Five Years of Procurement Change: From Digital Ambition to Measurable Value

This year marks the fifth consecutive edition of Economist Enterprise’s Procurement Imperative research, sponsored by SAP. The latest study, Procurement at a Crossroads: From Optimism to Realism, surveyed 2,648 C-suite executives across 23 countries and examines how procurement leaders are responding to pressures ranging from cost control and geopolitical volatility to the rapid advance of artificial intelligence.

The anniversary offers an opportunity to look beyond any single year and consider how procurement has changed since the first year of this survey in 2022. What stands out is that the function has not followed a simple path from tactical to strategic. Its mandate has broadened, but so has the expectation to prove its value: control cost, anticipate risk, strengthen supply continuity, and turn technology investment into measurable outcomes.

Five takeaways from the research help show where procurement has been and where it may be heading next.

Takeaway 1: cost never left the job description—but it’s now more important than ever

In 2022, procurement leaders were still operating in the shadow of the pandemic. Supply chain risk ranked as the leading organizational risk, while COVID-19 disruption was the top driver of digital transformation.

As conditions changed, procurement’s agenda expanded to resilience, visibility, supplier diversification, and digitalization. But cost never disappeared. In 2022, cost savings led the areas where respondents believed procurement could deliver greater value. In the 2026 study, 54% of executives identify cost savings and optimization as procurement’s primary contribution to the organization. The line of questioning is not directly comparable year over year, but the broader pattern reveals that a more strategic mandate has not lessened the importance of financial discipline.

That is not a retreat. Modern cost management requires understanding demand, supplier economics, working capital, risk, and the operational consequences of commercial decisions. Procurement’s cost mandate has become more sophisticated, not less important.

Takeaway 2: digital transformation has moved from funding to execution

One of the clearest changes is what now stands in the way of transformation.

In 2022, budget was the leading barrier to digital transformation at 30.2%. By 2026, it dropped to fourth on the list, as ease of deployment became the primary concern of 71.7% of executives, a category that did not exist as a response option in 2022. Budget still matters, but it is no longer the defining obstacle.

Procurement spent years making the case for technology investment. The conversation has moved past “Can we afford it?” to “Can we actually implement it?” Procurement leaders are now challenged to embed technology across real processes, data environments, and organizations.

The motivation for transformation has also shifted. In 2022, pandemic disruption was driving both preparation and investment. Today’s expectation of flat-to-cautious growth is more structurally normal, but the pressure to do more with less remains a constant. The question for today’s procurement teams is whether they can deploy new technology effectively enough to generate repeatable business value.

Takeaway 3: AI has raised both the opportunity and the standard

The latest findings make the scale of the AI shift unmistakable. Sixty percent of executives name digital transformation as procurement’s top strategic priority for the next 12 to 18 months, up from 38% in 2025, with agentic AI emerging as the most sought-after near-term technology.

But enthusiasm is now accompanied by greater scrutiny. As AI enters category management, intake, sourcing, and other workflows, procurement leaders need to be clear about the business outcome being improved, the data required, and the controls governing how AI acts.

The five-year view shows how quickly expectations have advanced. In 2022, digital technology broadly led the category-management improvement agenda at 35.8%. By 2023 and 2024, priorities had grown more specific, centering on cost analysis, scenario planning, and data quality. By 2026, AI-driven and predictive insight is the dominant category-management priority, cited by 66.6% of respondents.

Technology is shifting from helping procurement professionals find information toward helping them interpret choices and execute defined tasks. As that happens, the value case must move with it—from access to information toward measurable improvements in decisions and outcomes.

Takeaway 4: strategic influence is becoming more operational

For years, procurement leaders have talked about earning a “seat at the table.” But the research suggests that where procurement sits on the organizational chart may be becoming a less useful measure of its strategic influence.

In 2022, the COO was already the largest procurement reporting line at 33.5%, with the CFO close behind at 29.3%. By 2026, the COO share has risen to 44%, while the CFO share stands at 24.4%, and reporting lines to the CEO have declined from 18.8% to 15.7%.

This suggests that procurement’s strategic relevance is increasingly expressed through operational execution. Influence comes from improving decisions across cost, supply, risk, and technology—not from where procurement appears on an organizational chart.

The results across recent years reinforce that shift. In 2023, 53% of executives agreed that procurement effectively collaborated with the rest of the organization to meet the company’s vision. That rose to 75% in 2024 and 90% in 2025, pointing to growing integration between procurement and the wider business.

That growing integration does not necessarily mean procurement has secured a permanent strategic role. In 2024, 70% of executives said procurement was actively involved in developing the wider organization’s digital transformation strategy, although only 18% strongly agreed. By 2026, executive confidence in procurement’s influence over digital transformation had fallen to 68%, down from 91% in 2025.

The contrast is telling: procurement is becoming more integrated with the business, but greater visibility does not automatically translate into sustained strategic influence. A seat at the table matters less than what procurement delivers once it is there.

Takeaway 5: the skills equation has changed

Technology is not the only thing procurement teams have had to reinvent. The capabilities required to use it effectively have changed just as quickly.

In 2022, skills gaps were relatively dispersed across technology (34.6%), category knowledge (32.0%), risk management (26.8%), and customer experience (25.6%). By 2025, AI proficiency and ethics had emerged as the leading skills priority at 68.2%, far ahead of more traditional procurement competencies at 34.1%.

But there is another part of the skills picture that deserves attention. In that same 2025 research, curiosity was prioritized by just 10% of respondents. That stands in contrast to what I continue to hear from procurement leaders, who increasingly describe curiosity as one of the skills that will separate the teams that thrive in the AI era from those that merely use the technology.

Traditional procurement expertise is not obsolete. If anything, more capable technology increases the value of professionals who understand categories, suppliers, markets, and organizational change. AI fluency on its own is not enough. As technology takes on more work, professionals need the curiosity to question outputs, challenge assumptions, explore what is changing in a market, and bring business context to the decisions technology helps inform.

The opportunity lies in combining deep commercial knowledge with greater AI fluency. The procurement professional of the next five years will need to know not only how to use new tools, but when to challenge their outputs, how to apply business context, and where human judgment still matters most.

The next chapter is about proof

Five years ago, procurement transformation was heavily shaped by external shocks. Today, organizations are making more deliberate choices about AI, analytics, talent, and operating models while being asked to deliver savings, manage volatility, and improve productivity simultaneously.

The next chapter is about forging a clear connection between strategic and cost value, and between human expertise and AI capability. Five years of research suggest procurement has earned a broader role. The next five will be about proving what it can do with it.

Gordon Donovan is global vice president of Research, Procurement, and External Workforce at SAP.