Todd Abner is founder, president and CEO of OMNIA Partners, a leading group purchasing org. in the U.S. serving public and private sectors.
Today’s chief procurement officers (CPOs) face a dramatically different landscape than their predecessors. While once relegated to the role of tactician, CPOs are now expected to be strategic leaders who simultaneously spearhead innovation, shore up organizational resilience and craft sustainable competitive advantages.
Here are some ways in which these procurement professionals can establish themselves as key value generators and maximize their impact.
1. Demonstrate procurement’s value beyond cost savings.
To showcase procurement’s ability to drive value outside of spend, CPOs should focus on establishing proof points that align with overarching organizational goals. This includes but is not limited to:
Operational Efficiency: On average, it takes 87.1 personnel hours to complete a request for a proposal (RFP), according to a report by the National Cooperative Procurement Partners (download required). In 2024 alone, teams submitted an average of 153 RFPs—and 61% are planning to increase how many RFPs they respond to this year. Imagine what professionals could do with that amount of time back. CPOs should assess their own and their team’s efficiency and then look for ways to improve it.
Risk Mitigation: CPOs can also proactively diversify suppliers to help insulate organizations from market volatility. Procurement teams can do this on their own but might find this creates more work, so another option could be working with a group purchasing organization (GPO). My company is a GPO, so we’ve seen how GPOs can assist procurement teams with cultivating supplier relationships, though it’s important to choose the right partner (more on this later).
Compliance: Purchasing teams must ensure their procurement processes align with their organization’s compliance requirements to avoid conflicting safety standards and quality control issues, not to mention maverick (rogue) spending.
Innovation Value: Procurement’s contribution to process improvements enables employees to do more with less. Procurement teams need to ensure they understand and align their purchasing processes with their organization’s goals and needs. CPOs should explore tools that comprehensively assess spending to help teams pinpoint areas of improvement that otherwise would go unnoticed.
Beyond this, CPOs can make the case for what this unlocked time can now go toward. It can be leveraged to further grow the company, target strategic areas that require specific expertise and input, upskill employees and explore business innovation. Higher education leaders can spend less time buying school supplies and more time educating the next generation. Nonprofits can devote more time to the communities they serve. Private equity firms can drive value faster across their portfolio. No matter the industry, the potential impacts are endless.
2. Establish strong stakeholder relationships.
To elevate procurement’s role in the C-suite and more broadly across the organization, CPOs need to break down organizational silos and build strong relationships, particularly with their counterparts in finance, information technology and operations.
This doesn’t have to be overly complicated, but the burden may often fall on the CPO to get things started. I’ve found most lines of business have a limited or dated understanding of what procurement can do. So, simply seeking out meaningful conversations to better understand the business challenges peers on the leadership team are facing—and where procurement can help—can build relationships that will have a lasting impact.
Most importantly, these conversations can help break down the misperception that the CPO’s strategic value can only be found in cost savings while fostering more holistic collaboration opportunities.
3. Become fluent in emerging technologies.
The digital transformation that has impacted nearly every sector also affects procurement. New use cases for AI are cropping up, but even beyond this, there are ways to leverage technology to enhance insights and streamline processes.
Procurement professionals should seek to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to adopting technologies that can improve how they work. Whether it’s taking advantage of e-commerce platforms that simplify the purchasing process or leveraging spend-visibility solutions to better understand organizational purchasing trends, procurement professionals should explore tools that can improve their insights.
4. Seek out a strategic partner.
CPOs and other procurement professionals aren’t in it alone. The job can be complex. As mentioned above, procurement professionals can consider engaging a GPO to help them with a number of tasks, such as operational efficiency, risk mitigation and compliance. A GPO can also help procurement teams make sense of their data and gain industry intelligence.
However, it’s critical to find the right partner. There are a few essential questions procurement leaders should ask:
• Do the GPO’s categories align with my spend profile?
• How does the GPO monitor supplier performance and ensure quality standards?
• How can we continue to work with our preferred existing suppliers within the GPO’s model?
• Can the GPO provide detailed case studies of savings achieved for organizations like mine?
• What are other ways in which you add value beyond cost savings?
Looking Ahead
The most successful CPOs will be those who balance traditional cost management with newer strategic imperatives like digital transformation and supply chain resilience. In doing so, they’ll continue transforming procurement from a cost center into a true value generator and more equal peer in the C-suite.
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