There is no shortage of opportunities to transform procurement. The challenge is deciding where to focus first when cost reduction, AI, process efficiency, supplier risk, data quality and stakeholder expectations all compete for attention.

Time, budget and organisational capacity remain constrained. Organisations making the greatest progress are rarely trying to transform everything at once. Instead, they make deliberate choices about where transformation will deliver the greatest business value.

That was a recurring theme during a recent webinar discussion between Graham Crawshaw, Procurement Content Director at CASME, and Matthew Bardell, Corporate SVP, Procurement Transformation & Advisory at WNS Procurement, part of Capgemini. Drawing on procurement benchmarking, insights from CASME member discussions and procurement transformation programmes across a range of organisations, they identified five questions that procurement leaders can use to prioritise procurement transformation initiatives, focus investment where it will deliver the greatest impact and build a procurement transformation strategy aligned to business value.

Cost pressure still sets the agenda

The first audience poll asked where procurement transformation is currently receiving the greatest focus.

Live Poll: Which outcome is receiving the greatest focus in your transformation programme today? 

Cost savings topped the list, selected by 35% of attendees. Process efficiency followed at 28%, ahead of supplier risk management (13%) and stakeholder experience (10%). Sustainability and ESG received no responses.

The results reflect today's commercial reality. Although AI dominates many procurement conversations, organisations still expect Procurement to deliver measurable financial outcomes. Process efficiency followed closely because it helps reduce the cost of procurement while creating much-needed capacity for teams who are already stretched.

As Graham observed: "The issue is not a lack of transformation opportunities. It's knowing where to focus first."

Most procurement leaders would probably recognise that situation. New technology, changing business priorities and growing stakeholder expectations all compete for attention, while organisations continue to face constraints on time, budget and organisational capacity. Success depends on making disciplined choices about which improvement initiatives genuinely deserve investment now and which can wait.

Matthew sees the same challenges in practice: "You absolutely have to start with what the expected business impact is, but then also not neglect a reasonably thorough diagnostic of where you're starting from."

It's easy to underestimate how often organisations start with a preferred solution rather than a clearly defined business problem. The result is activity, but not necessarily transformation.

Technology is rarely what holds transformation back

The second audience poll produced perhaps the session’s most revealing result.

Live Poll: What most often prevents transformation delivering its expected value?
 

Asked what most often prevents transformation delivering its expected value, 30% of respondents selected stakeholder adoption. Unclear priorities followed at 23%, ahead of limited team capacity and skills (16%) and poor data quality (12%). Only 5% believed technology misalignment was the primary barrier.

Technology is often seen as the biggest barrier because it's the most visible part of a transformation programme. The poll results suggest otherwise. Procurement practitioners identified people, priorities and organisational readiness as the real obstacles.

As Graham put it: "If you digitise a poor process, you've not transformed procurement. You've just made a poor process faster and more visible."

It's a simple observation, but one that many organisations still underestimate.

On its own, technology rarely transforms a poor process. It usually amplifies whatever already exists, whether that's efficient or inefficient.

Matthew illustrated the point with a recent client example. Procurement catalogues had been implemented successfully from a technical perspective, but adoption remained low because users had not been engaged, the catalogues were difficult to find and the available content was limited.

The technology worked, but the transformation didn't.

Procurement leaders often assume implementation marks the finish line. In reality, that's usually where the harder work begins.

Successful transformation depends as much on people adopting new ways of working as it does on implementing new technology. One without the other rarely delivers the business outcomes organisations set out to achieve.

Five questions to help prioritise procurement transformation

Before selecting technology, introducing AI or redesigning operating models, procurement leaders first need to understand where the organisation is losing value, where stakeholders experience unnecessary friction and which improvements will make the biggest commercial difference.

For procurement leaders trying to reset or test their roadmap, the discussion pointed to five practical questions:

1. Which business problem matters most?
   Focus on the challenge that will create the greatest business impact rather than the most visible opportunity.
2. Where can Procurement create the greatest commercial value?
   Consider where transformation will deliver measurable improvements through cost reduction, improved efficiency, reduced risk or improved control.
3. Where are stakeholders experiencing the greatest friction?
   Identify where Procurement is being bypassed, where processes create unnecessary effort or where adoption is likely to determine success.
4. Is the organisation ready for change?
   Assess whether the processes, data and governance are mature enough to support transformation and sustain the benefits.
5. How will success be measured?
   Before implementation begins, define what should be visibly better in three, six and twelve months.

None of those questions begins with technology. That’s deliberate. Technology should support business priorities, not become one.

Starting with the business problem makes it much easier to build a compelling business case, secure stakeholder support and measure whether the transformation has delivered the intended outcomes.

AI hasn't created the data problem

AI may be accelerating procurement transformation, but it’s also exposing weaknesses that Procurement has been discussing for years.

Poor-quality data produces poor-quality outputs. Inconsistent processes reduce confidence in automation, while weak governance makes change harder to sustain.

As Graham noted, Procurement has recognised the importance of data quality for years; AI has made it much harder to ignore.

Matthew added that organisations rarely secure investment simply to improve data quality. Investment becomes easier to justify when better data is linked to a clear business outcome, whether that's improving supplier insight, enabling AI, reducing manual effort or supporting better decision-making.

In that sense, AI has changed the economics of solving long-standing procurement challenges. It has made the commercial consequences of poor data, fragmented processes and inconsistent governance far more visible.

Confidence comes from clear priorities

The final audience poll asked attendees how confident they were that their current transformation roadmap was focused on the highest-impact priorities. 

Live Poll: How confident are you that your roadmap is focused on the highest-impact priorities?

Only 7% described themselves as very confident, while 37% were fairly confident and 56% said they were either not very confident, not confident or had no formal roadmap. The results suggest most procurement leaders generally know where they want to go but remain less certain about the sequence of priorities required to get there.

Matthew highlighted one discipline consistently shared by successful transformation programmes: agreeing how success will be measured before implementation begins and reviewing progress throughout delivery, rather than waiting until the end.

That reflects a broader challenge facing procurement leaders today. Most organisations already have more transformation initiatives than they have the capacity to deliver. The differentiator is not the number of programmes being launched or the technologies involved, but the ability to identify which changes will deliver the greatest business value and to maintain focus as new priorities emerge.

The teams making the most progress treat technology as an enabler of business priorities rather than a priority in its own right. They stay focused on the business outcomes they are trying to achieve and direct their efforts where it will have the greatest impact.

The discussion also reinforced that successful transformation depends on people as much as systems. As more transactional activity becomes automated, procurement teams will need stronger relationship management, change management, strategic thinking and data interpretation skills.

Technology is rarely the primary barrier to procurement transformation. More often, progress is held back by unclear priorities, limited stakeholder adoption and poorly defined measures of success.

The message from the discussion was clear: procurement transformation does not fail because there are too few opportunities to improve. It fails when organisations lack the discipline to choose what matters most.

For procurement leaders reviewing their roadmap, these five questions provide a practical way to identify the procurement transformation priorities that will deliver the greatest business value. Technology investment is only one part of the picture. Lasting success depends on ensuring priorities are clearly linked to business objectives, stakeholder adoption, organisational readiness and measurable outcomes. 

Watch the full webinar to hear Graham Crawshaw and Matthew Bardell discuss how procurement leaders can identify where transformation is losing value, avoid technology-led mistakes and build a roadmap around the priorities that matter most.

To learn more about how CASME helps procurement teams benchmark their transformation approach, learn from peers and make more informed decisions, contact the CASME team.