for Fortune 500 and Global 2000 companies, meaning it has a finger on a pulse of the technology tools procurement now has access to as the industry shifts and evolves.
Keith Hausmann is the Chief Customer Officer at Globality. He has been working in procurement since the early 90s, both in industry as a service provider, and now, at a technology company. He came to Globality from Accenture, where he ran the operations business. During his first real job after college, Hausmann was also part of a training program at a major Fortune 500 company, working closely with a COO. At some point they got into a conversation about salespeople seemingly having an advantage over procurement people due to their access to information, knowledge, and training. The COO suggested that they launch a company to help support procurement. For Hausmann, it was a serendipitous entry to the industry.
“I came to Globality because I saw the business was struggling with how to scale, automate, and deliver a differentiated user experience. Ultimately, I found it really compelling, and joined about five years ago.”
Achieving 10X thinking
Hausmann admits that the concept of what procurement is has only been defined relatively recently, and he’s been in the industry long enough to have seen the shift happen and suddenly accelerate over the last few years. Now, procurement professionals are in a position where they’re able to think big, and they have the tools to support that way of thinking. One of the most-discussed topics right now is 10X, whereby businesses are setting targets for themselves that are 10 times greater than what they can realistically achieve.
“There continues to be, and always has been, so many mind-numbing manual activities that go on in procurement spaces,” says Hausmann. “We’ve built small armies of teams to handle those things. I think 10X has prompted us to take a step back and ask if there’s now technology that can uplift the role of people in the function and take on some of those automatable tasks. Whether that’s writing RFPs, discovering suppliers, or analysing proposals – these are all things that can be automated in today’s technological world. With 10X thinking, you can imagine the many, many, many things that can be automated and just go after them.
“There are barriers, of course. The biggest one is not being able to convey a compelling vision of what we want people to do in the new world. It’s not necessarily about making them go away – it’s about making their daily jobs, lives, and work more valuable. There are so many things around category thinking and strategy that don’t get done because people are spending so much time on tasks that could be automated. So I think the barrier is creating that vision and that plan to shift the operating models, roles, and the skill sets to something new and different.”
People power
Hausmann believes that if roles are reshaped and honed in response to automation, it’s less likely that there will be resistance to change because employees will know exactly what they’re doing, rather than being concerned about their future. “They have to know what they’re doing before they jump on board. It just requires a mindset change and good change management.”
Hausmann believes it’s down to the CPO to drive that change management by conveying the activities, impacts, roles, and operating model they envision. If they can paint a picture of how humans can impact things in a new way, alongside the new technology rather than against it, suddenly it’s an exciting prospect and people are keen to make a bigger impact.
CFOs and CPOs joining forces
While CPOs now have a long-deserved seat at the table to help push change business-wide, CFOs’ roles are also expanding and having an increased impact on procurement. “I think they’ve always influenced what’s going on in procurement,” says Hausmann. “CFOs are the champions of many things, but certainly improving the bottom line of the company. They’re also champions of using technology to make the organisation more resilient, more scalable, and more efficient. There was a time when people thought that the CTO or CIO would be doing that, but more often than not, the CFO is the ultimate owner of improving business impacts. More and more, we’re seeing our customers leaning on the CFO to help them make decisions about investments that have a big impact through technology and AI.
“These days, the relationship between the CFO and CPO is wildly different to what it once was, and CFOs are showing more interest in procurement as a function than ever, making a difference to the bottom line. It makes sense because, in theory, procurement controls one of the biggest cost line items in a company, besides raw headcount.”
Matching the pace of technology
The fact that we still need to focus on change management and relationships confirms that the way procurement is changing isn’t just about the technology. Far from it. However, technology is moving at an incredible pace and needs to be taken seriously. There are things that are possible now which couldn’t be done even one or two years ago.
“A few years ago, technology couldn’t write an RFX document for you,” Hausmann says. “Technology could not instantaneously bring to light the most relevant suppliers from within a customer’s supply base, or in the broader market. It couldn’t write a contract, or an SOW, or a work order. It can now. Those are things that are near and dear to my heart that were impossible 3-5 years ago.”
With these tools in mind, procurement professionals are able to think about the future in short-term stints. Five-year plans are no longer good enough when it comes to the way procurement is shifting – a year is now the maximum for putting plans in place.
“I’ve always thought that procurement, from the perspective of technological advancement and investment perspective, should sit under a broader business umbrella,” says Hausmann. “I’d guess that probably 50% of companies in the world right now have some kind of program in place to save money or improve agility by investing in technology. And speed to market is more important than ever, so sourcing can’t be a bottleneck.”
Looking ahead, Hausmann expects to see many of the unique, differentiated technology providers becoming interoperable together, because big enterprises want services that operate and scale well in combination with others.
“We’re seeing that a lot, and working with our customers on how we improve interoperability and integration,” he says. “Tools will become more seamless, more easy-to-use, more scalable. Another big thing is, and will continue to be, analytics. It’s a hot topic in procurement, and I think there are profound opportunities to be deployed. For Globality, we’ll continue to endlessly innovate on user experience, ease of use, and beyond.”
We are thrilled to announce that CPOstrategy is the official media partner for DPW Amsterdam!
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CPOstrategy is renowned for its in-depth coverage and analysis of procurement trends, making it the perfect partner to amplify the impact of DPW Amsterdam.
As media partner, CPOstrategy will deliver exclusive content, live updates, and in-depth coverage throughout the event.
Here are the updates that you can look forward to:
Insights from Speaker Sessions
Gain insights from industry leaders like Paul Polman, Business Leader & Former CEO of Unilever, Jennifer Moceri, CPO, Google, and Marcelo Stefani, CPO, PepsiCo, as they take the stage to share their expertise and shape the future of procurement.
CPOstrategy will conduct exclusive interviews with top procurement experts, providing you with valuable strategies and perspectives. Stay tuned for these insightful conversations that will be shared throughout the event.
Special Coverage
Look out for special live segments from DPW Amsterdam 2024, as well as full-page summaries in the CPOstrategy monthly magazine that offer a closer look at the vision behind DPW Amsterdam and its impact on the procurement industry. Join the excitement and follow along with #DPWAmsterdam for live updates and exclusive content. Let’s celebrate procurement excellence together!
Digital Procurement World (DPW) today announced the impressive speaker lineup for its groundbreaking DPW NYC Summit.
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Bringing together some of the most progressive minds in procurement. This exclusive invite-only event will be held in the heart of New York City at the iconic NeueHouse Madison Square Penthouse on June 12, 2024.
Speakers include:
Scott Belsky, chief strategy officer and EVP of design and emerging products, Adobe
David Rogers, author of “The Digital Transformation Roadmap,” Columbia Business School
Tony Filippone, chief research officer, HFS Research
Elouise Epstein, digital procurement futurist and author of “How to Hack Your Supply Chain: Breaking Today, Building Tomorrow”
Pierre Mitchell, chief research officer and managing director, Spend Matters
Christine Howlett-Perez, associate vice president and head of procurement, Definitive Healthcare
The DPW NYC Summit is anchored around the theme, “AIX: Breakthrough Thinking for Exponential Impact,” inspiring procurement leaders to tap into the full potential of artificial intelligence, fostering a culture of innovation and generating transformative results.
In addition to thought-provoking keynotes, attendees will gain insights from groundbreaking new research, learn from use cases around the transformative use of AI, participate in an immersive virtual reality experience, and develop a collaborative journey map for the future of procurement.
Qualified procurement and supply chain practitioners can request an invitation to attend at nyc.dpw.ai.
The DPW NYC Summit is DPW’s first event in the United States. This move comes in response to the overwhelming demand from participants and sponsors of DPW’s annual conference in Amsterdam, which attracts thousands of procurement practitioners, startups, solution providers, investors and media every year. DPW Amsterdam’s fourth annual conference will take place on Oct. 8-10, 2024. For details, visit conference.dpw.ai.
Matthias Gutzmann, the founder of DPW, said, “The DPW NYC Summit will redefine the expectations for procurement gatherings, challenging the status quo and facilitating deep, impactful conversations among the industry’s leading voices. This summit is much more than an event; it’s a stepping stone to genuine transformation.”
About DPW
Digital Procurement World is the world’s largest and most influential tech ecosystem for the procurement and supply chain industry. DPW brings together a diverse network of startup founders, investors, executives from technology and advisory firms, business leaders and academics to collaboratively tackle industry-wide challenges. Learn more about DPW at dpw.ai.
Anthony Payne, Chief Marketing Officer of HICX, tells us how working collaboratively with suppliers on sustainable procurement practices could act as an organisation’s competitive advantage.
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Sustainability isn’t just a ‘nice to have’ anymore – businesses don’t have much of a choice in the world of 2024.
With ESG regulations now locked in place, organisations must comply or risk significant penalties. In order to achieve sustainability objectives more effectively and efficiently, collaborating with suppliers represents a real opportunity to get there faster.
When businesses work with suppliers to reach sustainability goals, they need access to the most accurate supplier data possible. However, obtaining this data isn’t necessarily straightforward. Ultimately, suppliers own it and need to provide it.
This means it is in a business’s interest to form and maintain a great working relationship with suppliers.
Anthony Payne, Chief Marketing Officer of HICX, the supplier experience platform, discusses the benefits of being supplier-centric and how giving brands a better experience adds value to organisations.
What is the link between businesses collaborating with suppliers, and suppliers being able to give them helpful sustainability information?
Anthony Payne: “There is a direct link. A good supplier experience makes it easier to communicate with suppliers because it allows for collaboration, whereas the opposite can harm communication efforts. For example, when businesses need ESG information, many will survey a broad group of suppliers even though the questions don’t apply to everyone. This is easier for the business. But it means every supplier who receives the survey must investigate whether it applies to them. The experience is more likely to frustrate suppliers than to help them offer the best information.
“Rather, we can help suppliers to help us by communicating better. The way forward is to segment suppliers into groups and send them only relevant requests. This creates a more positive experience in which suppliers are better able to provide helpful information.”
What about their motivation to help sustainability efforts – does this also rely on supplier experience?
Anthony Payne: “Yes, because if the culture of the business-supplier relationship is one in which each party looks out for themselves, then suppliers won’t be terribly motivated to offer the most helpful ESG information. It’s just human nature. Whereas if a business creates an environment in which suppliers can collaborate with them, then they’re more likely to become a customer-of-choice. This is a status worth having. A recent HICX survey showed that while 49% of suppliers would go the extra mile for their biggest customer, as many as 73% would make the effort if this was a customer-of-choice.
“Ultimately, if businesses give their suppliers a good experience, then more suppliers should be willing to provide helpful ESG information – even if it means spending a bit more effort.”
What are some of your most effective strategies and best practices to building a future-proof ESG framework?
Anthony Payne: “Businesses can futureproof their ESG frameworks by viewing suppliers as value-adding partners. This principle suggests three ways to engage suppliers…
“First, have a corporate mindset in which every employee views every supplier as a valued partner. If COVID-19 taught us anything it’s how much we rely on suppliers. When the pandemic hit, non-strategic suppliers such as providers of IT equipment and protective personal equipment suddenly became as central to operations as those who supplied the main ingredients. If we take the view that ‘all suppliers matter’, then it becomes easier to treat them all as partners in the same eco-system and we can work together towards common goals.
“Then, through this lens, we can market to suppliers. In customer marketing, a business would require a certain action from customers – such as getting them to buy a product, read a newsletter or attend an event – and so would motivate this behaviour. Similarly, in procurement, we can appeal to suppliers in a way that encourages them to participate in ESG activities, for instance, by providing helpful carbon emission information.
“One way to encourage the desired behaviour with suppliers is to segment them into the appropriate categories and send them only necessary messages. This is what a marketer would do with customers. By viewing suppliers as partners and introducing supplier marketing and segmentation, you can improve suppliers’ experience and get the most from them.”
What are the biggest barriers that organisations face to delivering more sustainable practices within their organisations?
Anthony Payne: “Once supplier data has been captured, however, the challenge continues because it must be maintained as a golden source of truth. Not having accurate supplier data is a major barrier to delivering sustainable practices because it means that businesses cannot see who all their suppliers are and what they’re doing.
“Thankfully, with robust onboarding and data management in place, businesses can keep their supplier data up-to-date and accurate so that it can inform good sustainability decisions.”
What is the best way for procurement teams to assess and prioritise the suppliers they work with? How do you juggle environmental impact vs value to company?
Anthony Payne: “The best way to assess and prioritise suppliers is to have visibility. Businesses need to know who all their suppliers are and what they’re doing, at any given time. Only once leaders are informed, can they make the best environmental decisions.
“It’s imperative to manage environmental impact with suppliers, regardless of how much value they bring a company. Apart from the moral obligation to protect the environment, businesses also have their reputations to consider. An environmental infringement that gets exposed – no matter how deep in the supply chain it might occur – is very likely to cause reputational damage, which can have a knock-on effect on sales and share price.
“In addition to brand reputation, businesses can also face expensive fines, if their suppliers are found to fall short of environmental regulations.”
What are the challenges and opportunities when it comes to supplier diversity?
Anthony Payne: “The challenge is to source the right suppliers in the first instance and then be able to report on their activity. We know that finding diverse suppliers in the UK can be difficult. While the US market is more mature, supplier diversity is growing here. Considering this, many suppliers that could qualify as “diverse” are not yet certified. Additionally, when diverse suppliers are indeed certified, there is no guarantee that their skillsets will match your needs.
“Thankfully there are ways in which businesses can proactively grow their networks of diverse suppliers. For starters, leaders can equip people within the organisation who work with suppliers, to find diverse suppliers by educating them and putting policies in place. Further, there are practical steps one can follow – such as defining the criteria for what qualifies a supplier as diverse in various territories and then finding the right businesses by searching online directories, desktop research and asking for recommendations.
“Once suppliers that are considered to be diverse are indeed found, they bring much value. Apart from being able to make a positive sustainability impact, the expectations of regulators, shareholders and consumers can be met. The by-product of this is a positive reputation which has economic benefits.
“The opposite logic also applies, and failing to capture supplier diversity value becomes a missed opportunity. For instance, when third-party expectations to support supplier diversity are missed, this can damage brand reputation which hurts sales figures and share price. Also, the unique offerings that diverse suppliers can offer will be missed, and with it the chance to make an impact. Therefore, it’s sensible to make the most of the diverse suppliers that you worked so hard to find.”
Do you have any tips for readers who want to make the most of the diverse suppliers they have sourced?
Anthony Payne: “Yes, you can start by knowing that it’s possible to make the most of the diverse suppliers you find. You can do this by following a stepped approach.
“Start by onboarding new suppliers who are considered ‘diverse’ with processes that reliably capture their information. This way, your diversity programmes can be well-informed. It’s hugely valuable to be able to tell, at the touch of a button, where a particular supplier might be based. Also, what qualifies them as ‘diverse’? And while they might hold diversity status today, how can we be sure it still applies tomorrow?
“With all the right information collected at the start of each relationship, then it’s a good idea to instill processes that drive everyone who works with suppliers to spend more with those who are considered as diverse. As more diverse suppliers join the organisation, then you need to keep their data accurate. Do this by digitally transforming the procurement landscape to make master data a priority. With robust processes, it’s possible to maximise your relationships with all suppliers.”
How optimistic are you about the future of ESG within procurement?
Anthony Payne: “I am very optimistic about the future of ESG within procurement, because, we’re seeing the supplier experience movement grow in the UK and the US. For instance, we’re seeing new job roles come out in this area as the principle is popularised. And we know that having good Supplier Experience Management programmes in place sets up business to procure in the most ESG-friendly way possible.
“And so, with Supplier Experience Management becoming increasingly popular, we believe that the future for sustainability is bright.”
We catch up with new CEO at DPW, Herman Knevel, to discuss his new role, fresh innovations for 2024’s event in Amsterdam and the future of procurement.
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One of the world’s biggest and most influential tech events in the procurement and supply chain space has announced a new CEO.
DPW has revealed that Herman Knevel has stepped up to take on a more strategic role while Founder Matthias Gutzmann focuses on continuing to grow the events.
“It’s a great brand and a fantastic company. The energy in the room in Amsterdam is contagious and the people and teams that come to DPW are at the core of what we do,” explains Knevel. “We’re building a strong strategy and team now and continue to deliver a great value and experiences to our customers and community at scale.”
DPW Boom
Being the initiator of DPW LABS, the corporate innovation programme, Knevel is already involved with DPW. He has long-standing career in global outsourcing, corporate innovation, and corporate start-up collaborations. “Throughout my career I have always been passionate about making connections meaningful and been driven by people, innovation, and collaboration opportunities,” he reveals. “That’s what LABS still is today as we thrive by the procure tech ecosystem, and that’s what I continue to do at scale as CEO of DPW. I am grateful and excited to make DPW the global number one super connector of our ecosystem and to create more value for our stakeholders year-round, an ambition that is shared and supported by the founder and team behind DPW.”
Since the launch of DPW in 2019, the conference has grown from strength to strength. In its October 2023 edition, DPW welcomed 1,250 procurement professionals with more than 2,500 virtual attendees watching along at home. Held at the former stock exchange building, the Beurs van Berlage, last year’s theme was “Make Tech Work” which focused on turning digital aspirations into a reality. The event encompassed a deep dive into discussions surrounding AI and machine learning in procurement, digital transformation strategies, sustainable procurement, supplier collaboration, risk management as well as innovation and disruption.
Herman Knevel
Innovation drive
DPW’s topic focus for 2024 has already been determined as 10x. Knevel explains the process of deciding a conference’s theme is relatively straightforward. “If you look at make tech work, that was a really good theme last year and that resonated well with many who came to DPW, not only in Amsterdam but also online on our livestream,” he explains. “But also, what we learned from the market, and especially from the side of the startups and scale-ups, is that the technology is there and ready to solve the problem. Making tech work was an obvious thing last year, as the adoption rate is still fairly low and a pain point in the industry. The 10x mindset is something we think we should need in the industry to accelerate the base of innovation and to increase the speed of value for many.”
One of DPW’s newest innovations for 2024 is tech safaris which are guided group tours throughout the expo halls. With 25,000 ft² of exhibition space and over 120 technologies to explore, it can sometimes be hard to navigate. Based on areas of interest such as ESG or intake and orchestration management, tech buyers and investors are taken directly to exhibitors to watch live product demos, ask questions, and get insights into key trends in specific tech domains. “It all comes from feedback and listening to customers,” he explains. “Right before I joined as CEO, Matthias and I went to San Francisco and the Valley and also visited New York. Being able to listen to different customers and founders was key and meant we could listen, learn and then implement that innovation.”
Herman Knevel with founder Matthias Gutzmann
Coming to America
And continuous improvement is very much part of DPW’s mantra. The organisation is gearing up for its inaugural United States event which will be held in New York on 12th June, 2024. Although it will be a scaled-down one-day event, the aim is to spread awareness of DPW’s presence in a new market together with launching partners and start the process of expanding out of solely operating in Amsterdam. “We want to engage with the community in the ecosystem on the East Coast and the Americas,” explains Knevel. “It’s also not the same format as Amsterdam as we bring people and the ecosystem together for a day with some great solutions and customers. It’s about understanding the ecosystem there a bit better and we plan to grow over the years to come.”
DPW is passionate about bringing procurement to the top of the c-suite and making the function cool and relevant. This year, the organisation has plans to introduce a Padel tournament as a different way of connecting. “Networking through sports is a great way of getting together,” says Knevel. “It’s an informal way to connect and also lowers the bar. We know this works from experience and we wanted to bring this to DPW so it’s very exciting.”
DPW’s pull
But the main draw of DPW Amsterdam has always been the high-level speakers it attracts. Last year saw the likes of visionaries such as Dr. Elouise Epstein, Partner at Kearney, Yossi Sheffi, Director of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and author David Rogers deliver keynote sessions. Knevel recognises the importance of bringing in great speakers and also sees the value in outside perspectives too. “We want to bring in more CEOs for a different perspective with the right leadership experience,” he explains. “We had Guenther Steiner (former Haas Formula One team principal) who provided an interesting perspective from a different industry. This year, we’re bringing in the former CEO at Unilever Paul Polman. We’re always on the lookout for fresh speakers and they don’t just have to CPOs for them to be considered.”
With an eye on the future, Knevel is looking forward to procurement’s next few years and how DPW fits within that. “Some say we are at the beginning of a replacement cycle in digital procurement,” explains Knevel. “There’s so much happening in the coming years. Of course, it will not only be driven by technology and AI, but foremost by the people, founders and leaders. It’s people that bring innovation and make the connection. If you look through the lens of opportunity from a digital and sustainable procurement angle, there’s so much to be excited about over the coming years.”
Renowned procurement tech conference DPW has announced its first United States event will take place in New York City in June 2024.
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DPW has revealed it will host its first United States event in New York City following the event’s success in Amsterdam.
Having made its name in the Netherlands, DPW will now host its inaugural North American event at the NeueHouse Penthouse in New York on 12th June, 2024.
DPW in New York
The event will aim to spread awareness of DPW’s presence in a new market together with launching partners as it begins to expand out of operating solely in Amsterdam.
Back in November, founders Matthias Gutzmann and Herman Knevel travelled to Silicon Valley, California, to discuss an expansion into the United States.
Founder Matthias Gutzmann
Gutzmann said since 2018 he has harboured ambitions of bringing a procurement conference to New York. “Sitting in my Brooklyn apartment, I envisioned something revolutionary, something capable of harnessing the immense potential of digital procurement in unprecedented ways,” he confirmed. “Fast forward to today, DPW has evolved into the leading tech ecosystem for procurement and supply chain, with our annual event in Amsterdam drawing thousands of attendees and driving impactful change on a global scale.
“For years, I’ve been urged to bring DPW to the United States, and I am proud to say that day has finally arrived. Launching our event in the city where it all began is not only a milestone for DPW but a deeply personal achievement. The DPW NYC Summit is much more than just an event – it’s a testament to perseverance, innovation, and the power of a vision realised. Let’s shape the future together!”
Growing at speed
Knevel believes adding New York to its already popular Amsterdam event will bring another dimension to the organisation’s offering. “We want to engage with the community in the ecosystem on the East Coast and the Americas,” explains Knevel. “It’s also not the same format as Amsterdam as we bring people and the ecosystem together for a day with some great solutions and customers. It’s about understanding the ecosystem there a bit better and we plan to grow over the years to come.”
Since the launch of DPW in 2019, the conference has grown from strength to strength. In its October 2023 edition, DPW welcomed 1,250 procurement professionals with more than 2,500 virtual attendees watching along at home.
Five of the biggest, most valuable industry events on the procurement and sourcing professional’s calendar for 2024.
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2024 promises to be a significant year for the procurement sector, as the discipline takes centre stage in the enterprise decision-making process. However, increasing importance for procurement departments means new challenges, as organisations increasingly look to procurement to not only cut costs but drive sustainability, digital transformation, and supply chain resilience.
For those looking to stay abreast of the fast-moving procurement landscape, events provide opportunities for networking, learning, and experiencing the latest procurement solutions and products first hand. That’s why we have gathered our top five unmissable procurement industry events for 2024.
5. ProcureCon Indirect East
When: September 9-11
Where: Orlando, Florida
Projected Attendance: 500+
For more than 20 years, ProcureCon has been hosting industry events with a peer-to-peer structure and focus. Billed as a conference “by practitioners, for practitioners”, ProcureCon Indirect East is a networking and education focused event “whether you’re a CPO or a rising star, a large or small spend company”. In addition to featuring the insights of procurement innovators and professionals “in the trenches” as well as the C-Suite, ProcureCon Indirect East also emphasises interactive events, with more than 30 hours of discussion groups, workshops, panels, roundtables, and social networking opportunities throughout the event.
Past speakers include Google’s Senior Procurement Director, Aleck Matambo, and Rod Jahromi, head of COrporate Procurement at ExxonMobil.
4. Procurement Summit 2024
When: June 12-13
Where: Hamburg, Germany
Projected Attendance: 1,600+
Returning for the seventh year, Procurement Summit 2024 promises to continue the event’s legacy of being the premier gathering of procurement professionals in Germany. The two-day event will see a gathering of the leading minds in the German procurement sector, as well as experts and professionals from throughout Europe and beyond. Speakers from Roche, Merz Pharma, Zalando, Mars, and many more of Germany’s leading brands will lead keynotes, panel discussions, and workshops with applicable expertise.
In addition to attracting seasoned veterans of the industry, Procurement Summit also has a reputation for attracting younger experts. These newer members of the industry, according to Susanne Vorberg, Senior Manager of Digital Transformation at Airbus, “are driving forward innovations in their companies”. This, she says, makes for “a wonderful and inspiring mix.”
3. Americas Procurement Congress 2024
When: March 25-27
Where: Miami, Florida
Projected Attendance: 400+
Setting its sights firmly on 2030, this year’s agenda at the America’s Procurement Congress event focuses on answering the question “how do we get the next six years right?” The event has assembled a host of industry experts, scientists, and media luminaries. Over the three-day conference, they will tackle issues ranging from the climate crisis to the rise of AI. The goal of the conference is focused onachieving a future of sustainable growth.
The event is hosted by Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau, CEO and publisher of MIT Technology Review, and features expert speakers from across the procurement sector, including Karla Jackson, Senior Procurement Executive, Chief Acquisition Officer & Assistant Administrator for the Office of Procurement at NASA; Vitold Horodecki, CPO and VP Americas at CapGemini; and Patricia Miller, Interim CPO at Accenture.
2. ProcureCon Asia
When: July 9-11
Where: Sentosa, Singapore
Projected Attendance: 200+
Bringing together the leading regional experts in procurement and supply chain management throughout APAC, ProcureCon Asia offers attendees access to expert speakers, interactive case studies, streams, new industry research, and networking time.
While most events focus either on direct or indirect procurement, ProcureCon Asia caters to both direct and indirect/services procurement professionals. The event organisers pride themselves on providing unmatched access to diverse perspectives from executive speakers representing a broad range of Fortune 1000 companies from the aerospace, hi-tech, industrial manufacturing, CPG, automotive, and pharmaceutical sectors. Previous speakers have included high level procurement executives from JLL, Standard Chartered Bank, Air Liquide, Accenture, FGV Holdings, and DHL Group.
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1. World Procurement Congress
When: May 14-16
Where: London, UK
Projected Attendance: 800+
The World Procurement Congress has played host to more than 1,100 Chief Procurement Officers over the course of its history. Heading into its 18th year, the event is firmly established as one of the industry’s must-attend functions. The three-day conference blends content, networking, and social interaction opportunities centred around the theme of Horizon 2030. Taking a global view of the decade to come, World Procurement Congress 2024 aims to address the current pain points facing procurement professionals, and how to translate these challenges into opportunities for sustainable growth throughout the remainder of the decade.
Speakers at this year’s event are drawn from the highest levels of procurement teams across a diverse swathe of industries, including Dan Bartel, CPO at Schneider Electric; Anna Spinelli, CPO & Head of Mobility at the DHL Group; Anu Saxena, President & Global Head of Hilton Supply Management; and Adam Weisswasser, CPPO at Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Along with hundreds of other experts and thought leaders, they will provide guidance and insight into the event’s five key themes for discussion: ESG, Partnerships, Resilience, Digitalisation, and Macroeconomics.
In this innovative partnership, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts as the two companies focus on taming tail-spend with an on-demand platform with embedded change management.
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Businesses have been leaving money on the table for years. For most organisations, (indirect) tail spend flies under the radar because of the large number of lower-value transactions, a fragmented supply base, and a poor user experience. This results in process inefficiencies and lost savings opportunities that can be eight to 13 percent higher than with more competitive sourcing.
Simfoni and Kearney set out to solve this problem, joining forces on solutioning tail spend management. The partnership pairs Kearney’s rich heritage and expertise in procurement transformation and change management with Simfoni’s composable analytics and spend automation technology. The result is a comprehensive global delivery model that significantly improves tail spend management, which until now has been a major problem for large and smaller organisations alike.
“We started our journey over three years ago,” says Stefan Dent, co-founder of Simfoni. “It takes some time to form a bond. You get to know one another working together on client engagements and then you realise that the relationship is really working, so you double down on the commitment.”
Simfoni helps businesses “see spend differently” leveraging data analytics to gain a deep understanding of user needs across everyday ‘tail spend’. Founded in 2015, Simfoni is a leading provider of tail spend, spend analytics, and e-sourcing solutions for large and midsize businesses around the globe. Simfoni’s platform uses machine learning and AI to accelerate and automate tail spend management, saving time and money. Its solution quickly ingests and organises complex data to uncover opportunities to optimise tail to higher value spend. Simfoni emphasises rapid value delivery through on-demand spend automation solutions that are operational in weeks rather than months.
Remko de Bruijn, senior partner at Kearney
The Kearney–Simfoni partnership delivers a unique and powerful proposition, combining Simfoni’s digital tail spend solution with Kearney’s know-how and ability to launch a transformation and unlock the promised value, says Remko de Bruijn, a senior partner at Kearney. “There are many digital procurement solutions around, but frankly, many of them aren’t delivering the promised value, typically because of challenges with user adoption and change,” he says. “Kearney continuously assesses solutions in the market, with one of our other partners, ProcureTech, and together, we concluded that Simfoni is leading in tail spend. This is how we found each other.”
Kearney is a leading global strategy consulting firm founded in 1926, with more than 5,700 people working in more than 40 countries. The company works with more than three-quarters of the Fortune Global 500 as well as with the most influential governmental and nonprofit organisations. Kearney is a partner-owned firm with a distinctive, collegial culture that transcends organizational and geographic boundaries—and it shows. Regardless of location or rank, the firm’s consultants are down-to-earth and approachable, with a shared passion for doing innovative client work that realises tangible benefits for their clients, in both the short and long term.
“We see Simfoni as a powerful solution to realise savings in indirect tail spend. It’s about not only data and spend automation, but also the customer experience,” De Bruijn says. “This is crucial when dealing with everyday spend as most users are non-procurement professionals.”
Kearney aids businesses in implementing Simfoni’s solution quickly, mitigating risks associated with unmanaged spend and vendors. “The attractive thing about Simfoni is that the solution manages tail spend—optimising both spend and vendors—with the savings funding the digitisation. It’s a tail spend solution that delivers a comprehensive service,” De Bruijn says. “Simfoni will even pay the tail suppliers with Simfoni becoming the ‘One Vendor’ for the tail, which creates additional benefits in accounts payables and working capital.”
Simfoni and Kearney both operate globally, which is important since their customers often operate in multiple regions around the world. “It’s a very interesting and powerful proposition,” De Bruijn says.
Stefan Dent, co-founder of Simfoni
Simfoni designed its tail spend platform from the ground up. The company founders came from the procurement domain, having worked in a variety of procurement leadership roles and at other procurement technology providers. “Let’s face it, existing solutions never solved tail spend, which accounts for around 80 percent of your vendors and transactions and around 20 percent of spend value,” Dent says. “Until now, the only options were BPOs, where you effectively outsource your tail to be managed by humans in a lower-cost country, or you use self-service bidding platforms. These solutions deliver some value, but it’s like putting a plaster on a wound. You never properly cure the problem.”
Simfoni’s platform is unique in that it is first and foremost a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution with integrated buying services and digital procurement content components that connect with a client’s existing systems, or Simfoni can operate autonomously. Dent says that’s not even the best part. “The user experience is the most important element because, as Remko pointed out, most tail spend users are not procurement professionals,” he says. “Our users are in R&D, IT, plant operations, or marketing. They want an intuitive, easy-to-use solution to source and buy goods and services to support the everyday needs of their business. This is where traditional eProcurement systems fail.”
Dent says Kearney is an ideal partner being a trusted advisor to many of the world’s largest organisations. Kearney’s expert knowledge of procurement and transformation are a vital part of the offering. “Kearney’s input and expertise is crucial as Kearney helps our clients scope their tail spend program and update their procurement operating model while Simfoni frees up resources, allowing the client to focus on higher-value activities,” he explains. “At the end of the day, technology alone doesn’t solve tail spend. It’s about change. Kearney helps our clients make that digital shift. That’s why our partnership is so powerful because together we provide a comprehensive change and a digital solution as a package. The opportunity for our clients to finally control and optimise tail-spend is huge.”
At DPW Amsterdam, Kathryn Thompson and Fraser Woodhouse, Partner and Director at Deloitte, discuss the rise of generative AI and the impact on procurement.
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Procurement is changing.
That’s something that isn’t lost on Kathryn Thompson, a Partner at Deloitte.
As part of her role, she leads the Sourcing and Procurement Market Offering within Deloitte’s Consulting division in Europe, Middle East and Africa. Originally from Australia, Thompson has worked in procurement since 1996 and has observed quite the evolution over the past two and a half decades.
Procurement’s transition
Over the years, procurement has shifted from a traditional back-office function to an entity operating at the fore of a company’s strategy. Having been involved in the industry for more than 25 years, Thompson has had a front-row seat to procurement’s digital transformation. While she affirms that AI has changed procurement, she isn’t convinced that generative AI is changing the space – yet.
Kathryn Thompson speaking at DPW Amsterdam 2023
“We see lots of AI tools pulling from different data sources to apply intelligence to different decisions,” she explains. “But the generative part, beyond contract summaries or pulling together draft RFPs, remains to be seen at scale. One of my more sophisticated clients has run 300+ Proof of Concepts in AI across their business, including and beyond procurement, and admits they are yet to scale or drive meaningful ROI from any POC. At the moment, the generative AI side for us, isn’t getting past proof of concept or the pilot stage yet.”
Fraser Woodhouse is a Director at Deloitte and has been with the firm since February 2019. He believes that procurement and sales teams will use gen AI for RFPs over the next six months. “I think they’ll do it without telling anyone,” he explains. “It will eventually get to a point where I think that sort of crutch will become a necessity. When it’s built into the enterprise platforms, people will forget how to write contracts because the AI does it automatically. People will even use it to write their emails.”
The AI dilemma
AI on its own is pointless – it simply doesn’t operate the way you need it to. That’s why the importance of making tech work in a way that creates efficiency has never been more important. For Woodhouse, he insists it’s about putting a human at the right place in the process. “One of the solutions I saw was a gen AI assistant helping write an RFP built in, but then the supplier has a gen AI assistant helping do the response to the RFP as well,” he tells us. “Very quickly you’ve got two AIs negotiating with each other, and that doesn’t work unless a human is curating stuff at that point in the middle.”
Given the ease of AI usage, there is a discussion as to whether tech implementation could go too far the other way. Could humans lose the ability to perform simple tasks they previously wouldn’t have thought twice about? But Woodhouse is quick to dispel that myth and believes that despite the growing reliance on technology, people won’t be rendered useless. “People didn’t forget how to communicate when spellcheck came around, they could communicate better,” he explains. “If you are a supplier and are responding to an RFP and you’re pressing their generative AI button to build the response and five of the other suppliers are doing the same thing, who’s going to stand out? The ones who wrote it themselves or at least edited it and had meaningful input.”
“You can use AI for the transactional, easy stuff but there must be a value underpinning it,” adds Thompson. “The winners are going to be the ones that are human about things.”
Fraser Woodhouse and Kathryn Thompson speaking to CPOstrategy at DPW Amsterdam 2023
Procurement’s place
With such significant innovation happening, it is seen as a transformative time to be in procurement. As automation speeds up, the necessity to upskill new graduates coming into the workforce and encourage them to learn higher-value work earlier in their career journeys is becoming increasingly important.
“Covid and the following work from home attitude has a lot to answer for,” explains Thompson. “Pre-Covid, you would rarely work from home. Consultants, suppliers, delivery partners always went to the client’s site. That’s where innovation, creativity, results that are more than the sum of their parts happen. That’s not replicable by generative AI. We need to get everyone back out there and doing things. Rather than replacing jobs, we’re replacing tasks. The tasks that we’re replacing are the likes of data analysis, synthesising, and summarising. Hopefully, it means we’re doing real-life negotiations, brainstorming and innovation instead which are the things that people love to do. Fingers crossed, it just means the bar goes up.”
Conrad Smith, Founder and CEO at Graphite Systems, discusses the similarities between Formula One and procurement amid significant digital transformation.
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“Our business, like the F1 driver, knows to go fast.”
You’d be forgiven for thinking that procurement and Formula One are worlds apart at first glance. However, to Conrad Smith, Founder and CEO at Graphite Systems, they are actually a lot closer than initially meets the eye. A petrolhead by his own admission, Smith shared the stage with Haas Team Principal Guenther Steiner at DPW Amsterdam 2023. As a purchaser with almost 30 years of experience, Smith has overseen quite a transformation during his procurement career. He says that with everything going digital, you would assume that purchasing would accelerate. But it is, in fact, the opposite.
The pace of purchasing
“Over these 30 years, you would think purchasing would be getting faster,” he tells us. “Business is speeding up, but purchasing is slowing down – that’s stunning. When you think about it, where else in the world is slowing down when everything’s going faster and faster? Even though we’re investing in Coupa and Ariba and all of these expensive purchasing tools, it’s still slowing down. Our business stakeolders know business is speeding up, and so their tolerance is going away. In the nineties, when you onboarded a supplier, you just needed commercial data, name, address, tax, and banking.”
Conrad Smith (left) with DPW founders Matthias Gutzmann and Herman Knevel
Having been founded in February 2019, Graphite Systems is the premier supplier life cycle and risk management solution. The emergence of risk and due diligence has become a primary function within procurement. Vendor due diligence during the procurement process ensures users can identify and mitigate the risks present with a vendor they want to do business with during the contracting process. For Smith, he believes that this transformation has been 15 years in the making.
“I think that it was typical that a purchasing leader would point to other stakeholders and say it’s legal that’s holding this up, privacy or security. They’re the ones stopping the process from happening,” he explains. “And quite frankly, I’ll admit, those were my early thoughts. This is like a hot potato – I don’t want to be owning it. I look stupid because of the slowness I described. Think how stupid the business thinks we are when they come and say, I’m working on a project, I need this consultant here on Monday. And our best response is that it’ll take weeks or months to onboard the supplier”
“Weeks matter, and we need to go through all this risk and due diligence. It’s really important to do the risk and due diligence, but we can’t do that at the expense of the speed of business. While business is quicker, in every measure that you look at, purchasing is going slower. It’s dumb, and the business knows that, and it means we lose credibility. It needs to happen, but we need to be very intelligent about it and not just do things the same ways we’ve always done them.”
Conrad Smith with Haas Team Principal Guenther Steiner at DPW
Procurement’s changing
Smith explains that one of the reasons he can relate to the F1 analogy is that while cars are going faster than ever, the drivers are far safer today. “Every year, we see massive accidents take place,” he tells us. “I think last year, a car that was flipping head over heels tumbling and hit the fence before slamming into the ground but the driver was okay,” he explains. “There’s this principle that is very important in almost any situation where somebody says, you can have this or you can have that. It’s a false choice.
“You have to pick speed, or you have to pick safety. If you go in with a requirement that says it has to be fast and it has to be safe, that’s the F1 example. You have to go into purchasing and say it’s a non-negotiable. It has to be fast and safe. How can we rethink the design so it can go fast and be safe? That’s really my passion, and it’s possible. It doesn’t mean it’s easy, but it’s possible. Frankly, in the case of this purchasing problem, it’s way easier than it should be. But we’re still stuck on passing paper back and forth instead of just saying, there’s my profile. Everything you need is in my Graphite profile – just like everything you need to know about me [as a professional] is in my LinkedIn.”
The future of creation, management, and sharing of data and documents between buyers and suppliers absolutely needs to evolve from emails, spreadsheets, and PDFs into a modern social network architecture. This transformation of information sharing has already proved its speed and efficiency in most other aspects of our lives. It’s time to quit wasting time and money on supplier onboarding and embrace modern technology in this critical procurement process.
Maarten van der Borden, Customer Transformation Director at Celonis, discusses the influence digital tools such as generative AI is having on procurement’s workforce.
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“When something new arrives on the scene, people have a tendency to immediately think of the worst-case scenario.”
Maarten van der Borden is a Customer Transformation Director at Celonis. As AI gets increasingly complex and advanced, there are concerns from some sections of the workforce that robots will take human jobs in procurement. Indeed, one of the biggest draws of automation is the cost savings and efficiency it brings, with AI able to complete some tasks almost instantly. But van der Borden challenges that notion and believes technology should be used as an enabler.
AI’s impact on jobs
“AI will, in my opinion, not replace anyone anytime soon,” he reveals. “What it will do is make life easier and change the way we operate. In the late 90’s, we couldn’t envision what having a mobile phone would be like. When those were first introduced, we thought how annoying it would be that you would always be reachable. Now we can’t imagine living without a phone.
“I don’t envision the elimination of procurement positions due to AI. Rather, a significant shift may occur in the transactional aspects of process analytics. Currently, individuals proficient in creating complex Excel macros or adept at extracting and transforming data into actionable insights are highly valued. These roles are likely to undergo changes, but this should be seen as an opportunity for enhancement, not a threat. It’s crucial to recognise this. My belief is that AI won’t be replacing jobs, particularly in procurement where human involvement is key. The role of technology should be to empower and improve processes in procurement, not to replace the human element.”
Maarten van der Borden, Customer Transformation Director at Celonis
The journey
Over the years, Van der Borden has distinguished himself through a series of impactful transformations and strategic developments, primarily at the nexus of IT, business operations, and finance. His journey has been marked by the successful management of large-scale programs, where his ability to engage cross-functional teams and collaborate with stakeholders at all organisational levels has consistently led to the achievement of key goals. Notably, he has a history of taking on complex and challenging projects, steering them from concept to completion under stringent conditions. This track record has established him as an influential change agent, known for transforming underperforming organizations into models of high performance and efficiency.
Having began his career in the Dutch Military, he experienced a similar journey to many procurement practitioners. Van der Borden fell into the space by a “happy accident” and never left.
He shares, “I didn’t know much about procurement initially, but I quickly grew to love it.” His journey led him to DS Smith, a major packaging organisation, where he successfully spearheaded a comprehensive global procurement transformation. Subsequently, he transitioned to head the finance transformation within the same company. In this role, he sought a tool that could effectively navigate the unique challenges of procurement compared to finance.
“I needed something that would show me how our financial processes really ran. It meant finding the most impactful inefficiencies and developing an action plan to deal with them.”
Celonis today
This search brought him to Celonis’ process mining capability, a product that resonated with him so profoundly that he decided to join the company. “Right now, I am a Customer Transformation Director at Celonis, which means I help our customers organise themselves around this solution because I firmly believe implementing a tech solution by itself doesn’t do anything. We will always need the human element to make the change and create value, based on the insights tech provides. I’m very happy to be here.”
Today, Celonis is the global leader in process mining, providing companies with a modern way to run their business processes entirely on data and intelligence. The firm pioneered the process mining category more than a decade ago when it first developed the ability to automatically X-ray processes, find inefficiencies and implement immediate, targeted, and automated action to resolve them.
Gen AI drive
Procurement is in a transformative moment. At DPW Amsterdam, generative AI was the buzzword on attendees’ lips everywhere you looked. For van der Borden he acknowledges how rapidly the space is changing as a result of an increased influence of digital tools.
“To me, the first big thing to realise when we talk about gen AI is the democratisation of data and process analytics,” explains van der Borden. “I think what’s really important is that procurement realm to me is a prime example of where gen AI can have a huge impact. I think what gen AI will do is open up the capabilities of analytics to a much wider audience than today. People who may previously have trusted some Excel sheets or PowerPoint slides presented to them to make decisions can now freely explore, or even converse with their own data and make informed decisions themselves. You start to build a community of data analysts rather than just having consumption of data analytics. That to me is the big game changer that gen AI is actually providing procurement with.”
Procurement’s perception
CPOstrategy sits down with Maarten van der Borden, Customer Transformation Director at Celonis, at DPW Amsterdam 2023
By its own common admission, procurement used to be boring. A function hidden out of sight and kept far away from the c-suite. Now, it’s front and centre, firing on all cylinders. Indeed, the Covid pandemic helped drive it towards the top of the agenda, in addition to other enablers such as transformation and ESG. For van der Borden, he believes procurement is beginning to shake off that old skin and be seen as more of a strategic function.
“We’ve received a bad reputation in the past because the impact has not always been clear,” he tells us. “Some analysis that people do on procurement as a strategic function is to ask what’s the real impact? Yeah, you manage the supply and demand but as long as I have my blue ball point where and when I need it, you’re doing a good job. If things start to fall over then procurement used to get the blame. What I’m really happy to see is that more and more CEOs are seeing procurement as a strategic function, not only driving value in the financial domain but also more and more as the primary contributors to a more sustainable future and the guardians of our corporate brands.
An evolution
“There’s been a noticeable evolution in procurement, particularly in the merging of processes like source-to-pay, procure-to-pay, and purchase-to-pay. Our definitions in these areas haven’t always been crystal clear. However, when you delve into purchase-to-pay, it’s apparent that this is where the transactional activities occur. Due its very transactional nature, this phase is measurable and reveals the outcomes of our upstream actions in sourcing. I’ve observed that these areas, despite often being managed by separate divisions or functions, are intrinsically linked. The transactional aspects are commonly seen in shared services, while the sourcing aspects represent traditional procurement.
“Bridging these two areas, in my view, is a significant shift. This is where technology truly demonstrates its value. By integrating and examining the transactional processes to understand their shortcomings, we can trace back to the root causes, often found in sourcing. This integration is fascinating to me. It allows us to assess the real impact of our efforts.”
DPW has announced it is expanding into North America following the success of its Amsterdam offering.
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DPW has announced it is expanding into North America following the success of its Amsterdam event.
Founders Matthias Gutzmann and Herman Knevel revealed the news via LinkedIn to confirm a move that will see significant growth into new territories.
Gutzmann exclusively told CPOstrategy: “Marking a pivotal moment for DPW, our expansion to the US isn’t just about growing our footprint, it’s about building on our ongoing momentum over the last few years and bringing the enthusiasm and expertise of DPW.
“We aim to bridge procurement organisations with innovative startup founders and change makers, fostering the growth of a digital procurement and supply chain ecosystem in North America.”
Accompanied by a photo of the duo outside Google offices in Silicon Valley, California, he posted on Monday (27th November): “I am currently in #SilliconValley together with Herman Knevel, gearing up for an exciting week filled with meetings with tech giants, founders, visionary partners and future collaborators.
“Having previously led the expansion of Procurement Leaders | A World 50 Group Community into North America, I must say I feel extra energised to bring my experience and strong relationships within the North American market for the benefit of DPW.
“Stay tuned for more updates as we embark on this exciting phase of growth and innovation!”
Founders Matthias Gutzmann and Herman Knevel
Since launching DPW in Amsterdam in 2019, the conference has grown from strength to strength and is now widely regarded as the biggest and most influential tech event in procurement and supply chain on the planet. The conference welcomed over 1,250 procurement professionals with more than 2,500 virtual attendees watching along at home in its 2023 edition in October.
Last year’s event was held at the former stock exchange building, the Beurs van Berlage, with the theme called “Make Tech Work” which focused on turning digital aspirations into a reality. DPW Amsterdam has already been announced for October 9 and 10, 2024, next year.
Further details about DPW North America will be revealed in due course.
At DPW Amsterdam 2023, Sigbjørn Nome, CEO and Co-Founder at Ignite, discusses the importance of a people-first mindset in procurement.
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“It’s super important to get the right people in procurement.”
Sigbjørn Nome, CEO and Co-Founder at Ignite, is passionate about talent. The company is now armed with 60 employees and has become an organisation of choice for many graduates in Norway. According to Nome, building a positive environment that empowers staff holds the key to long-term success and growth in procurement.
“We’ve managed to get a good reputation in Norway and recruit top talent,” he tells us. “In the beginning, we used the best students and offered internships to help us build the first version of the product. Then we built a good relationship with the universities in Norway and we’ve also recruited lots of senior hires too. There’s a great combination of talent within Ignite.”
Ignite is an advanced yet simple spend management solution that gives customers the power of correct and holistic data, transparency, and actionable analytics to empower data-driven decision-making. This way, customers not only save money and avoid risk but also make smarter choices and drive value across their organisation. Ignite provides a one-stop shop to consolidate, clean, and enrich data, get advanced procurement analytics, conduct supplier assessments, as well as holistically managing suppliers and contracts and quickly and automatically estimating their Scope 3 CO2 footprint.
With a background in consulting, Nome worked on a variety of procurement transformation projects and has witnessed significant potential in the space. Having decided to form Ignite in 2016, the organisation began as a consulting firm but it was later decided to be delivered as a software-as-a-service (SaaS) company. “As a consulting business, you are cashflow positive and you earn money from the get-go. While for a SaaS business, you need to invest a lot in product and productive development,” he tells us. “It is quite a challenging change. As a business owner, you also need to sell and be more out there to get customers. There’s been a lot of challenges and one of those has been building the team which I’m really proud of.”
Procurement’s evolving function
Procurement is changing. Traditional procurement revolved around delivery, cost and quality. Now, given the nature of environmental challenges as well as the necessity of data analytics, people with diverse skill sets are needed more than ever before. Nome believes it’s about changing the mindset of procurement. “You’ve got to shift that mentality because the function is so different today,” he explains. “In the future, it’s going to be a more collaborative function because procurement teams cannot win alone.”
With that future in mind, Nome recognises the space is a different beast today than it was a decade ago. Change dominates the industry and the players that embrace transformation will be the ones who win. “You need to use procurement as a lever to get change done,” he tells us. “It’s not enough anymore to look at your business only, your responsibility also extends to your suppliers. It’s about where you spend your money and your negotiation power because customers will look at that. I would say the regulation demands will offer a broader perspective, not only looking at your business but also how you spend your money.”
At DPW Amsterdam 2023, Alan Holland, CEO of Keelvar, tells us about the acceleration of digital transformation in procurement and what it means for the next generation of the workforce.
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Keelvar’s mission is simple – to help procurement teams globally to scale sourcing excellence.
Keelvar is powered by unique artificial intelligence, designed by category experts, to deliver significant savings and operational improvements for global enterprises such as the likes of Siemens, Coca-Cola, Samsung, Novartis and more. The company was founded in Europe’s largest AI research lab by a team of computer scientists and engineers specialising in AI, optimisation and game theory applied to strategic sourcing. Keelvar has raised $42 million to date in funding to accelerate product development and global growth.
The company is led by Alan Holland who has served as CEO since the company’s foundation in September 2012. Indeed, in his first year, he led the organisation to win the Cork Company of the Year in the small company category, and the firm has more recently been awarded a Gartner Cool vendor.
Having previously served as a lecturer in artificial intelligence in University College Cork’s Computer Science Department, Holland specialised in Optimisation, Game Theory and Algorithmic Mechanism Design. Such experience has helped give Keelvar an edge in terms of innovating with offerings that exceed competitors’ technical capabilities. This enables Keelvar to define an entirely new category of the solution, putting Keelvar in an ideal position to lead this new category that Keelvar has called autonomous sourcing.
CPOstrategy sitting down with Alan Holland, CEO at Keelvar, at DPW Amsterdam 2023
Evolution at scale
Procurement is in a state of flux. The industry is experiencing unprecedented amounts of innovation and change in a way which has ripped up the playbook of what went before it. However, Holland believes it is only in the past half decade or so where transformation has really started to take place. “If we look at the last 10 years, the first five of those procurement was very slow to change,” he discusses. “What we saw were technology landscapes dominated by a small number of large suites vendors who had acquired many companies, but most enterprises were satisfied in buying all the modules they would need to run their procurement function from one vendor. Rarely was it the case that the various modules did what their customers needed. Some of them might have worked in some ways, but others just didn’t serve the need at all.
“In the second five years of our being, things started to change. We did start to notice an increasing acceptance that best-of-breed was the way forward and that enterprises needed to accept that if they were to get the buy-in from their stakeholders, then they needed to work with a combination of best-of-breed vendors and piece together their specific technologies landscape rather than just buying it in bulk from one. I would say it was gradual at first and then suddenly, but it’s only been suddenly in the last couple of years. The pandemic likely accelerated some of that change.”
Trust first
Holland explains that in recent years, large multinationals are placing an increasingly important level of trust in smaller, best-of-breed vendors such as Keelvar to allow them to run their sourcing events and meet niche demands. He believes that in the past it simply wouldn’t have happened and strives to prove that faith right. “I suppose that’s a process where enterprises are gradually increasing their trust in what are smaller vendors, but these smaller vendors are becoming bigger because we’re serving hundreds of large enterprises,” he explains. “We’re gaining in strength and momentum and the barriers to adopting best-of-breed at scale are lowering and the market willingness to jump those barriers is increasing. That momentum is just gathering more and more force.”
Alan Holland, CEO at Keelvar
Using tech as an enabler for talent
Procurement’s talent shortage and the ways to bridge has been a hot topic for years. Whoever you speak to within the industry, everyone will have a different viewpoint. Some say procurement needs a rebrand, others say it’s a lack of education while others think technology could hold the key. For Holland, he believes it’s about making tech work and freeing up people in procurement’s time to focus on more value-add work that will help solve strategic goals.
“What is attracting graduates to procurement now is working with intelligent systems that are powered by AI and that allow them to be strategic and not working on routine or tactical tasks because machines are taking over the data-intensive areas of processing these workflows,” he tells us. “Our second product, which we launched about three years ago is autonomous sourcing. These are sourcing bots that are intelligent software agents that you can now design, build, and operate your own sourcing bots. If you’re somebody who understands best practices in sourcing, you can now build automated workflows so that instead of having to run sourcing events one by one and get through 15 or 20 a year, now you could design bots that are running hundreds of these events per annum.”
Procurement’s bright future
While not only opening up people’s day, using technology as an enabler to make life easier also acts as a way of encouraging the next generation into the industry. “What you’re doing is freeing up many other people’s time to spend on relationship management or innovation discovery and talking to the market, finding out what new suppliers you should be dealing with, visiting suppliers to check things are in order,” he says. “And that is the type of work that people enjoy doing. Machines are taking more of the data-intensive work off their tables, and machines are not good at work related to establishing trust. Machines have no empathy, but people do. The soft skills in procurement are becoming ever more important because the machines are taking over the harder skills. That is leading to a transformation in the type of work that procurement is doing.
“It’s also leading to a transformation in the interest levels that graduates emerging from universities have for this sphere. When it used to be that they were first introduced to a legacy system and told that this is what they needed to use to do their job. Young workers are coming with higher expectations about software and rightfully so, and enterprises are reacting to the need to satisfy the technology requirements of younger recruits now, which is a very good thing. It’s accelerating that digital transformation that we are seeing.”
The next step
Looking ahead, Holland is full of positivity for the future and believes decision-making in procurement is easier than it’s ever been. He believes tomorrow is “very bright” as procurement enters an era with intelligent software agents which can automate workflows and make the human workday more efficient. “There’s a whole new range of possibilities where creative and thoughtful planning will provide a competitive advantage for organisations and procurement can be far more influential in how successful their companies can be. It’s a game-changer.”
At DPW Amsterdam 2023, Brandon Card, Co-Founder and CEO at Terzo, discusses the rise of his organisation amid the COVID-19 pandemic and how it used the disruption to its advantage.
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Terzo means third in Italian.
With the two founders having Italian heritage, they chose to describe what they set out to build – a platform that brings third parties together.
Terzo uses powerful AI technology to extract, analyse, and visualise its customer’s contract data. Terzo’s AI data extraction capabilities also reach beyond contracts and can solve an organisation’s document problems, from invoices to POs and more. Its platform was designed on the foundation of contract intelligence, providing business teams the necessary data to improve productivity, optimise spend, reduce costs, and manage risk and governance across their entire supplier ecosystem. Terzo is the first solution to provide critical data and terms to both legal and business teams to make decisions together.
Terzo’s journey
Brandon Card is the Co-Founder and CEO at Terzo. His company’s journey’s start was an interesting one, having been founded days before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdowns that then ensued. But, reflecting on the disruptive nature of the situation, Card believes it actually helped get Terzo up and running quicker. “It just accelerated our timeline because we wanted to build fast,” he reveals. “When we put the team together, we had this concept that we wanted to get the product out as fast as possible. We knew that with Covid happening there was going to be a huge shift in how people were working. People were going to need to buy new solutions faster and it’s going to be harder to control spending. We knew procurement was going to have a host of challenges across the supply chain with this interruption with Covid. Our team on the engineering side believed we need to build faster.”
This led to Terzo’s team on the engineering side of the house to work diligently throughout the rest of 2020 and into 2021 on building code and new releases with the vision of getting the Terzo product into the industry quicker. “We thought we might be able to help procurement given the challenges they have now with all of these new needs that the business is going to bring,” he says. “We probably built the product about 50% faster just because there were no distractions so there’s pros and cons when everything happens in life. Our team really worked well together and they buckled down and they took that time to focus on Terzo. It’s something I’m very proud of this team for doing that.”
Brandon Card speaks with CPOstrategy at DPW Amsterdam 2023
Developing relationships
A big part of what Terzo does revolves around strengthening relationships by uniting teams to unlock insights so organisations can make smarter decisions and maximise value from suppliers, customers and partners. Card believes this mantra holds the key to long-term success in procurement.
“It’s critical for us because when we think about whether we’re doing spend analytics or contract intelligence, it’s all about understanding the relationship with these different entities you’re working with,” discusses Card. “We’re not there yet but my big vision in the future is to build an enterprise relationship intelligence platform to understand every single business that you’re working with, whether it’s a customer, a supplier or a partner. The truth with these big organisations, a lot of their suppliers are also partners or customers. These relationships are very complex and they’re very critical to innovation.
“If you’re doing anything in the cloud right now, if you’re doing anything with AI or even autonomous driving, you need partners to get this done. You can’t build it in-house. And years ago, people would build in-house. When we were young growing up in the nineties, everyone had to build their own data centres and build their own software. We’re in a world now where you can go and turn things on online in a few minutes, and that’s where we want to be so you can push product out faster, competitive advantage, and I think these relationships are critical to procurement having a competitive advantage and driving value for the whole business.”
Procurement’s place
In today’s world, procurement is in the driving seat. The function isn’t siloed anymore, stuck in a back-office room and out of the way of everyone else. Despite such significant innovation, there is sometimes a perception that procurement is still boring. For Card, he believes one of procurement’s biggest challenges is changing that age-hold mentality of procurement within a c-suite.
“It’s about educating the CEO or the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of large organisations just how critical procurement is. A lot of them just don’t understand,” he tells us. “That’s the challenge we have, and that’s something we want to change. In the future, the CFO is going to treat the head of sales the same they treat the CPO. Right now, the chief revenue officer gets special treatment in every organisation. If you run sales, you’re treated differently because you bring in revenue. If you’re procurement, you’re lucky if you’re at the table. But I do see that changing.”
While Card believes this shift is already beginning to happen with younger CFOs, change such as this doesn’t happen overnight. “By doing this, you’re going to have a really balanced organisation and reduce risk while optimising their costs,” he discusses. “Ultimately, they’re going to be more efficient, and the teams are going to be working a lot better together. There’s going to be a better culture when leadership buys in because then procurement feels valued. They work harder, and that vibe carries throughout the organisation. That’s something that we want to help push for procurement but we know it’s going to take time.”
At DPW Amsterdam 2023, Daniel Barnes, Community Manager at Gatekeeper, discusses the evolution of the procurement function and the influence tools such as generative AI are having in the space.
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“It might sound harsh, but people just won’t have a job if they don’t change.”
For Daniel Barnes, Community Manager at Gatekeeper, his thoughts are clear. Technology is here and it’ll only get more advanced.
Barnes has been the Community Manager at Gatekeeper since June 2022. The company he works for is a next-generation Vendor & Contract Lifecycle Management (VCLM) platform that was born in the cloud and works on any device. Gatekeeper has a strong focus on collaboration, clear actionable data, obligation and compliance tracking, email alerts and most of all ease of use. The firm has a ‘zero training’ mantra driving a fanatical focus on usability that results in an application internal stakeholders and suppliers can use effortlessly.
The Gatekeeper Platform provides a suite of vendor management, contract management, kanban workflow, collaboration and reporting features. Customers can extend the functionality of Gatekeeper with additional modules to meet their required use cases, as well as integrating with over 220 third-party solutions.
Technology potential
Since joining the company, a key consideration for both Barnes and Gatekeeper has been the influence of generative AI. However, Barnes explains that while the potential of the technology is exciting, they are being strategic about how to leverage AI.
“We’re probably taking it a little bit more of a slower approach,” he tells us. “We have a contract summary function at the moment which means for any contract we summarise it so that anyone in the business can get a really quick understanding of that contract. We’re also exploring whether we’re going to bring in a Gatekeeper bot that allows us to get insights analysis in a very conversational manner. One thing we really believe is that contract and vendors aren’t just for procurement or legal. Everyone in the business has to contribute to make these successful. A lot of the issues, data and information behind these are legally complex. Procurement language is difficult when you’re talking about RFPs or you’re talking about risk. Someone in the business doesn’t care about that, they just want to get whatever they have brought, they want the service, they want it performed, they want it on time and they want a good relationship. We’re trying to figure out how to use AI like that.”
CPOstrategy speaking with Daniel Barnes at DPW Amsterdam 2023
The rise of Gen AI
Generative AI isn’t exactly new. In fact, it actually dates back to the 1960s. Among the first functioning examples was the ELIZA chatbot which was created in 1961 by British scientist Joseph Weizenbaum. It was the first talking computer program that could communicate with a human through natural language. But, given the introduction of a far more advanced model – ChatGPT – gen AI is the name on not only procurement’s lips but the wider world too. Barnes questions what you need to make AI successful at implementation.
“You get data and most procurement and legal teams have an issue with data because they don’t have it in one place,” he explains. “We fundamentally believe in this three-pillar approach. It’s to restore visibility and to have all your vendors and their contracts in one place. From there, you take control of that by digitalising all of your processes. Once they’re digital, you can track and automate them from various data points that you have in your vendor and contract records. That allows you to safeguard compliance, whether that’s regulatory, legislative or by contractual obligations. They’re all different forms of compliance that you need to track. Most teams are really struggling just with those. When we talk about gen AI, the reality is most teams are still so far away from even being able to realise those benefits. Today, gen AI looks powerful once you have the pillars in place and I’m really excited about its future.”
Procurement’s evolution
Indeed, procurement stands at a unique moment. With some in the space used to operating a certain way through legacy systems and others embracing a digital transformation and the technological innovation that brings with it, Barnes recognises that people who are reluctant to change could be left behind. “I think there has to be a willingness to change,” he tells us. “I’ve been talking about change in procurement since 2019, and I would say 80% of people who are engaged are hesitant and don’t want to change. That’s a really big concern. But my biggest worry is they don’t want to know in the first place. One of my fears is you’ve got so many solutions that genuinely can eliminate work in procurement teams. I’m worried for those people who don’t want to change because what are they doing when their work’s automated?”
The future
Barnes, who also hosts the World of Procurement podcast and YouTube channel, believes there is a current cultural divide in procurement and the industry is at a make-or-break moment. He affirms procurement will go “one of two ways”.
“You’ve got people who are stuck in the past that are archaic with what they’re doing. Then there’s those who are really pushing the profession forward,” he explains. “I see it as a moment in time where procurement kind of goes one in two ways. It’s extinct in terms of how it used to be. There’s solutions that I’ve seen which have automated workflows and are doing the work that traditional procurement people used to do. We can pull people along, but there has to be an initial willingness to change too or it’s not going to happen. That’s why I think it’s great to see people that are showing that willingness. They may not have the answers, but they want to learn.”
At DPW Amsterdam, Gregor Stühler, CEO and Co-founder of Scoutbee, and Karin Hagen-Gierer, CPO and Strategic Advisor at Scoutbee, discusses the rise of chatbots and their influence in procurement.
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Scoutbee was created with the idea of improving supply chain resilience through AI and big data to transform the way organisations use supplier data to discover and connect with suppliers.
The company, which was founded in 2015, offers an AI-powered Scoutbee Intelligence Platform (SIP) which uses graph technology and predictive and prescriptive analytics to deliver holistic supplier visibility that helps procurement make confident supplier decisions, drive cross-functional efficiency and optimise existing technology investments.
Scoutbee’s AI-driven data foundation connects teams to any data point, internal, external, third-party and more, as well as any data combination necessary to orchestrate a resilient, competitive and sustainable supply base.
Gregor Stühler is the CEO and Co-founder at Scoutbee. He believes that waiting to invest in AI tools and underlying data training will be companies’ greatest sustainable disadvantage of the next decade. “AI is not an off-the-shelf product, so you can’t buy AI unless it’s a pre-trained AI on a specific use case but then it’s not a competitive edge,” he tells us.
“A competitive edge only emerges when you have a clear use case and training on top of that. The companies that start using those AI solutions sooner with their data have much better training in place. As a result, they’ll always be ahead of the game quite significantly. Companies that use off-the-shelf AI products will do well, but the ones that actually take it meaningfully and start trading on their own use case and their own data will be the ones that will be accelerating.”
Gregor Stühler, CEO and Co-founder and Karin Hagen-Gierer, CPO and Strategic Advisor, at Scoutbee
AI – Changing the game?
Karin Hagen-Gierer is CPO and Strategic Advisor at Scoutbee. She explains that there are a multitude of ways in which tools such as generative AI are having an impact on procurement to change the game.
“AI is great to help with mundane and boring tasks,” she discusses. “It can help us with vendor requests that come in and can be appropriately channelled. It can help your colleagues to navigate procurement. When they have questions, they can interact with a chat solution and be guided in a much better way to find what they want much quicker. I think if we look at how it can enhance our teams’ effectiveness, it is really in market analytics, supplier searches, supplier evaluations, and ChatGPT that could help us broaden the spectrum. If you then look to more tailored solutions like Scoutbee then it’s a very different ball game that procurement professionals have at their fingertips. I’m noticing a drive on both efficiency and effectiveness in this space.”
Despite AI’s draws, Stühler is well aware of the challenges and hesitations around digital technology. As far as he is concerned, there are two waves of generative AI to be aware of. “Wave one is about having a prompt and how tools such as ChatGPT can help with that,” he says. “For example, what are 10 RFI questions for aluminium cans?
“Wave two is where I merge and synthesise all of my data into our large language model and it has reasoning to drive decision-making and scenario planning. You do have to be careful though because you have to give the system all your critical data but you don’t want to input this into an open model. This means the use case has to be that you deploy a large language model in your own infrastructure, and own your own graphic card that will never actually leave your organisation.
Gregor Stühler, CEO and Co-founder at Scoutbee
“This is the biggest concern that we’re seeing because ChatGPT has brought a lot of progress but also a lot of questions. Now, when people hear that we want them to merge their data into a large language model that’s completely private, we’re met with some resistance when we explain to them that their large language model is running on their very own graphics card that we don’t have access to. That tends to give them more comfort to put their data into it,” he continues.
Stühler adds that he believes there are some misconceptions around ChatGPT and the nature of how accurate the data it provides actually is. As is the case with any new technology, these things take time. “It’s always the same. It happened with electric cars, nobody thought that would solve the battery issue,” he discusses. “I think we are right at the peak of the hype cycle when it comes to those things and people have figured out what they can use it for. With wave one of generative AI, it is fine to have hallucinations of the model and if something is spat out that is not supported by the input.
“But by the second use case, hallucinations are not okay anymore because it’s working with accurate data and should not come up with some imaginary creative answers. It should be always supported by the data that is put in. This is very important that people understand that if you train the model and if you have the right setting, those hallucinations will go away and you can actually have a setting where the output of the model is 100% accurate,” he further emphasises.
Procurement’s potential
According to Karin Hagen-Gierer, there is an incredible opportunity to create value in procurement today. Following unprecedented global challenges over the past few years, CPOs have never been in the boardroom so often – something she’s keen to stress.
“The value of procurement through crisis has been proven,” she says. “We tend to say, it’s not a core business, but very often if things don’t go right, it becomes core very quickly and you are in the CEO’s office more than you might like. It’s the breadth of the role that allows to drive value: You impact the P/L impact, topline, and the ESG agenda to name a few. But then there is a need to future-proof your team’s skill set around how you can drive more impact from being more effective in the respective tool sets you’re using, the questions you’re able to solve solutions for. Additionally, you have to work on improving your efficiencies. Teams are not getting bigger, so you need to be enabled in a very different way to really drive all this value.”
Karin Hagen-Gierer, CPO and Strategic Advisor at Scoutbee
Stühler reflects on the past and admires the transformation procurement has undergone in the past decade since he joined the industry. “I came to procurement in 2012 and even then I remember this function being solely responsible for paying invoices and calling trucks to arrive sooner – at first glance,” he says. “Combined with the crises that now happened over the last couple of years, post-Covid has proven procurement’s value – and the impact organisations such as Scoutbee can make.
“I think two key things will happen in the future. Firstly, the tech landscape is exploding so quickly that there must be a consolidation that will happen. Secondly, when it comes to generative AI I think those pragmatic use cases will become the new normal. ChatGPT will be like Google today to get insights. Generative AI and large language models will get increasingly powerful over time and will help if you feed it the right data and connect it to different data streams that you have internally. It can become this true copilot and help you with complex scenario planning and make you aware of weak spots in your supply base while helping you to strategically take the right steps. The future is exciting,” he concludes.
Stefan Dent, co-founder at Simfoni, and Richard Martin, CEO at Thinking Machine, discuss the power of data in procurement and the future of AI.
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“See spend differently”.
Simfoni is revolutionising how businesses spend their money – via data. In today’s ever-changing world, everything is underpinned by data at Simfoni.
Founded in 2015, Simfoni is a leading provider of spend analytics, Tail Spend and eSourcing solutions to global businesses. Simfoni’s platform utilises machine learning and AI to accelerate and automate key parts of the procurement process which saves time and money while creating a pathway for supply chain sustainability. Its solution quickly distils and organises complex spend data to help discover opportunities and savings. It also gets up and running in days with an on-demand spend automation solution.
Indeed, Simfoni aims to take the hassle out of procurement through its automated, fluid platform that offers a unique pay-as-you-save pricing model which reduces barriers to technology adoption. Through fused revolutionary technology with AI-enabled content and deep expertise to automate, streamline and simplify procurement. Simfoni’s composable platform provides a selection of advanced automation modules that help customers sky-rocket savings and achieve sustainability objectives.
Stefan Dent, co-founder, Simfoni
Stefan Dent co-founded Simfoni and now serves as Chief Strategy Officer. He tells us his organisation was created ‘with a purpose to be different’. “A lot of customers have been working on full suite solutions for some time, which was seen as a sort of panacea for all ills that would solve everything,” says Dent. “It solved some areas such as direct spend, but these are large, mega expensive solutions that aren’t particularly agile. Ultimately, we came up with our own solution which is purposely different. We launched as a composable, agile solution that works with existing systems to boos ROI on tech spend. We apply next-gen technology to procurement that democratizes access to digital procurement tools – opening-up digital solutions to organizations of any size and across any sector. It means we can open our solution up to the masses and not just for large organisations.”
Relationship with Thinking Machine
Simfoni is powered by analytics. Its analytics solution informs spend, as well as watching how change is measured and performance is tracked over time. Now eight years old, Simfoni has fostered alliances with several younger companies offering specialist tools which have been embedded within the Simfoni platform. One such company is Thinking Machine, led by CEO and Founder Richard Martin.
Thinking Machine was founded in 2019 by Martin after he discovered the industry needed to find a better use of data to address ‘complex spend’ such as in Telecoms where you have multiple vendors, manual and frequent billing, changing tariffs and users. Martin explains that he witnessed all types of companies going through the same problems instead of only large companies. “Thinking Machine was developed as a way to give customers a single source of revenue across all services, pricing and demand but in a way that can be done at the very lowest level,” says Martin. “We would take all that complexity and be able to roll it up into actionable evidence that could be reconciled against their top-level financial numbers. It gives procurement directors the tools they need to actually be in the driver’s seat when it comes to their procurement operations.”
Developing key, strategic relationships with partners that can be depended on is an essential component to the success of any long-term business relationship. Simfoni relies on Thinking Machine to help manage its load and enable customers to go deep with Thinking Machine to extract even more value from their data. “We offer our clients the opportunity to go deep within certain domains,” discusses Dent. “We can then bring in Thinking Machine to help extract even more value from the data on complex spend.
Stefan Dent and Richard Martin speaking to CPOstrategy at DPW Amsterdam
“Thinking Machine’s application will ingest a large quantum of complex data. Their tools work like magic and allows data to be put into a readable format so they can make sense of the actual spend and quickly identify optimisation opportunities. This is part of our philosophy to work with niche technology partners because we shouldn’t do everything, so we need to put our resources where it counts. Resources like Thinking Machine work well by plugging into us, which means we offer incremental value to our clients without them going to market separately.
“It can also be very hard for a young company to work with large corporates because they’re untried or untrusted. This means for a company like Thinking Machine to connect with Simfoni is a win-win for everyone.”
Procurement’s bright future
Given the space procurement finds itself in today, the future is set to continue to be transformative. For Martin, he believes the introduction and influence of generative AI tools will help meet challenges in procurement head-on. “For the first time you see how it’s actually possible to be a unicorn with a 10-person team,” he explains. “The scales of efficiency are just out of this world. In terms of the procuretech industry, I think we’ve had a problem for a while now because there’s been all these best-of-breed solutions that are doing bits and pieces but is very difficult to stitch together into one cohesive platform that customers can make use of without having to know how to use 50 different tools.
“I think Gen AI offers a path to helping to smooth over some of those challenges and figuring out how to bring these things together. I think enterprises are going to start finding a lot more value in having all these best-of-breed solutions, such as Thinking Machine and Simfoni, while being able to use AI as a way to put this together into more of a single common layer that they can access. It is a very exciting time.”
For much of the past decade, Dent explains that he has believed that machines will take over mundane and outdated ways of working. Now, with the influence of tools such as Open AI’s ChatGPT, that digital future has only been accelerated and change the workforce of tomorrow. “Most CPOs of today are saying they need more headcount but I think they will soon be thinking very differently,” he discusses. “We predicted some time ago that Procurement departments will get smaller in headcount, maybe by even up to 50%. The procurement function of the future will be a lot smaller, leaner, and meaner. Procurement teams will be more intelligent and strategic, in terms of both the people employed, and the digital tools used to manage spend.”
While Dent believes AI and machines won’t replace every human in procurement, it will mean forward-thinking teams need to embrace new technology with humans taking on higher-value roles. “The shape and structure of the modern procurement function will change quite dramatically, and people will need to upskill,” he discusses. “A lot of the work will be taken over by the machine eventually either 20%, 50%, and then a hundred percent. But the human needs to have that in mind and then plan for that next three to five years. The procurement function of the future will be smaller, and they should purposely be doing that, to then look at solutions to find a way to enable it to happen naturally.
“This is arguably the best time for people to join procurement, as you’ve got this great opportunity to embrace digital and make it happen. Young people can question ‘Well, why can’t it be done by a machine?’ They’re coming in with that mindset, as opposed to fighting being replaced by a machine. I think for graduates coming into procurement, they’ve got the opportunity to play with digital and change the status quo which is a wonderful thing.”
At DPW Amsterdam, Ashwin Kumar, vice president at GEP, discusses procurement transformation and what tomorrow’s challenge could look like.
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Transformation. Procurement has witnessed quite a bit in recent years.
Given the widespread adoption and acceleration of AI and data-driven processes over the past decade, change has been a necessity rather than a nice to have.
Evolution of AI transformation
Ashwin Kumar is not unfamiliar with change. Having worked at GEP since May 2008, he has had a front-row seat to the transformation and change procurement has overseen. Now Vice President, he tells us about the evolution of the procurement function and how the landscape is shifting to meet future market demands.
“I think the way we see the industry evolve over time is because we started with web 1.0, simple ERPs that were fragmented with no easy way to connect systems,” he tells us. “Data was all behind firewalls and it was very expensive to manage or mine data. Then we had a big technology breakthrough in cloud systems where the people who were managing the storage said they had a solution. You can just simply push data out of the cloud and what we saw was a lot of that control that the CIOs had on data architecture and the software systems and solutions was being given to different functions.
“A lot of that enrichment of data happened because of the cloud platform that enabled it. Back in 2010, we made the decision to move away from a SaaS platform because even then we believed the future was cloud and that’s where data is going to be which could mean a gold mine. Our CEO made a very conscious decision to basically stop a really good product that was working and move to the cloud platform.”
Ashwin Kumar, Vice President, GEP
The GEP difference
Today, a global leader in AI-driven procurement and supply chain transformation, GEP helps enterprises take the lead and, using the power of data and digital technology, to stay ahead in the connected global economy. More than 1,000 engineers have spent the last 7 months to design and launch GEP’s new AI-native, low-code platform for sustainable procurement and supply chains, GEP QUANTUM. This new platform, launched last week, powers GEP SMART, the industry’s leading source-to-pay procurement application, GEP NEXXE, its next gen supply chain solution, and GEP GREEN, enabling companies to track, measure and achieve their ESG goals.
With the transformative power of AI, GEP enables businesses to operate with greater efficiency and effectiveness, gain competitive advantage, boost profitability and maximise both business and shareholder value. GEP helps global enterprises across industries and verticals build high-performing, resilient and sustainable supply chains.
Investing in dedicated spend analytics and solutions has become an essential part of the procurement process. Data is king and ultimately the more companies know and can predict, the better off they’ll be. However, some companies are still lagging behind when it comes to adopting digital tools created for better visibility and transparency. Kumar questions the reason for this and points to the possibility that there could be a perception that digital tools were hype or a fad – but affirms spend visibility is the real deal.
“If you look at spend data, if I’m the business stakeholder, you’re coming and showing me things that happened six months before,” he tells us. “One of the things we actively tell customers is to understand that there is a difference between spend and cost. Spend is basically the last AP data that you get, which means it’s not even current.”
Procurement’s greatest time?
Given the disruptive nature of the past few years, procurement has had to stand up and be counted. For Kumar, he reflects on global challenges such as Covid, a war in Ukraine and inflation and its knock-on effect on procurement and the supply chain. He maintains that it’s a “difficult time” to be in the industry at the moment given the hurdles procurement and the wider world has faced head-on recently.
“We started off with Covid where we went and told suppliers, sorry, I don’t have money to spend so I’m going to stop spending,” he tells us. “Two months later, you tell them there’s a supply shock and since I’m your preferred customer, can you do something for me? Make sure my products are getting to me on time. Then six months later, there was a war in Ukraine where you were testing suppliers to see which side they were on and questioning whether or not to do business with them. After that, there were inflation concerns so things are constantly changing and you’re pivoting from one problem to another.
“It now means you need to have a platform ecosystem with multiple solution options so that there isn’t a single point of failure and avoid the need for a “transformation” every two years. Given the pace at which things are changing in the macro environment, those single points of failure are quickly going from lack of supply to resilience to risk to people to visibility. It could be something else tomorrow, it could be ESG tomorrow, we simply don’t know. I could have a really good risk assessment tool, but that might not be my focus six months from now – it could be something else. So resilience in the form of digital ecosystem housing different point solutions is paramount.”
Koray Köse, Chief Industry Officer at Everstream Analytics, speaks to us exclusively at DPW Amsterdam and discusses the importance of leading from the front in the supply chain
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Everstream Analytics sets the global supply chain standard.
Through the application of AI and predictive analytics to its vast proprietary dataset, Everstream delivers the predictive insights and risk analytics businesses need for a smarter, more autonomous and sustainable supply chain. Everstream’s proven solution integrates with procurement, logistics and business continuity platforms generating the complete information, sharper analysis, and accurate predictions required to turn the supply chain into a business asset.
Koray Köse is a supply chain expert, futurist and multi-lingual thought leader, CPO, researcher, and published author. He specialises in working with CSCOs, CPOs, CIOs and other c-level executives while possessing more than 20 years of success in developing global supply chain and sourcing strategies, re-engineering and transforming business processes, and maximising financial resources. Köse is experienced in designing new business frameworks, risk and governance processes and deploying full-scale ERP and procure-to-pay systems to drive efficiencies through digital transformation. He is an expert in industries such as automotive, pharma, life sciences, IT, electronics and FMCG and has served as Chief Industry Officer at Everstream Analytics since June 2023.
Koray Köse, Chief Industry Officer, Everstream Analytics
World’s first Slave-Free Alliance
Recently, Everstream became the world’s first Slave-Free Alliance (SFA) validated modern slavery and forced labour technology provider. Everstream’s collaboration combines the firm’s multi-tier supplier discovery and AI-powered risk monitoring and analytics with SFA’s proprietary forced labour intelligence to expose unknown risks and protect global supply chains from modern slavery and exploitation.
“We’ve had issues in supply chain before, like conflict minerals for instance was a big topic,” Köse tells us. “Legislation came that was rather weak, where companies can say we can’t confirm nor deny that we have conflict minerals in our products. Modern slavery takes it to a whole different level. In essence, you may get import issues the moment that you might be suspicious, or the government import controls may say, ‘this comes from a specific region that has general exposure’. You basically have a disruption in your supply chain.
“If you forget about the business side, your business is actually promoting ethics that your own company in its statement and the way you live don’t align with and you didn’t know about it. So unknowingly you have actually incremented the issue that you are tackling on your own and within your environment. For us it was important to live up to the promise and look for an NGO that is impactful, has a mindset that is all about partnership and not blaming or shaming, it’s about changing the environment.”
Breaking down barriers
Around 50 million people worldwide are living in modern slavery. It remains a serious problem in nearly every region, with over 40% occurring in upper-middle to high-income countries. Due to the opacity and complexity of today’s global supply networks, companies are increasingly vulnerable to the risk of forced labour. According to a study cited by Slave-Free Alliance, 77% of companies expect to find modern slavery somewhere in their supply chain. Through this alliance, Everstream will actively contribute to enhancing capabilities and eradicating modern slavery and forced labour from global supply chains.
“We started that partnership to transfer our knowledge and also get insights from their end and understand what the upcoming issues were in the arenas of modern-day slavery that we should keep an eye on and how to help our clients to be informed and avoid getting exposed,” says Köse. “That’s where I started to talk with Hope for Justice and have collaborated with them during my time at Gartner as well. Then legislation is pushing the matter to the forefront of supply chain issues.
“Now, there is also financial impact and disruption and there’s the ability to do good and live up to the promise of your own vision and the way you want to conduct your business. Then I wanted to put our product to test and make sure that it lives up to the promise and if it doesn’t then we fix it. We went through a validation process and we got 90% plus accuracy in the feedback, which is important as it’s another confidence boost that we’re doing the right thing and we should continue on that path. We are the first world’s first validated modern-day slavery solution to tackle the issue – we’re very proud of that.”
The value of due diligence
In today’s fast-paced world, due diligence has become more important than ever. Companies must ensure they are generating the best value for money and that the product that they’re purchasing actually meets their needs. Köse believes companies almost have no choice in 2023.
“It’s an element that is not only preserving value, but it also creates it too,” he explains. “In the past it was more like a checkbox exercise that you conducted because everyone thought it was the right thing to do. Meanwhile, you had spillovers that you didn’t know about. It’s almost like what I don’t know, I don’t care. Since transparency requirements have been augmented significantly and the realisation of transparency as a value driver has dropped through Covid almost instantaneously in the c-level boardroom, compliance has become a value driver.
“It’s not just a checkbox exercise where you say that you are compliant. It is an affirmation of your product quality, brand and innovation that speaks to the customers and the choice they make. If you are concatenating beliefs and values to your product in that moment, you just have created a customer and that customer will be retained throughout the lifetime that you actually care about what they care about.”
Global research and advisory giants Deloitte and DPW has announced a partnership to bring procurement innovation to organisations.
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Deloitte and DPW has announced a partnership to bring procurement innovation to organisations.
Under the terms of this strategic alliance, DPW LABS, the consulting arm of DPW, and Deloitte will work together to refine the boundaries of innovation in procurement.
From problem and strategy definition to proof of concept and deployment, through the DPW LABS innovation capabilities and digital ecosystem and Deloitte’s global transformation capabilities, the move allows for impact to be delivered at scale.
Deloitte is a global provider of audit and assurance, consulting, financial advisory, risk advisory, tax and related services.
The firm, which is a member of the Big Four in professional services, currently has about 330,000 employees in more than 150 countries and territories.
Founded in 2019, DPW stands as a global leader in procurement innovation. DPW LABS empowers organisations to identify and seize collaborative innovation opportunities with DPW’s line-up of pioneering startups, scale-ups, and tech innovation experts.
Herman Knevel, co-founder and co-CEO at DPW, said: “We are excited about this strategic partnership with Deloitte.
“This partnership will enable us to join forces and make tech work, expand and complement our impact at global scale.”
Michiel Junge, partner of sourcing and procurement at Deloitte, added: “We are united in our mission to make procurement awesome.
“The partnership with DPW will enable our clients to tap into DPW’s capabilities and ecosystem and define their procurement future.”
The move comes after DPW welcomed over 1,250 procurement professionals to Amsterdam for its annual conference.
DPW Amsterdam has quickly made its name as a hub of innovation and collaboration. It is one of the biggest and most influential tech events in procurement and supply chain.
CPOstrategy is a proud partner of ProcureCon Asia Transformation is on the lips and minds of every procurement and supply…
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CPOstrategy is a proud partner of ProcureCon Asia
Transformation is on the lips and minds of every procurement and supply chain professional right now. Procurement is increasingly being recognised for its vital role at the core of any business, thanks to the fact that CPOs and other supply chain professionals are executing enormous changes for the benefit of their organisations.
Set to be a major theme at ProcureCon Asia this year, running between the 11th and 13th of July at the Equarius Hotel in Singapore is the topic of transformation. Procurement professionals from all over the globe will come together to share ideas, make connections, and learn more about the profession through interactive learning and keynote speeches from experts.
All hands on deck
Ter Long Tay, Group Director at JTC Corporation, is one of the event’s illustrious speakers. For him, procurement transformation is a necessity, and requires the full support of the entire business.
“Procurement needs to reimagine its purpose and the role it plays,” says Tay. “It must go beyond the traditional efficiency, productivity, and management of procurement lifecycle. Successful transformation entails understanding the business and partnering with stakeholders on the decision-making process and the strategy of the company. It means being able to create value and have a seat at the table.”
Tay himself has a long history of victories in the procurement sphere. Years of experience in the real estate industry and centralised procurement at JTC gave him and his team the opportunity to understand each element of the business and their considerations better, and procurement – hand-in-hand with digitalisation – has been able to offer added value through the knowledge and experience gained from this involvement. Alongside insights gleaned from data, the business has been able to evolve through informed decision-making.
“For example, in a review of our procurement policies for infrastructure development, we were able to achieve a good ratio of partner vendors supporting our business while maintaining a healthy share of new entrants,” says Tay.
“This allows us to achieve a balanced outcome of value for money, business continuity, and industry development. We had intentionally used procurement as a lever to achieve other strategic outcomes, leveraging procurement to test or nudge the market in terms of specific sustainable solutions and investing in R&D for long-term benefit.”
CPOstrategy is a proud media partner of ProcureCon Asia 2023. Quote “CPOSTRATASIA15” for 15% off tickets here.
Woodlands North Coast, JTC
Meeting challenges head-on
Of course, there are often hurdles for procurement professionals to jump in order to successfully implement transformation. No big change is without its challenges, and Tay is experienced enough to understand where the pain points lie. For him, procurement has always been viewed through a certain lens, regardless of whether that lens still fits, and that can hold some businesses back. However, increasingly, the department is being looked to as a value-add creator of change.
“Traditionally, procurement has been viewed as transactional,” Tay explains. “Supporting operations while helping businesses reduce costs and increase profits. Now, companies are looking at procurement to achieve long-term business objectives. Arising from the pandemic, businesses are actively reviewing their supply chains and changing from a ‘just-in-time’ mindset to ‘just-in-case’.
“There is also significant traction regarding sustainability, and procurement is the department supporting new objectives more than ever.”
Seletar Aerospace Park, JTC
Business-procurement collaboration
Tay is bringing all of this expertise to ProcureCon Asia 2023, in order to share his knowledge with his peers and discuss solutions with other procurement professionals. The reason he wanted to speak at the event came from a ‘pay-it-forward’ mindset; he’s benefited enormously from speakers at previous summits sharing their own wisdom, and hopes to help others by sharing his own knowledge.
“I’ll be discussing the aspects of good business-procurement alignment,” Tay says. “Plus, the value procurement brings, how procurement can support the wider business through managing tensions – such as profits, governance, and risk management – as well as sustainability, and whether procurement is a leader or a follower.”
Tay hopes that focusing on business-procurement collaboration will achieve added value for those attending the summit. “Through collaboration within the procurement community, we can cross-pollinate ideas across different industries, encourage each other through success stories and learn from mistakes. We never walk alone in our procurement transformation journeys.”
For himself, Tay hopes to have the opportunity to network with his peers and continue gaining useful information and insights, as he has at previous events. “I want to learn from the best-in-class in the procurement community,” he concludes.
ProcureCon Asia is the leading procurement summit gathering and connecting CPOs and Heads of Procurement from the biggest companies in Asia. ProcureCon Asia 2023 will be happening from 11 – 13 July at the Equarius Hotel, Singapore. To learn more, click here.
The Top Procurement Events for the first quarter of 2023.
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Top Procurement Events for 2023
Hear from industry experts and keep up-to-date with the latest innovation in procurement by adding these upcoming, must visit, procurement events to your calendar in the first quarter of 2023.
ICSCM2023, 4th International Conference on Supply Chain Management
Macau, China | 13-15 January 2023
This academic conference – co-located with the International Conference on Computers in Management and Business – describes its main purpose as providing an international platform for presenting and publishing the latest scientific research outcomes on supply chain management. There will be opportunities for delegates to exchange new ideas, and to network with others, alongside the conference sessions. There is an optional tour, still to be confirmed, on the third day of the event.
Keynote speakers include Fugee TSUNG, Professor, HKUST (Guangzhou), Hong Kong, and Kwong Meng Teo, Senior Scientist, Huawei Technologies, 2012 Research Labs, China.
8th Annual Strategic Sourcing & Procurement MENA Summit
Dubai, UAE 24-25 | January 2023
Another hybrid event, the Strategic Sourcing & Procurement MENA Summit will offer delegates information on addressing current procurement challenges, focusing on areas such as category management, cost optimisation and risk mitigation. There will be case studies and discussions on e-procurement, plus solutions-based sessions on leadership in procurement.
Speakers will include experts from leading banks, telecoms, airlines, hotels, retailers, and other cross-industry companies, such as Emmanuel Augustin, Vice President Supply Chain Management | CPO, Dubai Airports and Kazim Duman, Director of Procurement, Rixos Hotels.
The agenda will cover:
Building a Sustainable Future
Risk Mitigation and Management
Prioritizing ESG: Procurement’s Role in Standardizing Sustainability
Cost Reduction and Value Generation
Talent Development and Acquisition Role in Strategic Sourcing and Procurement
From Good to Great in Digital Transformation
Leadership in Procurement Management
The Future of the Strategic Sourcing and Procurement
Held at the QEII Centre in central London, Procurement Futures is a new conference, launching in 2023. It promises delegates the chance to find out how to make supply chains more resilient, with thought-provoking and presentations and discussions designed to inform and inspire.
There is a flexible programme of content that can be tailored to attendees’ preferences, with networking opportunities throughout and a huge variety of sessions to attend and take part in. This CIPS event has three streams of content: Insights, Ignite and Interact. Insights will showcase presentations and panel discussions from leaders, Ignite will consist of hands-on workshops to help delegates optimise their procurement strategies and Interact will be smaller groups taking part in interactive roundtables and debates.
Speakers across the two days will include Ross Grierson, Director of Procurement, Primark; Patrick Dunne, Director of Group Property, FM & Procurement (CPO), Sainsburys Plc; Rebecca Simpson, Procurement and Supply Chain Director, Balfour Beatty; and Nick Jenkinson, Chief Procurement Officer, Santander.
In addition, delegates are able to book a one-to-one career workshop, where they’ll get advice on professional development from coaches covering a variety of specialisms.
The third World Digital Procurement Summit is aimed at procurement directors, VPs, managers and other industry specialists. The two-day event will focus on accelerating procurement processes, adopting emerging technologies, finding the right talent, overcoming the barriers to progress and embarking on a journey of transformation. It’s a hybrid event, bringing together procurement experts from various industries, which will maximise knowledge exchange opportunities. The event organisers list five key learning points for delegates:
Exploring the latest advances in data and cognitive technologies to gain greater insights and improve procurement processes
Overhauling the procurement ecosystem with new technologies and strategies to drive business value
Sharing the best practices of monitoring and managing a range of risks to hedge against future disruptions
Developing capabilities and skillsets required for the digital transformation of procurement
Defining ESG metrics of the procurement strategy to ensure business continuity
Speakers will include Paul Harlington, Group Procurement Director at TUI Group and Patrick Foelck, Head of Strategy and Transformation Procurement at Roche.
Returning for its 8th annual event, Women in Procurement & Supply Chain will deliver two days dedicated to leadership and the future of procurement. The event will feature a series of exclusive panel discussions and keynote addresses examining career development, overcoming imposter syndrome, working with confidence, developing an unbeatable talent pool, mentoring, diversity and inclusivity. It will also address risk mitigation, digital disruption, ESG, sustainability, economic development, ethical sourcing, category management, cultural diversity, strategic sourcing, supplier relationships, procurement with purpose, and supply chain resilience. There are two pre-conference masterclass options on 6 March – that can be booked separately – covering either contract law or leadership skills.
Some of the reasons to attend include:
Discover the path to taking your procurement career to a new level while elevating your organisation with dedicated days on leadership and the future of procurement
Learn best practice strategies to facedown supply chain vulnerabilities and reduce risk exposure
Get ahead of the game with insights into the future of procurement and the impact of globalisation on modern supply chains
Put yourself at the cutting edge of ESG and procurement with the latest updates and trends in procurement with purpose
Speakers for the main two-day conference include Michelle Richard, Director of Procurement, Thales; Karina Davies, Chief Procurement Officer, icare NSW; and Kylie McKinlay, Procurement Partner – Property and Business, Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
With a focus on what makes CPOs tick, the Americas Procurement Congress will feature the region’s most progressive CPOs sharing their expertise in keynote presentations and working groups. Giving delegates the tools to stay on the cutting edge of procurement developments, there are also sessions aimed at those with responsibilities over governance, procurement capabilities and quantifying data. Unsurprisingly, sustainability will also be a key theme in 2023, and attendees will hear from a diverse range of sustainability leaders about how to transition from traditional metrics to a purpose-driven function.
The agenda for Americas Procurement Congress 2023 will include:
Sustainability of the future
How to transition from traditional metrics to a purpose-driven function
Harnessing the power of digital transformation
Utilizing data as a driver of sustainable value, supply continuity and transparency
Agile procurement
New approaches and skills that facilitate speed and agility
Frictionless procurement
Removing friction from the procurement process to support high-velocity sourcing
Beyond Just in Time
Designing future-fit supply networks for an age of chaos and conflict
