FINANCE & SPEND
“ For more than half of procurement spend, we don’ t know what it actually should cost,” he says.“ We know we spend it, we know which supplier, we know the category, but we don’ t know the gap to perfection.”
He highlights a legacy of siloed, email-driven buying in procurement as the root cause.“ An engineer does something, the procurement person sends out an email and thinks they’ ve received the best quote, but that quote may still be 20 % off where it should be.”
Procurement’ s wake-up call The most common‘ wake-up call’ for CEOs that realise their procurement function is broken is discovering that growth has outpaced control.
“ This often occurs during periods of market stress, rapid growth or supply disruptions. Leadership starts asking simple questions- Who are our critical suppliers? What are we spending? What contracts do we have? They can’ t get quick and confident answers,” says David. This is often followed by a secondary‘ wake-up call’ where margins start to compress.
“ CEOs see revenue grow but profitability stagnate, and procurement often becomes the focus. They have a lot of operational activity but limited leverage over costs, risk, and supplier performance,” says David.
But what does that look like? In most cases, governance and approval workflows are the first to break down.
72 October 2026