6 minute read 8 Feb 2024
Cranes loading containers at a port

Five priority actions for Chief Procurement Officers in 2024

By Guillaume Leopold

Partner, Business Consulting, Ernst & Young AG | EY Switzerland

Guillaume is a partner at EY, leading the Supply Chain & Operations practice in Switzerland.

6 minute read 8 Feb 2024

CPOs will need to focus on operating model performance, GenAI, supplier partnerships and sustainability while balancing supply security and cost.

In Brief:
  • As 2024 begins, supply chain procurement priorities need to reflect a shifting economic and social environment.
  • EY identified five priority actions for Chief Procurement Officers as they respond to procurement future trends and challenges.
  • CPOs should review business models, leverage GenAI, develop strategic partnerships, drive sustainability, and balance supply resilience with cost-efficiency.

In the rapidly evolving landscape of supply management, economic and social crises, the focus of Chief Procurement Officers (CPOs) and their teams is continuously shifting. As 2024 gets under way, it is time to take a closer look at procurement future trends that will define the CPO agenda this year.

In this article, we delve into five emerging priority actions. Our strategic analysis of these five key areas will provide valuable insights for procurement leaders, enabling them to drive efficiency and effectiveness in the future procurement landscape.

1. Perform an in-depth review of your operating model

In essence, the ideal operating model serves as a roadmap that defines the journey of procurement operations, translating the function into a strategic powerhouse. It helps steer the organization towards resilience, innovation and growth in an increasingly complex and dynamic business environment.

The journey to elevating procurement performance starts with reflecting on values and objectives.
Guillaume Leopold
Partner, Business Consulting, Ernst & Young AG | EY Switzerland

The year 2024 will continue to see companies reviewing their procurement operating model and aligning it with the organization’s strategic objectives. Key priorities for CPOs will include the clear definition of value creation and effective management of category centers of gravity. First, this means identifying which part of category spend should be influenced by procurement or delegated. Second comes assessing the complexity of managing those categories and adequate collaboration levels across local, regional and global interfaces. Then CPOs will need to calibrate the trade-offs between the efficiency of centralized operations with the stakeholder and market proximity that comes from local presence.

The journey to elevating procurement performance starts with reflecting on values and objectives. From maximizing buying power to fostering partnerships or operational resilience, the possibilities are endless. Procurement leaders need to evaluate which structures, capabilities, skillsets, and enablers will help them meet their objectives and play a key role in advocating the value of such transformation toward internal and external stakeholders.

2. Understand and leverage GenAI

Urgency around AI

70%

of CEOs surveyed in the EY CEO Outlook Pulse Survey believe they must act immediately on GenAI

The October 2023 EY CEO Outlook Pulse Survey showed that CEOs globally recognize the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) and 70% of CEOs surveyed believe they must act immediately on generative AI (GenAI) to avoid losing out to competitors. However, 68% find it challenging to develop an AI strategy due to uncertainties around GenAI.

AI, particularly GenAI, has the potential to overhaul procurement processes, allowing Chief Procurement Officers to apply it at every step for more efficient and effective results. It can help in crafting data-driven policies, automating performance tracking, planning talent development, and integrating digital strategies in leadership and steering activities. AI can also drive efficiencies in category strategies and sourcing activities and transform supplier data into an actionable plan for strategic procurement activities.

Operational procurement teams can use it to automate tasks like purchase order creation or invoice matching, thus freeing up time for more strategic tasks. Finally, procurement excellence teams can also benefit from AI's advanced analytics for benchmarking performance within the organization and the industry, identifying areas for improvement, and continuously driving procurement towards operational excellence.

Adopting GenAI is not just about digitalization, but a complete upgrade of the procurement process, fueling efficiency and redefining procurement in a tech-driven world.

3. Establish strategic supplier partnerships

The procurement function does not operate in isolation. Among multiple stakeholders, both within and across organizational boundaries, suppliers play a fundamental role. In this context, a constant priority for leading CPOs must be the establishment of tangible and strategic partnerships.

One of the available instruments to foster such partnerships is the Vested sourcing methodology, a proven and science-based approach based on in-depth research from the University of Tennessee.
The model promotes business relationships that are more than just transactional. It encourages procurement and suppliers to define mutual benefits and shared value foundation, nurturing a spirit of collaboration and symbiosis. In practice, procurement leaders can diffuse outcome-based economic models for procurement contracts that focus on the “what” rather than the “how”, creating an environment that shares both risks and rewards and maximizes the value of innovation and continuous improvement.

The application of such models can span vast industry spectra and partnership scenarios. From global facility management services to third-party logistics provider or energy management partnerships, Vested sourcing can be utilized by procurement leaders seeking to create durable and collaborative alliances with their suppliers.

4. Drive sustainable procurement practices

In an era defined by social awareness and environmental consciousness, sustainability has emerged as a strategic mandate that needs to be embedded deep within the procurement strategy.
One example of procurement’s strategic value in sustainability is the role of the business travel category manager. Often a major source of an organization’s emissions, business travel requires an adapted category approach that is seamlessly integrated within an organization-wide sustainability strategy to achieve greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction and net-zero targets.

Procurement in supply chain management can play a key role in avoiding business travel emissions. Key instruments might include travel policy adjustments (e.g., encouraging virtual meetings, multi-purpose trips and travel justification) and proper analytics (e.g., flagging of same-day trips).

Procurement can play a key role in enforcing sustainable development both directly and indirectly, advancing the organization’s long-term resilience, profitability, reputation and brand value.
Guillaume Leopold
Partner, Business Consulting, Ernst & Young AG | EY Switzerland

When travel is indeed necessary, procurement can work closely with agency and technology providers to reduce its environmental impact. The sourcing of solutions that integrate GHG calculations or carbon-budgeting functionalities for travel requests and booking can be instrumental for the success of a sustainability strategy.

Such practices are not limited to the business travel category, and procurement can play a key role in enforcing sustainable development both directly and indirectly, advancing the organization’s long-term supply chain resilience, profitability, reputation and brand value.

Sustainability is everyone’s business

We’re committed to helping business create value for sustainability as well as helping sustainability create value for business.

Discover more

5. Balance security of supply with cost and cash improvements

Navigating today’s economic uncertainty, procurement organizations must strike a delicate balance between ensuring supply security and driving cost and cash optimization.

Leading category management planning is required to address this trade-off. After proper assessment of demand and supply factors, procurement leaders can identify relevant initiatives to their categories. Strategies will necessarily vary depending on supplier and buyer forces, from maximizing buying power to nurturing supplier relationships, minimizing inefficiency or diminishing supply disruption.

In the face of market volatility and material scarcity, a category manager might opt for design-to-cost initiatives with the objectives of minimizing supply disruptions on critical materials and maximizing supplier relationships. On the other hand, a category leader handling complex, competitive, and low-margin commodities might opt for supplier tiering or value leakage initiatives to bring visibility on supply dynamics and to protect negotiated value.

Eventually, the ability to adapt its procurement strategies to the ever-changing market trends and organizational priorities will be key to the resilience and value of a procurement function.

Summary

By adapting the operating model to meet future trends in procurement, leveraging the power of GenAI, developing supplier partnerships, driving sustainable procurement practices and balancing security of supply with cost and cash improvements, procurement can position itself as a champion for value and growth creation.

Acknowledgement:

We thank Romina Levinta and Edouard Leroy for their valuable contribution to this article.

About this article

By Guillaume Leopold

Partner, Business Consulting, Ernst & Young AG | EY Switzerland

Guillaume is a partner at EY, leading the Supply Chain & Operations practice in Switzerland.