My guest on the Art of Procurement this week is my friend Johan-Peter, or JP, Teppala. JP is the CEO of the US operations of Sievo, a Finland-based procurement analytics company, encompassing spend analysis, spend forecasting, savings management and contract management.

The core of our conversation today focuses on how procurement can be the driver of what JP termed "radical transparency" through data.

We discuss three key themes:

• Transparency through spend analysis
• Transparency through realized savings
• Transparency through predictive analytics.

In my mind, these are core building blocks for any catalytic procurement organization. It is hard to make a mark without good data.