The Globality Blog

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.

The Procurement Imperative at HP

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.

Autonomous Sourcing as a Game Changer

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.

Unlocking Visibility and Compliance at Scale

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.

Driving Business Value Beyond Efficiency

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.

Lessons from HP’s Journey

From the webinar, several key lessons emerge for procurement leaders considering a similar path:

1. 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.

2. Guardrails matter
   To let users adopt self-serve autonomy, you need embedded policies, compliance checks, and transparent audit trails. These allow decentralization without chaos.

3. 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.

4. Measure relentlessly
   Track cycle times, savings, compliance, lift in spend under management, and stakeholder satisfaction. Use that data to iterate and expand.

5. 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.

Why This Matters to Procurement Leaders Now

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.

Companies are in a race to build more agents. In trying to win by sheer volume, they’re reducing agents to simple task executors, prioritizing quantity over quality, and ending up with narrow bots that lack real range, perspective or intelligence. That got me thinking about one of my favorite books, Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein.

Epstein makes a compelling case that in a complex and unpredictable world, the most successful experts often start as generalists. He argues that exploring broadly across different domains, rather than specializing early, enables deeper creativity and better problem-solving. Inherently, this is why many company leaders have come through cross-functional management development programs. The book challenges the conventional wisdom behind early specialization and the 10,000-hour rule popularized by Malcolm Gladwell, showing through case studies in sports, science, and business that broad experience can foster the most impactful expertise. This synthesis of diverse knowledge often leads to innovative thinking and long-term success.

MORE ISN'T ALWAYS MERRIER

What struck me is how relevant the book is, not just for people but for how we should be thinking about AI agents. Range reads almost like a blueprint for building agents. It lays out, without intending to, how to get closer to Artificial General Intelligence by enabling systems to transfer learning, synthesize insights from unexpected domains far beyond what any single human can experience in a lifetime, and apply prior experience in novel ways. The future breakthrough may come from the range of insights taken from areas that haven't historically been leveraged, simply because humans can’t easily share or connect such a wide spectrum.

Humans have constraints. We learn linearly, build expertise slowly, and specialize out of necessity. Even the most versatile professionals need years to develop true cross-functional fluency. But agents aren’t bound by those limits. They start with a foundation of pre-trained knowledge, no ramp-up, no onboarding. They can instantly ingest the experience of thousands, switch roles fluidly, and see patterns humans can’t.

PRIORITIZING THE END USER

In procurement, this is especially important. Yes, it’s a specialist domain, but it’s not just one task or one job. In fact, most procurement people swivel chair throughout the day, as people constantly talk about, from category management to sourcing to supplier relationship management to ensuring supply continuity. Think about all the talent you'd need to manage trillions of dollars in trade. Imagine the range of skills, experience, knowledge, and strategic execution required. It spans sourcing, supplier discovery, stakeholder intake, requirement definition, RFP creation, negotiation, contract management, compliance, risk assessment, legal alignment, finance integration, and ongoing performance management.

Traditionally, we split this work across teams. But with agents, do we really need one per task, or should we deploy a single procurement agent with the range and depth to handle entire processes? Would the best human organizational strategy be to create silos and dozens of hand-offs?….probably not. And is this really a decision about architecture, marketing, user experience, or go-to-market strategy? Or is it about delivering what users actually need: a cohesive, intelligent partner that understands the full procurement lifecycle?

Do we need a PO agent, a supplier search agent, an SOW-writing agent, and a negotiation agent? Or can one agent do it all? And are we seeing companies reduce each agent to something overly narrow for technical, business model, or marketing reasons, often ignoring what users actually need? Let’s be clear, software companies are rolling out task-based agents because it serves their purposes for land and expand selling… NOT because it’s better for a fully connected user experience as the procurement community has been discussing for decades.

TOO MANY AGENTS SPOILS THE BROTH

Unfortunately, that’s the current trend. Startups are building agents like RPA bots instead of domain specialists, each scoped narrowly to a single task. The result feels like too many agents, not enough intelligence, and no cohesive long-term vision.

It's not a coincidence. Maybe it's driven by the belief that creating more agents increases your TAM. Maybe it sounds good in a pitch deck. But procurement professionals aren’t easily convinced. They’re ROI-driven and they deeply care about their stakeholder experiences. What they see isn’t intelligence, it’s fragmentation. It’s a race to build more agents, not cohesive ones. I was recently asked how many agents we have, as if success is measured by count rather than capability or cohesiveness in user experience.

Maybe it’s just semantics, but in this model, you end up with one agent to read, another to write, and another to do math. But those aren’t roles, they’re capabilities. You wouldn’t hire 50 people to do 50 isolated tasks. You’d hire talent who understands the broader context and equip them with the tools to scale. That’s how intelligent agents should be built, a single agent with the full range of skills and capabilities required to deliver results. Internally, yes, the architecture leverages multi-agent techniques, but the user should experience one coherent, intelligent partner, not a fragmented swarm of bots.

WHY COMPANIES LOVE GLO - PROCUREMENT'S MOST ADVANCED AGENT

At Globality, that’s what we’re doing. Glo is a full-spectrum AI agent with deep procurement expertise and broad contextual understanding, designed to reason, learn, and operate across every stage of the lifecycle, from “I have a need” to “I am now engaged with my supplier to satisfy my need”. I see Glo navigate simple and complex sourcing requests that span industries, regulations, and internal dynamics, direct and indirect, across sectors including telecom (e.g. BT), financial services (e.g. T. Rowe Price, Fidelity, Invesco), higher education (e.g. London School of Economics), consumer goods and retail (e.g. Tesco), technology and enterprise IT (e.g. HP), and others. It manages everything from tail‑spend and complex services to multi‑billion‑dollar strategic sourcing, covering thousands of categories with deep expertise and autonomous decision‑making. Glo doesn’t just respond. It understands. It adapts. It applies what it’s learned elsewhere to new, unfamiliar problems.

That’s what Range teaches us. Creativity, adaptability, and intelligence don’t come from narrow focus. They come from breadth, from drawing connections across industries, from learning across boundaries. That’s the real path to superintelligence, and the design philosophy behind great agents.

Over time, we’ll see both general-purpose agents like ChatGPT or Copilot and specialist domain agents built for medicine, engineering, procurement, and more. But the domain agents that win won’t be the narrow ones. They’ll be the ones with deep range within their space, pretrained across disciplines, capable of navigating complexity, and reasoning across what was historically siloed.

The specialist agent with the broadest context wins. That’s the future we’re building toward!

In a world of increasing economic pressure and complexity, procurement leaders are facing a clear imperative: move faster, operate smarter, and deliver more strategic value. At the heart of this shift lies a powerful new tool – AI agents – and their impact on spend analytics is already reshaping the way global enterprises make sourcing decisions.

We recently hosted a webinar exploring this very topic, exploring how AI agents are moving procurement from reactive reporting to proactive analysis and action. Here are five key takeaways:

1. Data Visibility Is No Longer Enough – Action Is the New Benchmark
For years, procurement has struggled with fragmented data across siloed systems. Traditional dashboards and reports can only take you so far – they show what is happening, but not why, and certainly not what to do next. That’s where AI agents come in.

Globality’s AI agent, Glo, operates in real time to deliver instant, contextual insights drawn from enterprise-wide spend data. But it doesn’t stop there. Glo turns those insights into recommended actions, giving teams the ability to course-correct, launch sourcing events, or drive compliance – without waiting for manual analysis or spreadsheet wrangling.

As Keith McFarlane, Globality’s Chief Technology Officer, noted: “It’s about turning insight into action—automatically, intuitively, and at scale.”

2. AI Agents Amplify Human Intelligence, Not Replace It
Contrary to common fears around AI, Globality’s approach emphasizes augmentation, not automation in isolation. Glo is designed to act as a collaborative partner—surfacing trends, flagging anomalies, and recommending next steps—while keeping human decision-makers firmly in control.

Lior Delgo, Globality Co-Founder and President said: “Think of Glo like a digital sourcing expert that works 24/7, has full visibility across all your data, and never misses a detail. But it still puts the human at the center of the decision-making process.”

This partnership allows procurement teams to move faster without sacrificing strategic thinking, freeing up valuable time for innovation and supplier collaboration.

3. Speed, Savings, and Strategy – All at Once
From large multinational organizations to complex public sector institutions, Glo is already driving measurable results:

• Cost savings through smarter supplier choices and reduced maverick spend
• Faster cycle times by eliminating manual RFPs and automating routine processes
• Strategic alignment by connecting sourcing actions directly to business objectives

What used to take days of back-and-forth between procurement and business stakeholders can now happen in minutes—with consistency, compliance, and confidence. As one of Globality’s G2000 customers put it, “It’s like having a sourcing team that never sleeps and always knows the right next move.”

4. Built for the Enterprise, Ready for Tomorrow
Unlike point solutions or traditional analytics tools, Glo is built to scale with the world’s largest companies. Whether managing thousands of suppliers, multiple business units, or diverse global categories, Glo learns from your data and adapts to your unique context.

And because it’s conversational and intuitive, adoption is fast – business users and procurement professionals alike can engage with Glo in natural language, getting real answers and sourcing advice quickly and easily.

5. The Future Is Proactive Procurement
This isn’t just about better dashboards. It’s about changing the role of procurement from a cost center to a strategic driver of value. AI agents like Glo represent a seismic shift: from passive analytics to active decision support. They enable organizations to ask not just what happened, but what should we do next – and then act swiftly to drive better business outcomes.

Click here to watch the whole webinar

See Procurement’s Most Advanced AI Agent in Action at the Next Glo Demo
If you're ready to see how AI agents can unlock new levels of efficiency, savings, and strategic value in your procurement organization, join our next Glo Demo. It’s a quick, practical walkthrough of the platform in action – with real examples from G2000 companies already transforming their sourcing approach.

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.

The Procurement Imperative at HP

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.

Autonomous Sourcing as a Game Changer

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.

Unlocking Visibility and Compliance at Scale

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.

Driving Business Value Beyond Efficiency

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.

Lessons from HP’s Journey

From the webinar, several key lessons emerge for procurement leaders considering a similar path:

1. 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.

2. Guardrails matter
   To let users adopt self-serve autonomy, you need embedded policies, compliance checks, and transparent audit trails. These allow decentralization without chaos.

3. 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.

4. Measure relentlessly
   Track cycle times, savings, compliance, lift in spend under management, and stakeholder satisfaction. Use that data to iterate and expand.

5. 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.

Why This Matters to Procurement Leaders Now

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.

Companies are in a race to build more agents. In trying to win by sheer volume, they’re reducing agents to simple task executors, prioritizing quantity over quality, and ending up with narrow bots that lack real range, perspective or intelligence. That got me thinking about one of my favorite books, Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein.

Epstein makes a compelling case that in a complex and unpredictable world, the most successful experts often start as generalists. He argues that exploring broadly across different domains, rather than specializing early, enables deeper creativity and better problem-solving. Inherently, this is why many company leaders have come through cross-functional management development programs. The book challenges the conventional wisdom behind early specialization and the 10,000-hour rule popularized by Malcolm Gladwell, showing through case studies in sports, science, and business that broad experience can foster the most impactful expertise. This synthesis of diverse knowledge often leads to innovative thinking and long-term success.

MORE ISN'T ALWAYS MERRIER

What struck me is how relevant the book is, not just for people but for how we should be thinking about AI agents. Range reads almost like a blueprint for building agents. It lays out, without intending to, how to get closer to Artificial General Intelligence by enabling systems to transfer learning, synthesize insights from unexpected domains far beyond what any single human can experience in a lifetime, and apply prior experience in novel ways. The future breakthrough may come from the range of insights taken from areas that haven't historically been leveraged, simply because humans can’t easily share or connect such a wide spectrum.

Humans have constraints. We learn linearly, build expertise slowly, and specialize out of necessity. Even the most versatile professionals need years to develop true cross-functional fluency. But agents aren’t bound by those limits. They start with a foundation of pre-trained knowledge, no ramp-up, no onboarding. They can instantly ingest the experience of thousands, switch roles fluidly, and see patterns humans can’t.

PRIORITIZING THE END USER

In procurement, this is especially important. Yes, it’s a specialist domain, but it’s not just one task or one job. In fact, most procurement people swivel chair throughout the day, as people constantly talk about, from category management to sourcing to supplier relationship management to ensuring supply continuity. Think about all the talent you'd need to manage trillions of dollars in trade. Imagine the range of skills, experience, knowledge, and strategic execution required. It spans sourcing, supplier discovery, stakeholder intake, requirement definition, RFP creation, negotiation, contract management, compliance, risk assessment, legal alignment, finance integration, and ongoing performance management.

Traditionally, we split this work across teams. But with agents, do we really need one per task, or should we deploy a single procurement agent with the range and depth to handle entire processes? Would the best human organizational strategy be to create silos and dozens of hand-offs?….probably not. And is this really a decision about architecture, marketing, user experience, or go-to-market strategy? Or is it about delivering what users actually need: a cohesive, intelligent partner that understands the full procurement lifecycle?

Do we need a PO agent, a supplier search agent, an SOW-writing agent, and a negotiation agent? Or can one agent do it all? And are we seeing companies reduce each agent to something overly narrow for technical, business model, or marketing reasons, often ignoring what users actually need? Let’s be clear, software companies are rolling out task-based agents because it serves their purposes for land and expand selling… NOT because it’s better for a fully connected user experience as the procurement community has been discussing for decades.

TOO MANY AGENTS SPOILS THE BROTH

Unfortunately, that’s the current trend. Startups are building agents like RPA bots instead of domain specialists, each scoped narrowly to a single task. The result feels like too many agents, not enough intelligence, and no cohesive long-term vision.

It's not a coincidence. Maybe it's driven by the belief that creating more agents increases your TAM. Maybe it sounds good in a pitch deck. But procurement professionals aren’t easily convinced. They’re ROI-driven and they deeply care about their stakeholder experiences. What they see isn’t intelligence, it’s fragmentation. It’s a race to build more agents, not cohesive ones. I was recently asked how many agents we have, as if success is measured by count rather than capability or cohesiveness in user experience.

Maybe it’s just semantics, but in this model, you end up with one agent to read, another to write, and another to do math. But those aren’t roles, they’re capabilities. You wouldn’t hire 50 people to do 50 isolated tasks. You’d hire talent who understands the broader context and equip them with the tools to scale. That’s how intelligent agents should be built, a single agent with the full range of skills and capabilities required to deliver results. Internally, yes, the architecture leverages multi-agent techniques, but the user should experience one coherent, intelligent partner, not a fragmented swarm of bots.

WHY COMPANIES LOVE GLO - PROCUREMENT'S MOST ADVANCED AGENT

At Globality, that’s what we’re doing. Glo is a full-spectrum AI agent with deep procurement expertise and broad contextual understanding, designed to reason, learn, and operate across every stage of the lifecycle, from “I have a need” to “I am now engaged with my supplier to satisfy my need”. I see Glo navigate simple and complex sourcing requests that span industries, regulations, and internal dynamics, direct and indirect, across sectors including telecom (e.g. BT), financial services (e.g. T. Rowe Price, Fidelity, Invesco), higher education (e.g. London School of Economics), consumer goods and retail (e.g. Tesco), technology and enterprise IT (e.g. HP), and others. It manages everything from tail‑spend and complex services to multi‑billion‑dollar strategic sourcing, covering thousands of categories with deep expertise and autonomous decision‑making. Glo doesn’t just respond. It understands. It adapts. It applies what it’s learned elsewhere to new, unfamiliar problems.

That’s what Range teaches us. Creativity, adaptability, and intelligence don’t come from narrow focus. They come from breadth, from drawing connections across industries, from learning across boundaries. That’s the real path to superintelligence, and the design philosophy behind great agents.

Over time, we’ll see both general-purpose agents like ChatGPT or Copilot and specialist domain agents built for medicine, engineering, procurement, and more. But the domain agents that win won’t be the narrow ones. They’ll be the ones with deep range within their space, pretrained across disciplines, capable of navigating complexity, and reasoning across what was historically siloed.

The specialist agent with the broadest context wins. That’s the future we’re building toward!

Driven by the rise of a forward-thinking and ambitious new generation of AI-empowered Chief Procurement Officers (CPOs), who are reshaping the landscape with bold, innovative, and data-driven strategies, supported by cutting-edge technology, procurement is undergoing a significant shift. This transformation is redefining not only how procurement operates but also its overall importance and influence within organizations, moving from a more traditional support function to a strategic driver of new business value.

This new approach has fundamentally transformed the procurement function, making it more modern, dynamic, and, perhaps unexpectedly, “cool,” while drawing in a fresh wave of talented professionals to the field. As Dr. Elouise Epstein points out, the powerful combination of advanced technology and the ongoing evolution of procurement is finally allowing the true strength of this long-underestimated function to emerge. She explains, “Very strong leaders [are] coming into the procurement profession [so instead] of people who simply ended up there, we’re seeing a new generation of motivated, highly capable difference-makers.” This new influx of talent is not only reshaping perceptions of procurement but also solidifying its position as a critical and indispensable driver of business success.

The increasing excitement within the procurement profession, particularly amongst naturally curious, change oriented business leaders who are recognising it as a cutting-edge and forward-thinking field, is, in my view, driven by their recognition of how rapidly it is evolving. They see the profession moving decisively away from traditional, manual processes such as spreadsheet analysis and time-consuming supplier searches, instead embracing fast, efficient, and transformative AI-powered solutions that are redefining how procurement operates.

Technological Evangelist CPOs
The increasing appeal of the profession is also closely linked to the rise of technological evangelist CPOs—trailblazers who are completely reimagining the role with innovative AI-powered strategies and digital-first approaches. These leaders are not only driving transformation but are also delivering tangible, quantifiable improvements in how their companies manage their spend. Notable examples include individuals who have made significant and highly beneficial shifts in procurement practices, demonstrating the immense value and potential of modern CPOs. These include:

• Cyril Pourrat (BT Sourced): Renowned for his "digital native company" vision, Cyril has become a leading advocate for progressive procurement methodologies, establishing a personal brand around these cutting-edge strategies. “We want to fully leverage AI, machine learning, and the digital ecosystem to position ourselves differently compared to other procurement companies,” he emphasised in a recent article.
• Oliver Gall (Prudential): In his influential role at the leading insurance provider, Oliver is focused on enhancing user experience, strategic enablement, and modern operating models, actively moving away from traditional procurement approaches. In a recent LinkedIn post, he expressed, “We stand at an incredibly exciting inflection point in procurement history, a moment where we have an opportunity to elevate our profession to an even higher level of strategic value.”
  
  
• Katiana Lavarone (UCB): Katiana is another CPO focused on repositioning and rebranding procurement as a strategic function that helps the business grow from the top line as opposed to just looking at the bottom line as she explains in this interview: “Procurement really needs to ideate initiatives so that it contributes to the vision of the business.”
• Jorge de la Vega (Santander): As CEO of the global banking giant Santander’s procurement arm, Aquanima, Jorge is leading the adoption of AI-driven sourcing in a traditionally risk-averse and conservative sector to deliver new efficiencies and productivity throughout the buying journey. His team has also pioneered an Ambassadors Program initiative which promotes the benefits of new sourcing technology to stakeholders across the wider organization.
  
  
• Paula Glickenhaus (Bristol Myers Squibb): Last but certainly not least, Paula has revolutionised procurement at the pharmaceutical giant by challenging and dismantling long-standing procurement conventions. She has implemented bold, future-focused strategies that set new standards for innovation and transformation within the industry. “It’s all about moving from transactional to transformational,” she passionately shared with attendees at the most recent DPW, offering a clear message that procurement’s role is evolving to become a key driver of strategic change and business success.

Is the CPO chair a legitimate step to the corner office?

In practical terms, this shift means that CPOs now have a seat at the table and the full attention of the C suite. Early adopters of AI in procurement are creating such remarkable value for their organisations that their contributions are being highlighted to investors and customers. A prime example of this is BT. The UK telecom giant's latest full fiscal year notes underscore the role of generative AI in transforming procurement processes.

Similarly, Harold Wu, CPO at financial services provider T. Rowe Price, discussed in a 2024 podcast how AI-driven sourcing has helped him deliver more than $40 million in savings across $300m of spend under management – an impressive success that further illustrates how this new approach is delivering substantial, measurable value and transforming the way major corporations operate.

In summary, this bold new generation of CPOs are determined not to be undervalued as executives, particularly given their pivotal role in managing billions in company spend. I imagine that they – and the peers and aspiring procurement leaders following in their wake – are profoundly grateful for how AI has come at just the right moment, enabling them to reshape the narrative and propel the procurement profession to new, unprecedented heights.

John Paterson, former Chief Procurement Officer at IBM, once described the relationship between the CFO and the CPO “the most important relationship that exists or needs to exist within the enterprise.”

Back in 2014, he was absolutely right. He was also right when he acknowledged that this relationship has often been fraught with tension. And, unfortunately, the progress made since then has been minimal.

Why? Because if you’re a CPO, it can be a struggle to always make your voice heard. People recognize that procurement handles various tasks, delivers savings, sources categories, manages risk and compliance and improves supplier costs. However, the CFO often struggles to see these efforts reflected in tangible positive changes on the P&L.

The reality is that the connectivity between budgets and budgeting and procurement—in other words, between FP&A and procurement—is sub-optimized. As a result, if a company sets a $73 million budget for the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) and procurement helps save $3 million, the CMO will still end up spending the entire $73 million. In an early outsourcing deal, finance essentially said to us, "I'm just tired of procurement telling me how many auctions they ran and how much savings they generated because I never see this in the P&L!"

This also happens because procurement is not brought into the process until the last minute. Procurement should be an enabler to achieve the same or more with a smaller budget, but this often doesn’t happen because the business sees the procurement function as a blocker. A significant portion of procurement's day involves someone coming to them and saying, "I need you to finalize this deal for me; I've already figured it out."

Procurement then asks, "What process did you follow, and what evidence do you have for choosing that supplier?" The response is more often than not along the lines of, "I don't have any, but I'm in a rush—so just do it." Further, even when procurement is involved early in the decision-making process, the loop is not closed with the FP&A budgeting process, allowing value to be re-spent without much rigor or governance.

Finding the metrics that underline your contribution

As it stands, then, there's little reason for the CFO to prioritize this relationship. As John Paterson pointed out years ago, both the CFO and the CPO have the best interests of the business at heart, but they can't always agree on how “best” is operationalized and managed from the beginning of a buying process, through to budget governance.

However, the good news is, there's a way to make the value generated by procurement visible in the P&L and get this relationship back on track. What is needed is a mechanism to finally get some real visibility into spending. If a business needs to generate cost savings, as many do right now, they should reduce the budgets and then involve procurement to ensure that departments like Marketing and IT still get everything they need, but with a 10% lower budget or whatever reduction makes the most sense.

Realistically, that’s only going to happen if we move closer to true zero-based budgeting. This approach involves asking each year what the business needs to achieve and then building the budget from zero, based on what is required to meet those goals.

If we adopted this approach—driven by the AI-powered autonomous sourcing that many of our customers are implementing—procurement and finance would establish a strong and cohesive relationship. For instance, at UK retail giant Tesco, a new “Spend to Invest” plan exemplifies this. Procurement generated £645 million ($823 million) in value, which the CFO then reinvested to enhance pricing power and expand into new countries, regions, and business lines.

And in the case of global investment management leader T. Rowe Price, a new approach to procurement using AI has helped increase the function’s internal visibility and therefore its standing with finance. 

According to its Chief Procurement Officer, Harold Wu, every member of its management are now big supporters of the discipline. As a result, the firm, was able to generate more than $40 million in operational savings. As he says, “If you're able to increase the value, that gets noticed.”

Using AI to create a clear link between cost reduction efforts and increased budget and working capital for your organization? Sounds like a C-suite individual destined for success!

To truly unlock the value of procurement, CPOs must transcend traditional boundaries and align closely with their counterparts in the C-suite, particularly the CFO, impressing upon them the need to invest in AI-powered digital platforms to drive new efficiencies and cost savings.

However, the challenge lies in securing the necessary funding to implement these technologies, particularly when the benefits of procurement’s initiatives are often realized in other departments’ budgets.

In conversation with Eric Shaver, Managing Partner at Kinsei Partners, on the latest Spend Sessions podcast, I discussed how procurement leaders can obtain the funds they need to invest in game-changing digital technology by better communicating the value that sourcing teams bring to the business.

CPOs face the daunting task of convincing CFOs to allocate funds for procurement technologies that will yield savings across the organization. Eric emphasizes that this conversation needs to shift from a budget request to a strategic discussion about enterprise-wide value. CFOs are focused on optimizing operating cash flow, free cash flow, and ultimately, shareholder value. Therefore, CPOs must frame their technology investments not as procurement tools, but as operational assets that will drive margin improvement and enhance the company’s financial performance.

A critical step for CPOs is to construct a robust business case that resonates with the CFO’s priorities. This involves demonstrating how procurement technology can optimize key financial metrics, such as EBITDA margin and working capital. For example, by reducing indirect spend, CPOs can have a direct impact on SG&A expenses, which in turn improves EBITDA. Similarly, effective procurement strategies can shorten the cash conversion cycle, freeing up capital that can be reinvested in the business.

Eric suggests that CPOs should leverage financial modeling to highlight the projected impact of these technologies on the company’s bottom line. It’s not enough to be conservative—CPOs must present the most accurate and comprehensive case possible, including all potential savings and efficiencies. In doing so, they demonstrate that their initiatives are not just cost centers but are strategic investments that contribute to the company’s overall financial health.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a game-changer in the procurement space, offering unprecedented opportunities to optimize sourcing, improve supplier negotiations, and streamline processes. Eric describes AI as a “force multiplier,” capable of dramatically increasing efficiency and decision-making speed. However, the key to successfully integrating AI into procurement lies in convincing the CFO of its value.

AI’s potential to enhance procurement is significant, but it requires upfront investment. Here again, the CPO must make a compelling case to the CFO, showing how AI can drive enterprise-wide benefits. Whether it’s through improved supplier management, enhanced demand forecasting, or automated workflows, AI can help procurement teams deliver measurable financial results.

4. Position Procurement as a Strategic Asset
One of the biggest challenges CPOs face is overcoming the perception that procurement technology is a non-essential expense. As Eric points out, procurement is often mislabeled as a back-office function, when in reality, it has the potential to influence every aspect of the business. By positioning procurement technology as an operational asset rather than a procurement tool, CPOs can shift the conversation from cost to value creation.

This repositioning is crucial in the current economic climate, where rising interest rates and the cost of capital are squeezing margins. CPOs who can demonstrate how their initiatives will optimize free cash flow and improve return on invested capital will find it easier to secure the necessary funding.

Final Thoughts: The Path Forward
For CPOs, the path to success lies in deepening their financial fluency and aligning their goals with those of the CFO and the broader C-suite. By presenting procurement initiatives as strategic investments that drive enterprise-wide value, CPOs can secure the funding they need to implement the digital tools that will transform their function.

Eric’s advice is clear: don’t shy away from the financials. Understand how your initiatives impact the company’s key metrics, build a strong business case, and position procurement as a strategic asset that drives shareholder value. In doing so, CPOs can not only secure the funding they need but also elevate their role within the organization, becoming true partners in driving business success.

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The office of the CFO has traditionally had six functions, or areas of business, that together form the work and tasks of the finance team. Each area has built up an accompanying technology stack with increasing levels of automation being injected into processes as finance leaders strive for new efficiencies and cost reductions while increasing governance and control to improve risk management.

Across each function, new software from innovative vendors has become popular with CFOs as they’ve seized on the imperative to automate repetitive, low-value tasks and free up their teams to focus on more strategic work that creates opportunities for enterprise investment and growth.

• Procure to Pay systems such as SAP, Coupa and GEP have established themselves as an integral part of the CFO office, automating the purchasing lifecycle – from requisitions and POs to receiving goods and payment. 
• Order to Cash has seen the advent of autonomous receivables through technology pioneered by the likes of Sage, Oracle and Esker.
• Treasury has automated both cash forecasting and cash management with software such as Kyriba.
• Record to Report has successfully implemented autonomous accounting with tools like High Radius and BlackLine.
• FP&A uses planning tools like Anaplan to transform a company’s financial decision-making with connected planning and insights.
• Tax software such as Vertex automates and digitizes processes from exemption certificate management to B2B validation to invoicing.

But what many CFOs don’t realize is that there is now, in fact, a seventh area of business within their office and that this function offers the biggest and quickest opportunity to deliver improved productivity and increased efficiencies through the use of AI-driven automation – the chance to pick the lowest-hanging fruit and demonstrate immediate ROI on investment in new technology.

Spend management refers to every dollar a company pays out for goods and services but is often overlooked and hidden away in a dark corner of procurement. Effective spend management helps to ensure that every expenditure is necessary, strategic, and provides value to the company. It also involves analyzing spending patterns, identifying inefficiencies, and making adjustments to improve financial performance.

If a CFO brings more of their company’s spend under management, instead of allowing the business to bypass procurement with ‘rogue’ or ‘maverick’ spend then not only will they see 10-20% cost savings due to increased supplier competition, but cycle times will reduce by up to 90% as slow manual processes are automated.

Using automated spend management technology such as Globality, global enterprise companies can reduce the RFX process from 3-6 months to 27-35 days on average. This dramatic increase in speed and efficiency comes at all stages of the purchasing journey.

With AI-driven autonomous sourcing, the business user can still lead the process and include their preferred suppliers. However, within rules and guardrails set in place by procurement that will enhance competition and improve compliance and risk management by ensuring all purchases adhere to company policies.

Reducing the sourcing cycle from 3-6 months to 27-35 days

Engagement Initiation (Was 1 week, Now 1 day)

• Business User (BU) raises requestion for RFx
• Schedule kick off call with BU (to discuss process)

Supplier Information & Requirement Gathering (Was 2-6 weeks, Now 2-3 days)

• Buyer sends NDA to new suppliers
• Buyer/BU partner get RFX documents together
• Buyer/BU agree timeline

RFx quotation phase (Was 2-4 weeks, Now 8-10 days)

• Buyer issues RFx email to selected suppliers which will include timeline & related documents

Quote Evaluation (Was 2-4 weeks, Now 2-3 days)

• Buyer receives quotes back
• BU/Buyer evaluate quote

Presentation (Was 2-4 weeks, Now 5-8 days)

• Shortlist selected supplier to present to BU
• Buyer starts negotiation conversations before and after presentation
• Buyer/BU select supplier

Contracting Stage (Was 1-6 months, Now 3-5 days)

• Contracting process begins

RFx Close Out (Was 1-2 weeks, Now 1-2 days)

• Buyer informs unselected suppliers

In many cases, G2000 companies are enjoying even greater efficiencies than those listed above. Iconic UK-based telecoms provider BT reduced its cycle time to market from seven to ten days down to just one day and reported this substantial efficiency gain in its 2024 Annual Report.

These figures were based on more than 1000 projects sourced on Globality’s AI-driven platform across nearly £8bn of spend so represent substantial new value to the business.

“We are now using generative AI so that our teams just have to type one sentence and the generative AI will help them along to do everything all the way to engaging with suppliers. It has super simplified the whole process,” says Cyril Pourrat, BT’s Chief Procurement Officer.

In addition to those speed to market improvements, BT has enjoyed double-digit savings across that spend as users collaborated with colleagues and suppliers and significantly reduce costs through increased competition, data-driven insights, and intelligent analysis.

Similarly, one of the world’s most recognizable sporting goods brands has adopted autonomous sourcing and its business users now self-serve for all events up to $3m with no involvement from procurement whatsoever. That has freed up 30 people from its Business Process Outsourcing office to work on other, higher-value projects – huge value to the company.

In an era where every dollar counts, especially in the face of economic uncertainties, managing spend more effectively can unlock significant value for a company, directly impacting its bottom line and bridging the gap between finance, procurement, and overall corporate strategy.

Adding spend management as the seventh function of the CFO office is not just a necessity; it’s an opportunity for CFOs to drive greater value for their organizations. The scope of their responsibilities has expanded beyond traditional financial management and CFOs are now strategic partners in business decision-making, playing a crucial role in driving growth and innovation.

Click here to book a demo of our award-winning AI-driven spend management platform.