Art of Procurement

Procurement doesn't have a data problem. It has a data delusion.
For 25 years, the function has told itself the same story: if we can just clean up our spend, we'll finally be in control. And yet here we are… swimming in the same dashboards, drowning in fields, and still struggling to answer a simple question: what do we spend?
In this episode of Buy: The Way…To Purposeful Procurement, Jason Busch, founder of Spend Matters and now a self-described builder of AI "co-workers," returns to the podcast to pressure-test BuyLaw #5: "prioritize comprehensive, high-quality data."
If procurement wants to operate in a world of AI employees, continuous validation, and P&L accountability, their data cannot remain partial, fragmented, or shaped by suppliers. 
Jason draws a sharp distinction between the roles or entities that manage procurement data: copilots, agents, and what he calls digital co-workers (multi-agent infrastructures capable of executing complex work autonomously). But all that capability comes with a catch. When the marginal cost of activity drops toward zero, the absolute risk of bad data increases exponentially.
Humans have the battle scars and the intuition to know when something isn't quite right with the data. AI doesn't, unless we explicitly teach it what 'right' looks like. That's where procurement's comfort with incomplete data becomes dangerous.
For decades, the function has relied on narrow slices of information: negotiated price, historical spend, maybe a market index or two, but in an AI-enabled world, that's insufficient. Jason explains why context means everything – supplier financial health, commodity forecasts, tariffs, inventory signals, competitive pricing, risk data, contract performance signals, governance structures, and the cultural guardrails that determine how decisions are made.
If procurement feeds incomplete, biased, or poorly governed data into increasingly autonomous systems, those systems won't just make mistakes faster; they'll actually end up institutionalizing them and making procurement's data problem unnecessarily worse.
Jason's advice for procurement is pragmatic and urgent: set up a data governance committee tomorrow. Not to tidy historical spend, but to define what data matters, which sources are trustworthy, what tolerances exist for error, and at what point autonomous systems are allowed to act on that data.
In a world of digital co-workers, incomplete data isn't a nuisance. It's a real, human liability.
Links:
Jason Busch on LinkedIn
Rich Ham on LinkedIn
Learn more at FineTuneUs.com

"Procurement tools traditionally look at history. To make better decisions, we need to start looking forward." - Tomas Wiemer, Global Multi-Industry Procurement & Digitalization Executive
Procurement teams are under pressure to contribute much more than just savings… 
They're being asked to provide strategic intelligence, support faster decisions, and become true business partners. But as organizations look to digital platforms and unified data, many leaders find that legacy models and fragmented systems hold them back.
In this episode, global procurement and digitization leader Tomas Wiemer joins Philip Ideson to discuss how procurement's role is changing and what leaders can do to keep up. Tomas shares lessons from building high-performing procurement teams across industries and continents, including why structured data and decisioning platforms are now essential for strategic influence.
You'll hear what's working (and what's not) as procurement navigates the shift from transactional control to value-focused partnerships, and get practical ideas for where to start… even if your tech stack is limited or your organization is in the early stages of a transformation journey. 
During their conversation, Tomas explains how to:
Navigate the shift from transactional work to strategic sourcing focus
Build the business case for investing in procurement technology and data
Start with the right data and metrics, no matter your maturity level
Use decisioning platforms to deepen business partnerships and speed action
Links:
Tomas Wiemer on LinkedIn
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In this episode of the ProcureTech Insider Startup of the Week, host Jyothi Hartley speaks with Ricky Ho, Co-Founder and CEO of SourceReady, about how AI and big data are transforming global supplier discovery and sourcing strategy.
SourceReady is building an AI-powered sourcing platform designed to automate the most time-consuming parts of the sourcing process – from supplier discovery to quote comparison and risk analysis. With access to 1.2 million suppliers across 100 countries, the platform helps procurement and sourcing teams uncover new suppliers, analyze risk, and streamline supplier communication.
Ricky shares how his background in a family textile business and his experience building and selling a supply chain startup led him to create SourceReady. Together, they discuss the limitations of traditional supplier directories, the growing complexity of global sourcing, and how AI agents can help procurement teams focus on strategy rather than manual tasks.
Links:
SourceReady Provider Profile
Download the 2025-26 ProcureTech100 Yearbook
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"The winners will be the people who make it happen themselves. The losers will be the ones that just bury their heads in the sand." - Andrew Daley, Managing Director, Digital Procurement and Supply Chain at Edbury Daley
The AI revolution is transforming procurement faster than ever before. Whether you're upskilling your team or rethinking your operating model, the choices you make now will set the pace for your entire function tomorrow.
In this episode, Andrew Daley, Managing Director of Digital Procurement and Supply Chain at Edbury Daley, returns to share what he's seeing on the front lines of talent acquisition and digital transformation. 
He explains why intellectual curiosity is the most sought-after trait in the AI era, how leading CPOs are shifting their strategies, and what separates thriving professionals from those at risk of being left behind.
His advice: don't just keep up… get ahead. Andrew's practical perspective and new research data will spark ideas for every procurement leader ready to make their mark.
In this episode, Andrew covers:
How to identify the mindset that sets top procurement talent apart in an AI-driven world
What leading organizations are (and aren't) doing to upskill their teams
How AI-driven change will impact future operating models
New survey data on AI adoption and readiness in procurement
Actionable advice for building an AI-capable team
Links:
Andrew Daley on LinkedIn
Building a 'Dream Scenario' of Procurement Excellence
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Procurement's incentive problem doesn't stop at the contract. It gets worse after signature.
In this Phil-Ins episode of "Buy: The Way…To Purposeful Procurement," Rich Ham and Philip Ideson are joined by Kelly Barner to unpack three "Buy Laws" at once, mainly because they're inseparable in practice.
First: count only what hits the ledger. If the value doesn't show up in actuals, it doesn't count. That means moving procurement out of the projection business and into the results business… where the CFO lives.
Second: stop counting only the good. The status quo lets category managers rack up credit for isolated wins while bad outcomes quietly pile up elsewhere. Procurement can't become more credible (or more strategic) if the scoreboard only records highlights.
Third: fund a validation function. If you're going to demand that outcomes be real, you have to resource the work that proves it. Validation isn't optional. It's the bridge between negotiation and execution, the place where contract adherence, leakage, "technically compliant but avoidable" spend, and invoice-level reality either confirm the deal… or expose the fiction.
Along the way, the conversation also confronts the uncomfortable tension at the heart of all three Buy Laws: procurement can't control everything that drives financial outcomes. But that can't be an excuse to keep rewarding imagined savings. The answer is a healthier system altogether, which should include clear carve-outs, smarter attribution, and a consistent discipline of asking the simplest kinds of questions procurement too often avoids: "this was supposed to be 12… so why is it 15?"
If procurement wants to claim value, they have to stay involved long enough to validate it, and build a measurement system strong enough to survive contact with reality.
Links:
Rich Ham on LinkedIn
Learn more at FineTuneUs.com