The new age of procurement: Market trends, organisational evolution, and talent development
a rEPORT BY CONNEXUS GLOBAL
Discover the latest shifts and tech trends in global procurement, and their impact on talent and strategy. Gain actionable insights to boost your team’s capabilities and drive growth in a rapidly evolving landscape.
Introduction
Procurement is vital for company operations and value creation but remains a challenge for many due to its complexity and the constantly changing political, technological, and cultural landscape.
This fluidity creates a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous environment, presenting one of the most demanding challenges in decades. Adding to this is a critical talent shortage, expected to worsen.
This paper explores the evolving skills landscape in procurement and how skilled professionals drive corporate resilience and success. We also examine adaptive organisational structures that help companies meet modern procurement demands and discuss effective recruitment and skills development strategies.
Additionally, we highlight the role of artificial intelligence in procurement, especially regarding personnel needs and the talent landscape.
These topics are timely as procurement leaders face increasing uncertainty. A 2023 Gartner survey found that fewer than half of procurement professionals feel adequately skilled, and only 14% believe they will have the necessary talent for future demands.
This lack of confidence stems from a shift in key competencies, with more emphasis on business acumen and technology/data expertise over traditional procurement skills.
Concerns about talent shortages are coupled with failing procurement targets. Deloitte surveys show a nearly 18% drop in Chief Procurement Officers meeting cost-reduction targets and an 11% decrease in their ability to collaborate with other business functions.
With trends heading in the wrong direction, procurement leaders must act swiftly to address talent, cost savings, and organisational synergy. These factors are central to procurement’s value, and any shortfall will impact the entire organisation.
Clear obstacles have been identified by procurement leaders, and addressing these will be key to overcoming current challenges.
Prominent and recurring themes include talent limitations, lack of technological capability, and organisational disjointedness. Our aim is to propose solutions for each of these challenges and social and environmental initiatives to address other issues of widespread concern. Even in markets where public sentiment on these topics is not yet intense, the time to adapt has arrived. It is better to ride the wave than wait for it to crash into you.