STRATEGIC SOURCING
“ You’ ve accomplished something through technology or AI deployment but if you don’ t add an investment in people to sustain gains, they won’ t grow and may even slide backwards.”
While the definition of‘ high performing’ is ultimately individual and comes down to the perspectives and needs of an organisation, Gary explains that for him,“ the definition of a high-performing supplier has evolved significantly in recent years, mostly down to rising expectations around digital capability, while reliability and pricing remain a constant importance.”
Businesses increasingly want suppliers that can integrate seamlessly into digital procurement and finance ecosystems, particularly as global trade becomes more interconnected.
Echoing Deloitte’ s findings, McKinsey’ s analysis also projects that those who embrace AI will see procurement functions be 25 to 40 % more efficient( Transforming procurement functions for an AI-driven world) – but only if they have the right digital infrastructure in place.
“ Procurement can no longer afford to operate with fragmented, outdated, or incomplete data,” explain Aasheesh Mittal, Partner; Roman Belotserkovskiy, Partner; and Theano Liakopoulou, Senior Partner at Deloitte.
They add:“ We estimate that today’ s procurement functions use less than 20 % of the data available to them to support decision-making [...]
138 July 2026