DONNA WILCZEK ON PROCUREMENT CHALLENGES
Balancing digital efficiency and ESG demands“ The same data that makes you efficient is what makes your ESG reporting believable in the first place. If you can’ t see your spend cleanly, you can’ t report supply chain emissions or verify that a supplier meets your standards. You’ re guessing. So we treat ESG as a governance question, not a separate reporting chore bolted on at the end. The controls that flag a non-compliant invoice are the same controls that surface a supplier who shouldn’ t be in your base. Either both run on one system, or neither one is real.”
Maverick spend“ Maverick spend isn’ t really a discipline problem. It’ s a friction problem. People go around the system when the system is slower than just doing the workaround. So the fix isn’ t more enforcement. It’ s making the compliant path the easy path. If buying through the platform is genuinely faster than emailing a supplier directly, people use it. Not because a policy told them to, but because it’ s less hassle. The clunky era of procurement software trained a whole generation of employees to avoid these tools on instinct. Winning that back means the thing has to actually be good, not just mandatory.”