In an era of tighter budgets, shrinking headcounts, and soaring expectations, procurement organizations must do more with less. HP is embracing that challenge head-on, using AI and autonomous sourcing to transform procurement from a cost center into a value engine. In a recent Globality webinar, Chris Patafio (Global Head of Indirect Procurement, HP) and Steve Dyson (VP, Global Head of Indirect Procurement, HP) joined Keith Hausmann (Chief Customer Officer, Globality) to share how HP leverages AI to achieve both efficiency and strategic impact.
HP finds itself in a moment of dual pressures: cutting costs while continuing to push innovation. As Patafio put it, “Within HP we are looking for new efficiencies as we are reducing headcount and reducing costs. The technology that exists today is going to enable an environment that is truly self-serve.”
This is a familiar story for procurement teams everywhere. As organizations scale or contract, resources are stretched thin. The question becomes: how can procurement maintain—or even elevate—its impact, without overwhelming teams? HP’s answer lies in smart automation, reimagined workflows, and aligning procurement more closely with business objectives.
At the heart of HP’s transformation is autonomous sourcing — an AI-powered engine that handles much of the supplier matching, proposal generation, and decision support that used to consume procurement resources. Instead of manual workflows, emails, spreadsheets, and back-and-forths, HP is evolving to a more streamlined, self-serve model.
HP’s leaders emphasized that autonomous sourcing is not about removing humans from the process; it’s about augmenting human decision-making. The AI takes on the repetitive, high-volume tasks, freeing procurement professionals to focus on strategy, relationship-building, and oversight.
The result? Faster cycle times, better supplier fits, and a more scalable procurement function.
One of the major challenges in large enterprises is maintaining visibility and compliance across numerous sourcing events, departments, and global operations. HP is using the AI-powered platform to deliver consistent process adherence without micromanagement.
Because the system can automatically enforce policies, monitor compliance, and provide audit trails, Procurement leaders gain real-time insight into spend, decision criteria, and supplier performance. This not only helps reduce risk but also gives governance teams more confidence in decentralized sourcing.
As Dyson explained, confidence in compliance is a key enabler to letting users adopt self-serve models — it’s a safety net that lets procurement decentralize without losing control.
Efficiency alone, while valuable, is rarely enough to tip procurement into the strategic zone. What HP is chasing is enterprise value — the multiplier impact that procurement can deliver across cost, innovation, agility, and stakeholder confidence.
Through autonomous sourcing, HP has:
Reduced sourcing cycle times from weeks to days
Captured cost savings more consistently across categories
Increased the proportion of spend under procurement governance
Freed procurement teams for higher-value work (innovation, supplier collaboration, analytics)
Scaled sourcing across more non-core categories without adding headcount
In short, HP has created a virtuous cycle: more sourcing events, handled faster and better, which in turn builds credibility for procurement, enabling it to stretch into new domains.
From the webinar, several key lessons emerge for procurement leaders considering a similar path:
Think of AI as augmentation, not replacement
The goal is not to sidelined procurement staff — it’s to allow them to operate at a higher level, focusing on negotiation, supplier strategy, and business alignment.
Guardrails matter
To let users adopt self-serve autonomy, you need embedded policies, compliance checks, and transparent audit trails. These allow decentralization without chaos.
Start with high-potential categories
Automate where the volume is high, decisions are more formulaic, and the potential ROI is obvious. That builds confidence and momentum for expansion.
Measure relentlessly
Track cycle times, savings, compliance, lift in spend under management, and stakeholder satisfaction. Use that data to iterate and expand.
Align culture and narrative
Embracing AI in procurement requires a change in mindset. Procurement teams must see themselves as enablers of value, not just guardians of process.
Many procurement functions are at a crossroads: continue relying on manual workflows, or leap into automation and AI. HP’s journey provides a model for how to navigate the transition in a way that balances risk, control, and impact.
If your organization is asking:
“Can we keep up with business demand while our headcount is under pressure?”
“How do we scale procurement across more spend categories without breaking the team?”
“How can procurement show strategic value beyond cost control?”
Then the lessons from HP’s deployment of autonomous sourcing are directly relevant.
Artificial intelligence is no longer futuristic — it’s a competitive imperative. The question for procurement leaders is how to adopt it thoughtfully, with governance, and in a way that lifts the entire function.