Art of Procurement

891: AI in Your Contracts: You Still Own the Risk W/ David Tollen

"In the end, I think the law is going to look at human systems." Almost every software supplier now sells AI, and much of it is arriving inside contracts that were neve

EP 20: ProcureTech Insider: Why Procurement Tech Still Draws Investor Interest

"What we've found is that enterprises are leaning on their most trusted providers and asking them to add capabilities." - Jack Andrews, M&A Director, Ciesco AI disrupti

890: AI Meets Manufacturing Reality: Lessons From Catalyst Detroit W/ Jim Cahalan

Most AI conversations in procurement still stall at the use case. Direct materials teams can't afford that luxury when a botched implementation can shut down a customer's

Ep 04: The Agentic Procurement Diaries: Teach the Agent Before You Trust It: Messer Americas' Guided Buying Story

Dear Diary… I think my advice would be: start sooner rather than later. Most procurement teams expect the hard part of agentic AI to be the technology. Messer Americas

889: Why Standing Still Is Procurement's Biggest Tech Risk W/ Cyril Wasem

Procurement technology is changing so fast that the tool you buy today will look different in two months. Many CPOs are tempted to wait for the market to settle, but a st

EP 019: Startup of the Week: Mandel AI

"Supply chains are going to get more complex. As we adopt more agents, there's going to be more coordination, not just between humans but between bots and humans and bots

888: Remove Friction, Build Trust: Prioritizing the Partnerships Behind the Data

Procurement teams are under steady pressure to do more with less, and AI has made boards impatient for faster, smarter answers. Most teams can't build every capability th

Ep 03: The Agentic Procurement Diaries: Boring Enough and Safe Enough: When AI Gets the Keys

Dear Diary… "I was watching a lot of smart people, day in and day out, looking across documents, opening folders." Most procurement teams pick AI use cases by asking wh

887: Sustainable Procurement: Where Policy Meets Practice W/ Nicole Darnall

"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, P

EP 018: Provider of the Week: Candex

"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

886: The AI Performance Gap: What Procurement Leaders Are Doing Differently W/ Christopher Sawchuk

"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." -

Ep 02: The Agentic Procurement Diaries: The Work-Work Balance: Building an Agentic Supply Chain at SLB W/ Jeffrey Ostrander

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

885: Procurement Should Be a Safe Pair of Hands in a Complex World W/ Frank Mckay

"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 Mck

EP 017: Stop Buying Technology. Start Changing the Operating Model W/ Mason Morgan

"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 Cross

884: Beyond On-Time Delivery: Measuring Supplier Stability W/ Shayan Farshid

"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 deliver

Ep 01: The Agentic Procurement Diaries: Why This Is a Once-in-a-Few-Centuries Revolution

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

883: The CPO Agenda: Scaling AI Beyond the Pilot W/ Darshan Deshmukh

"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,

EP 016: Startup of the Week: FlockScore W/ Matthew Spencer

"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 evalu

882: Reengineering Procurement for Greater Impact W/ Polly DeSouza

"If you want a seat at the table, you've got to pull up the chair." - Polly DeSouza, APAC Transformation Leader Procurement teams have spent years talking about the nee

EP 015: Provider of the Week: Tradeverifyd

"It's more the translation of visibility. It's not so much visibility. Visibility is there, but it's what do you do with that?" - Mike Prorock, CEO, Tradeverifyd Supply