“ I can see AI being a huge enabler but we ' re really only at the start of that journey , I don ' t see it taking over the whole of procurement any time soon ”
NICOLAS WALDEN SENIOR DIRECTOR , PROCUREMENT EXECUTIVE ADVISORY MEMBERSHIP PROGRAMMES THE HACKETT GROUP
of scarcity and inflation . It will also be third party risk management , business resilience , supply assurance , sustainability , and mastering data and information architectures . We run a study every year that looks at the CPO top 10 priorities , and people are always in the top 10 , but it ' s usually around number seven , eight , or even nine . But I think it needs to be much higher . One of the differences that we see with the world-class procurement organisation is that they invest double the number of training hours . They invest much more effort into developing their people . The majority of procurement leadership functions that I talk to are all on the same journey towards cost savings , but also managing risk , sustainability and collaborating with suppliers for innovation . We ' re all on the same journey and we ' re all chasing the same sort of people . You ' ll be able to bring in some people externally , but you ' ll also need to develop your own and move some people around the business . So I really think that people are key . It needs to be higher on that priority list .” procurementmag . com 51