Samir Khushalani

Macro challenges and gen AI are pushing procurement leaders to reimagine their organizations. Companies that can make the required shifts could unlock new value for the business. Procurement functions today face a perfect storm: an unpredictable macro landscape paired with an avalanche of digital disruption. In this context, procurement functions are under pressure to deliver more value with fewer resources.

The role of the procurement function is expanding from bargain hunter to business partner. Chief procurement officers (CPOs) recognize they must adopt more digitally sophisticated, data-driven practices to cope with both immediate challenges and longer-term goals—with 24 percent of respondents in a 2024 McKinsey procurement webinar saying digital enablement is now a core priority, up from just 2 percent in 2023.

There’s nothing like a crisis to expose weaknesses in an organization’s value chain. The global pandemic may have been the biggest crisis to strike the global economy for decades, but it comes hot on the heels of a host of other disruptive events, from Brexit to trade tensions and a general rise in economic uncertainty. These events have affected organizations in multiple ways.