Art of Procurement

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

"We compete with people's homes more than we do with other coworking locations because my job is to get people to want to come into my spaces, and that is what I focus on every single day." - Sarah Travers, CEO, Workbar
The future of work is unfolding quickly, and procurement leaders who also own real estate decisions can't afford to ignore trends in co-working. Whether you need to unlock flexibility, attract top talent, or better control costs, new workplace models are rapidly replacing traditional long-term leases.
In this episode, host Philip Ideson speaks with Sarah Travers, CEO of Workbar, a Boston-based coworking company that has built a flexible, community-focused model for organizations of all sizes. With more than two decades of experience shaping the category, Sarah shares the real reasons organizations pivot from headquarters to hub-and-spoke, how team-share memberships de-risk real estate, and what procurement teams should really look for beyond price per square foot.
In this episode, Sarah discusses how to:
Evaluate new coworking models to flex with your organization's needs
Avoid long-term liabilities by shifting to on-demand and shareable passes
Select the right mix of local and global providers to reduce risk
Build workplace experiences that go beyond convenience to real engagement

Links:
Sarah Travers on LinkedIn
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"Sometimes you just need to recognize that getting from the baseline, whatever your baseline, to the next step… that's really significant." - Jyothi Hartley, Director of Digital Enablement, AOP
Art of Procurement is proud to launch a brand-new podcast series: the ProcureTech Insider.
The procurement technology market is evolving faster than ever, promising exponential transformation. But what actually works in the real world?
ProcureTech Insider exists to take procurement leaders and decision makers beyond the hype. In this new series, we will bring you real-world intelligence from practitioners implementing technology, solution providers building next-generation capabilities, and experts and leaders evaluating what delivers impact in practice.
In this first episode, Art of Procurement Founder and Managing Director Philip Ideson welcomes Jyothi Harley, AOP's Director of Digital Enablement, to discuss the vision behind the show and to explore what digital transformation can look like inside visionary procurement teams.
With more than 25 years of experience across practitioner, transformation, and advisory roles, Jyothi shares why there is no one-size-fits-all blueprint for procurement technology success. Instead of chasing "big bang" transformation, she explains why incremental progress grounded in culture, timing, and organizational readiness often delivers the most sustainable impact.
If you're navigating AI buzz, (re)evaluating your tech stack, or feeling pressure to transform faster than your team may be able to absorb, this conversation – and all of those that will follow it – will help you identify your best next step.
In this episode, you'll learn:
Why there's no universal playbook for digital procurement transformation
How to assess your true starting point before investing in new technology
Why incremental progress can be more powerful than sweeping change
The role culture, adoption, and timing play in successful implementation
How AOP's digital enablement practice bridges strategy and execution
This episode also marks Art of Procurement's expanded coverage of the rapidly changing procuretech landscape through regular podcast episodes and the ProcureTech100.
Links:
Download the 2025-26 ProcureTech100 Yearbook
Subscribe to This Week in Procurement
Subscribe to Art of Procurement on YouTube

"The procurement and supply chain professions are ever more relevant to the prosperity of nations and to businesses as we go into the future." - Ben Farrell, Global Chief Executive Officer, The Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply (CIPS)
Striking a balance between tradition and disruption is at the top of the agenda for today's procurement leaders. Whether it's shifting global dynamics, technology, or the push for greater influence, the function's boundaries (and its reputation) are up for grabs.
Ben Farrell brings a perspective forged in the British Army, major retail, and boardrooms worldwide. Now, as Global CEO of The Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply (CIPS), he is focused on driving procurement's global profile and advancing the profession for a new generation. 
In this episode, Ben shares hard-won leadership lessons and makes his case for a more visible, empowered procurement function. This is a candid conversation about risk, advocacy, and the urgent need to rebrand procurement for the value-driven world.
In this episode, Ben covers:
Reframing leadership from constraint to empowerment
Navigating risk while still pursuing big opportunities
Raising the profile of procurement inside and outside of an organization
Embracing new technology as a catalyst, not a threat
Why CIPS – and procurement itself – may need a new name
Links:
Ben Farrell on LinkedIn
Subscribe to This Week in Procurement
Subscribe to Art of Procurement on YouTube

Procurement's biggest measurement problem isn't that "savings" is incomplete. It's that "savings" has become a substitute for truth.
In the first Buy: The Way…To Purposeful Procurement episode of 2026, co-hosts Philip Ideson and Rich Ham unveil the first of the show's new procurement "Buy-laws." It's the one that almost every serious practitioner agrees with, but very few organizations are ready to operationalize: replace savings with defined value.
That doesn't mean adding a few extra KPIs in addition to savings. It means removing the word entirely and replacing it with a primary metric that includes verified spend reduction and revenue generation, plus company-specific priorities like emissions reduction, process improvement, resilience, risk reduction, and anything else the business actually cares about. 
To help map what this kind of "value" can and should include, Phil and Rich are joined by Omer Abdullah, co-founder of The Smart Cube and co-author of Risk and Your Supply Chain: Preparing for the Next Global Crisis. Omer has spent decades close to the function, advising teams, building intelligence services around procurement decisions, and now working at the intersection of startups, go-to-market strategy, and what he calls a "post-AI" future for procurement.
The idea of "post-AI" matters more than it sounds. Omer isn't talking about a world where AI fades away. He's talking about the moment when AI becomes a hygiene factor – embedded, expected, and no longer a differentiator. The result is uncomfortable: once AI takes the transactional load, procurement doesn't automatically become "more strategic." Not unless leaders define what that actually means, what outcomes it should produce, and how to measure those outcomes without defaulting back to the simplest (and most misleading) number on the page.
The conversation also goes straight at one of procurement's most corrosive incentives: short-termism. The function keeps making long-term sacrifices for short-term wins because the system asks it to. Rich calls it a "scourge," and Omer lays out what a healthier alternative could look like. He recommends a scorecard that includes in-year expectations, multi-year outcomes that reflect how value compounds over time, and a controlled level of discretionary evaluation to capture the contributions that matter but refuse to sit neatly inside a spreadsheet cell. 
Underneath all of this is a truth that the episode doesn't dodge: none of it works without executive support. The CFO and CEO have to buy into procurement's expanded definition of value. Procurement can't wait to be understood; they have to be sold. Procurement is a business within a business, and the C-suite is its most important customer. If leaders don't see the function's potential, it's on procurement to advocate, educate, and prove (through better definitions and better scorekeeping) that the status quo isn't merely outdated. It's actively harmful.
Links:
Omer Abdullah on LinkedIn
Rich Ham on LinkedIn
Learn more at FineTuneUs.com