Despite the procurement mindshare dedicated to technology, it hasn’t changed things as much as we all would have liked. Most of procurement’s sourcing activities happen the same way they always have, albeit with much improved user interfaces. This is especially true for complex service categories that have always defied our processes and templates.

Keith Hausmann is the Chief Revenue Office at Globality. He also has the unique distinction of being both a former client - and a former boss - of Art of Procurement Host Philip Ideson. His enthusiasm for a worthy business challenge and the agile nature of innovative start-ups recently led him to join this AI-powered services sourcing platform provider.

In this interview, Keith provides his point of view about several of the strategic challenges that procurement still faces ‘after all these years’ and the role that procurement technology can play in resolving them:

• Technology as an enabler for procurement teams that feel pressure to reduce indirect costs but want to do incredibly challenging and interesting work
• Why it is never a good idea to let a supplier - even an incumbent - define the scope or demand for a stakeholder (and why it keeps happening)
• The unique requirements procurement teams have when sourcing complex services categories