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The Procurement Blueprint for Human-Centric Digital Innovation
March 07, 2025
6 min read
Speaker:
Joe Gibson
Director - Digital Innovation, 4C Associates
Edited by
Deana Claessen
Community Manager, Kavida.ai
Speaker
Joe Gibson
Director - Digital Innovation, 4C Associates
Edited by
Deana Claessen
Community Manager, Kavida.ai
Whether organisations want to accept it or not, “the reckoning” is happening as we speak. Technological change is moving at a pace we can scarcely keep up with. The way that we work on a day-to-day basis is profoundly changing.
It’s widely documented why transformations fail. The rate at which organisations change is the problem, not the exponential pace that the technology is advancing. Human nature or organisational culture shifts more slowly. This is fundamentally going to change as we consider generational differences.
The way that Gen X or Gen Z work is very different to the way that a millennial works. They want change at a rapid pace, and navigate new technology more fluidly. In procurement, this means we are no longer dealing with the same assumptions and constraints we once had. What was once stable, is now fluid.
Procurement’s Reckoning and Strategic Evolution
In our personal lives, we face 30,000 to 35,000 micro decisions every single day, bombarded by a constant flood of data. Because of how we have to consume data, the only way we can do it is through technology. There’s no other way that a human mind can appraise all that information. We need something to screen a lot of that on a day-to-day basis to take a lot of the noise away.
Procurement has long been talked about as evolving from an operational bottleneck to a strategic function. That evolution is accelerating in a world marked by massive economic volatility, supply chain disruptions, and the expectation that procurement can fix it all (often without the recognition it deserves).
We’ve seen significant ‘blips’ in supply chains that tend to occur on a typical three-and-a-half to four-year cycle. Yet every crisis also highlights the critical role procurement plays in stabilising the business and hedging against future risks.
Organisations that have invested heavily in tech stacks (real-time analytics, automated workflows, autonomous intake solutions) find themselves more efficient, and able to respond quickly. Those organisations can be incredibly lean, incredibly profitable organisations. Meanwhile, the mid-market organisations, 300 million up to 5 billion, are a lot less mature, still working on a lot of paper-based ways of working and manual processes.
The Blueprint for Digital Innovation
A true digital procurement journey starts long before the technology is switched on. Too often, businesses rush into transformation only to discover they never truly identified the problem they were solving in the first place. So that’s where you begin.
Define the Problem Thoroughly
Procurement leaders must be vulnerable enough to say, “These are all the problems we’ve got.” That openness allows you to hone in on root causes before jumping to buy tools. If you skip this, you might implement technology that solves a problem you don’t even have—and by the nature of that, you create yourself another problem in terms of cost efficiency and ROI. You have to fall in love with understanding the problem. Finding a solution is easy in the end.
Roadmap and Collaborate
Before choosing a provider, conduct a detailed blueprinting phase. What does your future operating model look like? How do processes need to evolve? Which stakeholders across the business must you bring on board? If you don’t bring those people on the journey with you, just one of them can be a bottleneck. Months, at times years, of really good work can go out the window because a really key stakeholder wasn’t brought on the journey.
Manage the Change from Day One
Change management is crucial—not after you’ve signed with a technology vendor, but from the outset. Set up a coalition of change champions: cross-functional leaders, sponsors, and core teams who keep everyone engaged. This doesn’t have to be expensive or complicated, but it must be methodical. If you start your change journey only at the point you sign the license agreement with a technology provider, it’s too late.
Align People, Processes, and Tech
It’s much easier in an organisation to change your ways of working than it is to customise certain metadata fields or customise certain workflows. Technology often fails not because it’s inherently flawed, but because rigid legacy processes don’t align with how modern platforms operate. The technology works. The world has moved.
Continuous Improvement and Utilisation
Post-launch “hypercare” is only the beginning. Value typically emerges in months 6, 12, 18, well after the big launch. Regular nudges, incremental improvements, and close monitoring of adoption keep utilisation high. If the team have a decision not to use something because they find something else easier, you’ve lost them as a business user, you’ve lost your utilisation and you’ve lost your ROI.
We overestimate the short-term value of technology deployment and we underestimate the long-term value.
Human-Centric AI and Cultural Adoption
Artificial intelligence is upon us, and it will absolutely change how we work. This does not mean procurement disappears. The goal should be to automate the mundane – jobs that people fundamentally don’t want to do – so we can free up procurement professionals to be creative, innovative, and strategic.
Human-centricity in AI means ensuring it is designed and deployed with people at the heart of it. Yes, technology can crunch data or push supply chain notifications in real time, but it cannot replicate the nuanced conversations, relationship-building, or empathy required in supplier negotiations and stakeholder engagements.
Moreover, weaving AI into procurement culture demands trust and buy-in. This is not simply dropping an algorithm into your sourcing team. It is a continuous journey – small, intricate nudges from a change management point of view, throughout a very long period of time. As each generation becomes more accustomed to AI in daily life, we see a natural cultural shift – yet it is essential we anchor that shift in ethics, responsibility, and a clear vision of how AI augments human roles rather than replaces them wholesale.
The human will be the differentiator, not the AI.
The Future of Procurement
"As procurement professionals, the expectation of us is getting more and more. Some days we’re project managers. Some days we’re supposed to be risk experts. Some days we’re contract management experts, we’re a legal function. Some days we are process excellence experts. We have to wear this dual hat.
Because of our cross-functional nature, we touch many different business stakeholders, probably one of the only functions that does that outside of HR from a people point of view.
We have got an opportunity to really ring-fence the way that we work going forward and that is more driving innovation and growth to the top line.
[Procurement] are really entrenched with the suppliers. They spend a huge amount of time with the supply chain, so they’re preempting a lot of these shocks that are coming. Only we can do that. We must keep supporting other business functions. We must be the eyes and ears of the business into the supply chain."
Because of our cross-functional nature, we touch many different business stakeholders, probably one of the only functions that does that outside of HR from a people point of view.
We have got an opportunity to really ring-fence the way that we work going forward and that is more driving innovation and growth to the top line.
[Procurement] are really entrenched with the suppliers. They spend a huge amount of time with the supply chain, so they’re preempting a lot of these shocks that are coming. Only we can do that. We must keep supporting other business functions. We must be the eyes and ears of the business into the supply chain."
Joe Gibson
Director - Digital Innovation
That is the core promise of where we are heading. With digital literacy and AI-driven insights, we can bring incredible value to our organisations. But that human insight, curiosity, and ability to form relationships will shape our future. These capabilities, alongside the right technology, create procurement teams that are truly strategic, innovative, and indispensable.
NOTE: This blog article was adapted from an extended conversation with Joe, you can view his full episode here.
Speaker:
Joe Gibson
Director - Digital Innovation, 4C Associates
Joe drives digital innovation at 4C Associates. With over 14 years of leadership experience in transformation, procurement, and supply chain, Joe actively champions digital literacy for leadership.
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