Art of Procurement

"If you're not thinking about what you inherit through your procurement decisions, then you're not truly serious about managing your climate impacts." - Nicole Darnall, Professor, Arlene R. & Robert P. Kogod Eminent Scholar Chair in Sustainability, American University - Kogod School of Business

Companies have spent years setting sustainability goals, developing policies, and asking suppliers for more information, but there can still be a significant gap between those commitments and the decisions procurement teams make every day.

In this episode, Philip Ideson is joined by Nicole Darnall, Professor and Kogod Eminent Scholar Chair in Sustainability at American University, to explore procurement's role in turning sustainability commitments into measurable action. Nicole has spent more than two decades studying sustainability, including the last decade focused specifically on procurement.

Nicole explains why so much of an organization's environmental and social impact sits beyond its own walls and how purchasing decisions can influence those outcomes. She and Philip discuss the disconnect between sustainability policies and implementation, the growing burden of supplier surveys, and why procurement needs better ways to determine which sustainability information actually matters.

They also explore how procurement teams can identify the purchasing categories where they can have the greatest impact and how sustainability considerations are beginning to intersect with AI and data center sourcing decisions.

In this episode, Nicole discusses how to:

-Close the gap between sustainability policies and procurement decisions

-Identify the spend categories with the greatest environmental or social impact

-Ask suppliers more meaningful sustainability questions

-Incorporate sustainability criteria into the RFP process

-Look beyond purchase price when evaluating true cost

-Use AI to support sustainability decisions throughout the procurement cycle

-Consider environmental, community, reputational, and operational risks when sourcing AI and data services

Links:

Nicole Darnall on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicole-darnall-4a905541/

Learn more about the Sustainable Procurement Research Initiative: https://kogod.american.edu/spri

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"Everybody's trying to simplify. Everybody's trying to make the process better and the end-user experience for buying better." - Jeremy Lappin, Co-founder and CEO, Candex

Are you frustrated by the endless friction and noise around tail spend? Candex Co-founder and CEO Jeremy Lappin shares how procurement leaders are breaking through the complexity of global tail spend and solving supplier onboarding, compliance, and cross-border payments without adding "yet another tool" to the stack.

In this Provider of the Week conversation, Jeremy reflects on Candex's evolution from startup to global player, unraveling the strategy behind their "it just works" reputation. He walks through real challenges faced by multinationals, the difference a seamless user experience makes, and why their growth has been driven by relentless focus on customer needs and edge-case scenarios.

Jeremy also shares practical advice on how to launch quickly, build business cases grounded in real numbers, and expand globally without sacrificing simplicity. Whether you're battling high supplier setup costs, chasing faster adoption, or facing a cross-border compliance maze, Jeremy offers a refreshing perspective for digital procurement leaders.

Listen to the full episode to hear Jeremy's perspective on:

-Lowering tail-spend friction by removing onboarding headaches

-Supporting expansion into 55+ countries while handling local compliance

-Embedding directly into existing procurement stacks, not adding another login

-Scaling adoption gradually, avoiding license-heavy lock-ins

Links:

Jeremy Lappin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremy-lappin-555718/

Candex Profile in the AOP Provider Directory: https://artofprocurement.com/provider-directory/candex

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"It has to start with the business outcomes that we want. This becomes an operating model decision. Technology has to support the operating model that we're designing." - Christopher Sawchuk, Principal and Global Procurement Advisory Practice Leader at The Hackett Group

AI adoption is quickly becoming commonplace in procurement, but the biggest performance gap is in how some organizations are using it to rethink the entire way procurement work gets done. For procurement leaders, the next stage of AI maturity may have less to do with finding another use case and more to do with reconsidering how the function should operate when AI is embedded into the work itself.

In this episode, Philip Ideson is joined by Christopher Sawchuk, Principal and Global Procurement Advisory Practice Leader at The Hackett Group, to discuss findings from The Hackett Group's AI World Class Procurement research and what they reveal about the next stage of procurement's AI journey.

Chris explains why many organizations remain focused on incremental productivity improvements while leading teams are beginning to redesign workflows, operating models, staffing approaches, and performance measures around AI. They also explore what happens to the capacity AI creates, why pilots don't necessarily translate into transformation, and how procurement leaders can prepare their organizations for a future that remains difficult to predict.

In this episode, Chris discusses how to:

-Move beyond AI experimentation toward work redesign

-Turn AI-created capacity into higher-value procurement work

-Design an operating model where technology supports the desired way of working

-Identify where AI can have the greatest impact across procurement processes

Links:

Christopher Sawchuk on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-sawchuk/

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Dear Diary…

"I use AI a lot to help scout out things or pose challenges and see where solutions are being marketed along those lines."

Jeffrey Ostrander runs a nearly $5 billion business in one of the most dynamic supply markets on the planet. His team has left the starting block on agentic AI. What they are still deciding is how far into the race they want to run.

That distinction runs through this whole conversation. Jeffrey talks about pilots that stumble, business cases that change daily, and a supply base of machine parts makers who are not sitting in front of a computer.

Jeffrey is Head of North America Basin Supply Chain for SLB, the 100 year old company formerly known as Schlumberger. He returned to the same organization he started with 15 years ago, after time in global business services and other functions around the world.

In this episode of The Agentic Procurement Diaries podcast, Philip Ideson and Jeffrey discuss:

- Why sourcing and supplier performance sit in mirrored category structures, and how that builds a talent pipeline - The use cases already in play, from tail procurement to freight pay assurance and contract scouring - The "work-work balance" and why AI discovery has to be carved into paid time - Where he will not yet take the human out of the loop, and who is legally responsible when an agent makes the call

Links:

Jeff Ostrander on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffrey-ostrander/

Zycus on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/zycus/

AOP Provider Directory | Zycus: https://artofprocurement.com/provider-directory/zycusinc

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"Do we have a supply chain that we are building that is going to allow us to navigate and be agile enough, no matter what the world continues to throw at us?" - Frank Mckay, Chief Supply Chain & Procurement Officer, Jabil

Procurement and supply chain have traditionally operated as distinct functions, but growing complexity, new technology, and rising expectations around resilience are making that separation increasingly difficult to maintain.

In this episode, Philip Ideson welcomes back Frank Mckay, Chief Supply Chain & Procurement Officer at Jabil, to discuss how closer alignment between procurement and supply chain can create a stronger foundation for growth, resilience, and innovation.

Frank shares how Jabil has brought the two functions together around technology and a common source of truth, while using AI to enrich roles, anticipate shortages, and create new capabilities. He also explains how procurement's measures of success have expanded beyond cost reduction to include balance sheet health, resilience, and revenue generation.

In this episode, Frank discusses how to:

-Apply AI to enrich roles and proactively manage risk

-Balance AI experimentation with appropriate governance

-Measure procurement value beyond cost reduction

-Build resilience into procurement and supply chain strategy

Links:

Frank Mckay on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/frank-mckay-1297a14/

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"AI makes the answers cheaper, so the good questions and good judgment really become the coin of the realm." - Mason Morgan, Managing Director, Managing Director at CrossCountry Consulting focusing on AI and innovation in S2P

Procurement technology has come a long way, but simply adding new technology to existing processes doesn't guarantee better results. As AI becomes a bigger part of the procurement operating model, leaders have to think differently about where technology can create value, which processes are worth preserving and not handing over to AI, and how their teams need to evolve alongside it.

In this episode of ProcureTech Insider, Philip Ideson speaks with Mason Morgan, Managing Director at CrossCountry Consulting focusing on AI and innovation in S2P and a judge for the 2027 ProcureTech100, about what separates procurement organizations that realize value from technology from those that struggle to get there. They explore why technology investments need to be considered as part of the broader operating model, how AI is changing the skills procurement needs, and what leaders should prioritize as they plan their next wave of transformation.

In this episode, Mason covers how to:

-Treat technology investments as operating model changes rather than standalone implementations

-Focus AI initiatives on measurable business outcomes and build credibility through early wins

-Recognize when an existing process should be redesigned instead of automated

-Develop the business acumen and judgment procurement professionals will need in an AI-enabled environment

-Create better buying experiences that make the right path the easiest path for stakeholders

-Use technology to extend procurement's influence without requiring procurement to own every step of the process

Links:

Mason Morgan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mason-morgan-94055a7/

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"You don't need an advanced platform to begin. You just need consistent definitions, discipline, to look at the data, and a willingness to move beyond the on-time delivery average to make really good decisions going forward."

Traditional supplier scorecards can tell procurement whether a supplier delivered on time, but they may not reveal whether that supplier's commitments are becoming less reliable over time.

In this episode, Philip Ideson is joined by Shayan Farshid, a procurement and operations professional, to discuss the Supplier Stability Index, an open-source framework Shayan developed to help procurement teams get a more complete view of supplier performance.

Shayan explains how looking beyond traditional on-time delivery metrics can reveal things like commitment drift, unresolved delivery exposure, quality issues, and other signals that may put production schedules at risk. He also shares why he made the framework open source, particularly for small and midsize manufacturers that may not have access to sophisticated supplier risk technology. In this episode, Shayan discusses how to:

-Identify supplier risks that traditional scorecards may miss

-Measure supplier stability using data teams already have

-Prioritize supplier issues based on exposure and criticality

-Turn supplier data into more proactive supplier conversations

-Build stronger data foundations before applying AI

-Start measuring supplier stability without an advanced technology platform

Links:

Shayan Farshid on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sfarshid/

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Dear Diary…

"I believe we are in the midst of a revolution — and I think in a revolution, we as a vendor also want to invest a lot in educating the community on what's really changing and how it's changing."

This episode kicks off a new Art of Procurement podcast series, produced in partnership with Zycus. I sit down with the person who made the series possible to talk about why it exists and where agentic AI is really heading.

Aatish Dedhia is the Founder and CEO of Zycus, a company that entered procurement in the early 2000s and has lived through every wave of its digitization since. He traces procurement's last 20 years from digitization to machine learning to generative AI, then makes a bold claim: this is a once-in-a-few-centuries change, closer to the Industrial Revolution than to mobile or cloud.

In this episode of The Agentic Procurement Diaries podcast, Philip Ideson and Aatish discuss: - Why a point agent is not agentic, and why agent sprawl is causing companies to miss the real ROI of AI - The three layers of guardrails that keep agents in check: the system of record, the agentic policy layer, and the human in the loop - What procurement leaders overestimate and underestimate, starting with the truth that you cannot put AI on a broken process - The three segments Zycus sees today: AI hungry, AI curious, and AI resistant

Links:

Aatish takes this conversation further at PLAN 2026 on November 18

Zycus on LinkedIn

AOP Provider Directory | Zycus

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"It's all about building that momentum, creating the value, testing the hypothesis, and then continuing to challenge us to take it to that next level." Darshan Deshmukh, President at ProcureAbility

AI adoption in procurement is accelerating, but experimentation alone does not equal transformation. With organizations launching pilots, testing new platforms, and exploring agentic capabilities, procurement leaders need to keep a clear connection between the technology they adopt and the business outcomes they are trying to create.

In this episode, Kelly Barner is joined by Darshan Deshmukh, President at ProcureAbility, for a CPO-level discussion about moving from AI experimentation to meaningful procurement transformation.

Darshan shares what he is seeing across procurement organizations as AI maturity increases, including why so many teams remain focused on efficiency and productivity and what separates those efforts from more intentional transformation. He and Kelly also discuss the importance of starting with a business problem rather than a technology or use case, as well as the evolving role of agentic AI, data quality, human judgment, and organizational culture.

Listen to this episode, to hear Darshan discuss how to:

-Move beyond isolated AI pilots, and toward intentional transformation

-Start AI initiatives with the business problem and desired outcome

-Use AI to identify risk signals and accelerate decision-making

-Build trust through stronger data, transparency, and measurable results

-Expand procurement's contribution beyond cost and risk

-Create a culture where experimentation and learning can happen without fear of failure

Links:

Darshan Deshmukh on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darshan-deshmukh/

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"The earlier you can catch risk, the cheaper it is to solve." - Matthew Spencer, Founder of FlockScore

Procurement teams have access to plenty of information when evaluating a new supplier, from certifications and financials to technical capabilities. What they often lack is visibility into a more practical question: How does this supplier actually perform?

In this episode of Art of Procurement's Startup of the Week, we talk with Matthew Spencer, Co-Founder and CEO of FlockScore, a platform building a collective intelligence layer for supplier decisions by bringing together anonymized, real-world supplier performance data.

Matthew shares the experience that led him to start FlockScore, why he believes external supplier performance data can help procurement make faster and more confident decisions, and how the platform is designed to complement the supplier data companies already have.

Listen to this episode to hear:

-Why internal supplier scorecards only provide part of the performance picture

-How peer performance data can help procurement evaluate new and alternative suppliers

-Why supply chain volatility is increasing the need for faster supplier qualification

-How FlockScore combines anonymized peer data with AI-generated supplier signals

-How earlier visibility into issues such as supplier capacity can help teams respond before disruption reaches their own operations

Links:

Matthew Spencer on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewjspencer1?originalSubdomain=be

Visit FlockScore's Profile in the AOP Provider Directory: https://artofprocurement.com/provider-directory/flockscore

Subscribe to the AOP Newsletter: https://resources.artofprocurement.com/art-of-procurement-podcast-subscribe

Subscribe to Art of Procurement on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ArtofProcurement