Category Archives: Best Practices

Myth-busting 2025 2015 Procurement Predictions and Trends! Part 3

Introduction

In our first instalment, we noted that the ambitious started pumping out 2025 prediction and trend articles in late November / early December, wanting to be ahead of the pack, even though there is rarely much value in these articles. First of all, and we say this with 25 years of experience in this space, the more they proclaim things will change … Secondly, the predictions all revolve around the same topics we’ve been talking about for almost two decades. In fact, if you dug up a Procurement predictions article for 2015, there’s a good chance 9 of the top 10 topic areas would be the same. (And see the links in our first article for two “future” series with about 3 dozen trends that are more or less as relevant now as they were then.)

In our last instalment, we started at the bottom of the list of the 10 core predictions (and variants) that came out of our initial review of 71 “predictions” and “trends” across the first eight articles we found, in an effort to demonstrate that most of these aren’t ground-shattering, new, or, if they actually are, not going to happen because the more they proclaim things will change …

In this instalment, we’re continuing to work our way up the list from the bottom to the top and continuing with “talent”.

Talent

There were 9 predictions which basically revolved around “up-skilling” and a “silver workforce”. Both of these we need to address, and myth-bust, but, as with our last article, we will start by listing all of the distinct predictions:

  • Continuous Learning and Development
  • More Time for the Human Side of Procurement
  • The “Golden Age of the Silver Worker”
  • Necessary Skills Will Continue to Evolve Alongside AI Integration
  • Procurement Workforce will Continue to Transform
  • Talent and Skills Development
  • Tipping Point for Procurement Skills Mismatch
  • Training & Up-Skilling
  • Young Talent Skill Hesitates to Enter Procurement

Every year a small minority says that this is the year that Procurement will get more skilled, but every year we don’t see much progress beyond the status quo, and that’s because, despite all of the lip-service we hear on the importance of talent, no one every allocates any significant budget to training. And if they do, it’s the first budget line to get cut. Nothing has changed much in the last two decades. Especially in North America — the belief is that you should already have all of the training for the job when you’re hired and, therefore, should NOT need any training. While necessary skills need to evolve alongside new Tech and AI integration, the skills that evolve organically won’t be much beyond what is needed to use the default workflow in the tool.

So while up-skilling is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL for better performance, for the most part, it’s not going to happen (beyond what employees can learn from using better tools with embedded, human reviewed, best practice). Any continuous learning and development that happens will be due to an action of the individual to go above and beyond, on their own time, to get better at their job (and then move on to a company that appreciates them more). And there won’t be more time for the human side of Procurement until companies implement modern, best practice, digital processes; better train their people to focus on the strategic and do strategic tasks better; and realize that Procurement is more than e-paper pushing. Significant progress is needed in the majority of Procurement departments to get to the human side.

And while it is also true that Procurement is still not a top occupational choice for young talent, the prediction that we are entering “the golden age of the silver worker” and that they will stick around is really off the mark. First of all, companies are still trying to find ways to retire senior talent, who they view as too expensive (and who they think they can replace with AI and cheap young talent in a third world economy), that go beyond offering early retirement options and include restructurings (to force layoffs), forced back to work (and assumed resignations if they don’t show up in the office), hour/location/team changes that they hope the older generation will find unacceptable (and leave on their own), and so on. Secondly, the “silver workers” you would want to keep are the ones that have the education, experience, talent, and track record to perform in the new digital-first Procurement economy, and that top talent pool is the talent pool that likely did very well over the last decade or so and probably doesn’t need to work — whereas the silver workers that need to work (and are willing to stay) are not the well educated and experienced strategic thinkers, but e-paper pushers that really have no role when most of their work can be automated.

At the end of the day, it’s the same ol’, Same Ol’ Situation … not enough (senior) talent, not enough skills in the talent we have, and technology advancing faster than the average organization is able to keep up with. Until a considerable focus is made on a) showing the younger generation that being a Procurement Pro is being Someone Who’s Cool and b) giving them proper, real-world training when they enter their job (without fear that they will just take that training and jump to a competitor in a year) (because no University is going to give it to them), there’ll always be a talent shortage, and it is now holding you back more than the platforms you are using (because even second generation platforms from fifteen years ago can be efficiently used to get damn good results if you know what you’re doing — and having seen the ProcureTech revolution since the first systems hit twenty-five years ago today, we are saying that with confidence).

What Should Happen? (But Won’t!)

1. Mentorships!

For two to three years, companies need to “over”*-invest in talent by retaining top-notch experience grey-hairs (the lucky ones) and bald heads to mentor new talent in the Art of Procurement (TM) and all of the systems, category, market, and business knowledge they need to be successful (and know when the Artificial Idiocy [“AI”] systems the MBAs are relying on are wrong) and keep the business in the black. We’re not the only ones to see the urgent need for mentorships. THE PROPHET sees it as well, as per his article on apprenticeships.

2. Knowledge Management Systems (KMS)

This 80 year old idea and 50 year old system concept is one that desperately needs to be revived and employed. Designed to capture, organize, and facilitate the distribution and utilization of an organizational knowledge, these systems were never adopted in the majority of organizations’s because they were seen as an unnecessary expense. Most managers, especially those from the age of low turnover, said “our people know their jobs, they work in teams, we only lose one or two at a time, and when we replace them, the pros that are left are there to help the new hires, so why do we need this unnecessary expense” and just ignored these systems. And while this was true in the 80s and 90s, where you got a job and were there for years (if not life), this started to change rapidly in the 00s. Now a lot of people change jobs every 2-3 years and organizations struggle to retain any knowledge — because as this shift started, the managers insisted on hanging on to their old mentality, would not consider KMS, or even admit how much the pace of change was accelerating. Then, to justify their decisions, they argued that “if lots of people change jobs every 2-3 years, then after a decade, they’ve worked in 3-4 organizations before they come to us and bring better practices with them, so we don’t need that KMS”, which would be true IF those resources received any decent training or mentorship at their past jobs. However, there’s never any training budget, or enough senior people to mentor the new hires, so all they bring with them is their scars and failures and hard knock learnings, which may or may not be appropriate for your organization. So please take Knowledge Management out of cryogenics before it’s too late!

Not only do we need a revival of mentorship, but organizations need to implement KMS systems that, as the knowledge is passed on, capture it in case the new hires leave or are unable to absorb everything at once.

Anyway, that’s two “trends” down, eight to go!

* there’s no such thing as “over” investing in talent, but the idiot MBAs with no real world experience and no knowledge of what the business does (because all they did as get a BBA, then an MBA, then an internment in a Big 3 or Big 4 where they followed poorly written playbooks to write up generic advice to clients) who have a number for how much every department should spend on “human resources” believe that any amount over that number is over-investing (but we’ll remind you again, this breed of MBAs are moronic Masters of Business Annihilation and should not be listened to)

Myth-busting 2025 2015 Procurement Predictions and Trends! Part 2

Introduction

In our last instalment, we noted that the ambitious started pumping out 2025 prediction and trend articles in late November / early December, wanting to be ahead of the pack, even though there is rarely much value in these articles. First of all, and we say this with 25 years of experience in this space, the more they proclaim things will change … Secondly, the predictions all revolve around the same topics we’ve been talking about for almost two decades. In fact, if you dug up a Procurement predictions article for 2015, there’s a good chance 9 of the top 10 topic areas would be the same.

To save you the trouble of reviewing all of these articles, which are going to be 80% the same (as the 71 “predictions” and “trends” from the first 8 articles we reviewed all fell nicely into 10 “core” areas with not a lot of difference between them), we are going to discuss the 10 core predictions (and variants) that you are going to see over and over again, with some of them being the same predictions we have seen over and over again, and, where necessary, contrast the dream with the reality. Just for the heck of it, we’ll do take them in reverse alphabetical order, because, why not?

Technology & Digital Transformation

These predictions basically revolved around the rise of SaaS-based “Digital Transformation” with calls out to agility and integration. More specifically, these were the 10 predictions and trends from the first 8 articles we reviewed.

  • Cloud-Based Solutions
  • Digital Tools
  • Digital Transformation and Technology Adoption
  • Diverse Digital Transformation Technologies will Become the Norm
  • Emphasis on Digital Procurement
  • Integrated Procurement Systems
  • Proliferation of Procurement Technology Platforms
  • Rise of Agile Procurement Processes
  • Rise of Digital Procurement
  • Rise of E-Procurement

As you can see, they all revolve around SaaS/Cloud-based “Digital Transformation”, which should not be a surprise. The SaaS transition started over 15 years ago, and revved up in a big way over the last few years when COVID forced business to put more of their processes online for remote/home access. And even though a lot of big companies are forcing employees to return to work, now that they’ve realized SaaS is easier to maintain (someone else manages the data centre, does the updates, etc.), expense (you’re not paying huge one-time fees up front), replace if needed (provided you make sure, up front, in the contract, that you have the right to export all of your data at any time in an industry standard format), and mitigate you exposure in the case of a cybersecurity breach (as the provider is required to maintain agreed upon security and privacy standards and you can insist they indemnify you for their failures to honour the contract) they are going to continue to replace legacy systems with SaaS as time goes on. It’s just a continuation of what they have been doing for the past four years. Nothing new, exciting, or unexpected here.

And yes, the smarter companies, in addition to ensuring they own their data and have the right to extract all of it at any time, will look for solutions that are easy to integrate into their current/planned SaaS ecosystem as well as those that increase their agility. It’s just good practice to try and future proof your SaaS as much as possible, especially considering poorly managed SaaS subscriptions contributed significantly to 500 Billion in wasted Technology spend last year.

So, yeah, it’s a trend. But did it take any prognostication to notice it? Nope!

What Should Happen? (But Won’t!)

Companies should analyze all of their systems and plan to replace any systems that

  • are not being used / not delivering value
  • don’t integrate with their ecosystem
  • don’t support modern Sourcing & Procurement processes

And we use the word “plan” because:

  • it takes time to identify the right solution, which has to be done by YOU and not a salesperson, and then to implement that solution, which needs to be overseen by YOU and not a third party with no stake and who only cares about how many hours they can bill, and then needs to be adopted by YOU and used regularly
  • the company may be locked into the current system for another one (1) to four (4) years depending on the deal signed by your predecessor, and escaping early may be way too costly, so you might be stuck with it for a few years (and have to focus on finding solutions to make it more usable/valuable)
  • you can only replace one system at a time in any department without causing so much disruption that you risk the business (big bang projects always result in big bangs; just Google “worst supply chain disasters” and you’ll see the vast majority are caused by technology failures, and about half by ERPs alone!)

Once you have the list of systems that you need to acquire / update, prioritize them based on the value a new system can deliver and how soon you could implement / replace a current system, and then begin the to identify, select, implement, integrate, train, and use the first system (on the list) on a daily basis. You should only begin the process of identifying a second system once the first system is being used on a daily basis (and not begin implementation of a second system until you are sure all the bugs are worked out of the first system).

And always remember that your success or failure depends on you. As we have previously noted, digital procurement transformation requires strategy and design … your strategy and your design. After all, you don’t want to be the company that pushes the technology project failure rate over 90%. (It’s 88% now and climbing year-over-year.)

Anyway, that’s one trend myth down, nine to go.

Myth-busting 2025 2015 Procurement Predictions and Trends! Part 1

The ambitious starting pumping these out late November / early December because, apparently, everyone wants to be first … to say almost the same thing they said last year (and the year before that … and the year before that … ) because, if they just keep making the same prediction, it will eventually come true … right?

However, just like the primary conference topics haven’t changed much in the last decade (and, as we pointed out earlier last year, just check out our 2014 series on The “Future” of Procurement and “Future” Trends and you’ll notice the topics are 90% the same as what were discussed last year … it’s only the current “hype” cycle technologies that change), neither have the predictions. the doctor reviewed 71 predictions / trends across 8 articles, and they neatly fell into 10 topic areas, with vary little differentiation between them. 9 of these were hot a decade ago. Heck, these 9 were being hailed as the core/future of Procurement two decades ago! The only difference is that the top prediction/trend just replaced one technology for another.

To make it abundantly clear how nothing has changed in the prediction world, and how very little is going to change in the Procurement world, we’re going to take the major predictions one-by-one and inject a little harsh reality. Often the dream is very nice, and sometimes the dream should be the reality, but, as we know, what “should be” and what “is” are often two very different situations! And no amount of wishing shall make the two meet. (Only hard work can do that!)

If you want to dive deep, the first 2025 prediction/trend articles that the doctor found are the following eight:

And the predictions they deliver fall into the following 10 categories:

  • AI
  • Category Management
  • Cost vs. Value
  • Data
  • Risk & Compliance
  • Strategic Value
  • Sustainability
  • Supplier Management
  • Talent
  • Technology & Digital Transformation

And if you simply replace “AI” with “Analytics”, you can go and dig up some classic articles on 2015 Procurement Predictions and Trends and realize what you read 10 years ago isn’t that much different than what is being pushed today. After all, it’s likely that the newer Procurement generation didn’t read any of it (and didn’t get any of it in training because there are no training budgets anymore) and it will all be new to them and, if you just change the buzzwords, it all sounds new, right? Right?

However, we’ll save you the trouble. We’ll summarize what the major predictions are, how accurate they are, and what will really happen in 2025. Remember, we’ve been around this space for 25 years and we know that the more they proclaim things will change …

Continuous Improvement is Needed Across the Board!

Risk is going up across the board.

Costs are about to go up across the board.

Supply is getting tight across the board.

Thus, organizations need to improve across the board.

But where do they start?

Good Question!

No Good Answers!

Regardless of how good an organization is doing, it needs to do better in:

  • cost
  • risk
  • supply assurance
  • supplier performance
  • MRO
  • sustainability
  • performance
  • etc.

But just like a solution provider can’t provide a solution that does everything (for everyone), an organization can’t tackle all of its problems at once.

So where does it start?

With efficiency.

Do a process analysis, identify where you are most inefficient, and install a modern technological solution to increase efficiency. At the end of the day, you can’t:

  • reduce cost
  • mitigate risk
  • increase supply assurance
  • improve supplier performance
  • enhance MRO
  • improve sustainability
  • enhance performance
  • etc.

without the time to do it. This means that any investment you make in improving efficiency and freeing up more of your people’s time will continue to return value day-over-day, month-over-month, and year-over-year.

As they become more efficient, they’ll become better at identifying what enhancements will make them even more efficient, and pursue those. With just a few enhancements, they’ll gain the time they need to apply their human intelligence to determine where they have the most to gain.

Quick wins are good, but continual wins are better, and that’s what efficiency delivers.

Dear Vendor: Your Top 10 ProcureTech resolutions for 2025: Part 2

Last Friday we noted that even though we were done with our dumb, dead company walking, and smart company series, that did not mean that we weren’t going to give you good suggestions for 2025 ProcureTech resolutions. The simple fact of the matter is that if you are going to make resolutions, you should at least make good ones. So today we are going to give you five more great ones.

#5 No More Buzzwords (There’s Enough Hogwash Already!)

As per another of our posts from July, the Procurement Space is Filled with Hogwash! Too many marketing soundbites, buzzwords, and overall misdirection. the doctor can’t remember the last time he saw real content from a solution provider on precisely what the solution does (without at least a good dose of exaggeration), how it will help the customer now and over time, and what results the customer can realistically expect in the first year.

And definitely, and we mean most definitely, don’t use any buzzwords. As per our post on Demystifying the Marketing Madness, the following buzzwords, among many others, should be instantly dropped from your vocabulary (if they haven’t been dropped already):

  • AI-backed/driven/enabled/enhanced/powered etc.: no one cares; they just want solutions that give results … and a bit of honesty
  • Autonomous Sourcing: the entire point of any back-office technology is to automate tactical data processing and workflows that don’t need human intervention; all platforms should have some autonomy, and, moreover, only a small set of categories should be sourced fully autonomously (as per our recent post, the real answer is Augmented Intelligence)
  • Delightful Procurement: you’re offering enterprise tech, not a culinary experience
  • Intake-to-Procure: it’s not about taking requests in, it’s about executing sourcing, procurement, supply (& supplier) management, and similar events — so who cares if you can take requests you can’t process (no one, and, in fact, this might even upset your customers!)
  • Margin Multiplier: what the heck does this mean? anyone?
  • Orchestration: this is just a fancy term for easy API-based integration; middleware is not new, and the fact that it’s now SaaSy doesn’t make it special
  • Smart Procurement: technology is not smart; it’s dumb; just because computers calculate a billion times faster than we do doesn’t mean they think
  • Spend Orchestration: this is just a fancy word for orchestration of Procurement systems
  • Sustainable Procurement: all procurement should be sustainable, plus, sustainable means something different to everyone
  • Supplier Insights: so generic that every SXM platform can qualify; be specific!

Get the picture? Drop the buzzwords and go back to basics.

#4 No Pay-to-Play, Only Pay-for-Payback

Major analyst firms have recently hiked their fees again. As per our post on does it matter if analyst firms aren’t entirely pay-to-play if the Procurement space thinks they are, analyst firms are now seen as very expensive pay-to-play offerings.

Some vendors are paying the “minimum fees”, even though they are receiving nothing in return. Even worse, as noted in a recent article, some vendors are paying multiple times that, and getting almost nothing in return. A writeup or too. Access to research. A few “leads” that downloaded a select “report”, which aren’t leads at all and rarely result in even prospects, let alone sales.

Real analyst firms don’t charge for discussions, demos, or even basic write-ups. They charge for advice and work product (that you have an unlimited right to if you paid for it) and introduce you to customers who are actually looking for the type of solution that you offer.

Don’t pay for generic research. Don’t pay for papers you don’t get unlimited (non-exclusive) commercial rights to. Don’t pay for shared access to download lists. Pay for research you need. Pay for papers you own. Support partners who can help you identify potential clients who need you.

#3 Get Expert Help

SI has been telling you this for years. You don’t know everything. You’re definitely not experts in everything. So identify your weaknesses, admit them, and get help. Customers don’t care if your team are employees, contractors, or partners. Right now, they want results … and, given that their costs and risks are skyrocketing, they want results fast.

So whether you need help with product, marketing, sales, implementation, integration, or education, get the help, get it now, and succeed. You need to succeed as much as your customers do.

Please remember that, relative to the value they deliver, expert consultants are cheap.

#2 Customer-Centric Focus

By now you should see that the common thread is customer focus. And we don’t mean whatever you can to sell to them — we mean whatever you can do to serve your current customers and make them as successful as you possibly can. The goal should be more than whatever you promise them in sales. Happy customers renew without question. Happy customers trust you and are willing to buy more from you over time. Happy customers are willing to tell their peers about you. Happy customers will speak on your behalf at important events.

Successful companies focus on their customers, who in turn make them successful. After all, implementation success goes well beyond the basics!

#1 F*ck Gen-AI!

If you’ve read our post on valid uses for Gen-AI, you know our disdain for Gen-AI, and that it’s well earned because Gen-AI, overhyped to the max, is hallucinatory, biased (and often hateful), inciteful, scamming, destructive, brain-washing, sleeper, and probably full of dangers we’ve not yet discovered.

Gen-AI, like all technologies, has uses, but very limited ones. It was designed to process massive amounts of data, and, unlike traditional Deep Neural Nets that retrieve a canned response, instead assemble a response as a collection of sub-responses that are, statistically, most appropriate for the request at hand. As a result, it’s best suited for the summarization of large documents and response generation in natural language. No more, no less.

Plus, the recent 85% Gen-AI failure rate reported by Gartner should be more than enough to make you think twice. Customers are tired of the Gen-AI hype. It hasn’t delivered, and for most situations, it never will. Most Procurement processes require detailed mathematical calculations, analytics, and reasoning, which is something Gen-AI doesn’t do and never will (despite what some of the zealots may continue to believe). Plus, as we’ve already said, it’s not autonomous systems or BS AI, it’s Augmented Intelligence which uses the right solution for the problem at hand, which is sometimes traditional ML and sometimes just workflows that encode expert knowledge.

So unless your uses cases are restricted to massive document processing, creating a more natural language chatbot (which can take and forward requests to real solutions), or creating more natural language summaries of massive data sets, there’s no place for Gen-AI. So just F*ck it!

And use real-AI instead. After all, there is so much you can do with AI in Procurement, Sourcing, Supplier Discovery and Supplier Management with the AI we had before Gen-AI! And if you have advanced (predictive) analytics and optimization, the options are endless.