Introduction: The 2026 Supply Chain Challenge and the Need for Change The year 2026 presents a pivotal moment for global supply chains, characterized by unprecedented complexities and challenges. As businesses navigate an increasingly interconnected world, the demand for agile, resilient, and transparent supply chain operations has never been more critical. Companies are under pressure to […]

Introduction: Navigating the 2026 Supply Chain Challenge The global supply chain landscape is evolving rapidly, and by 2026, businesses will face unprecedented challenges that demand innovative solutions. As a senior thought leader in Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) and an Associate Professor specializing in B2B performance frameworks, I recognize the critical need for organizations to adapt […]

Mid-market procurement teams face a specific problem: their ERP handles purchase orders fine, but has no opinion on whether Supplier A is actually performing well, improving, or quietly becoming a risk. That gap — between transaction processing and relationship performance — is where companies lose money, time, and negotiating leverage. Why ERPs leave mid-market teams […]

Source-to-Pay suites promise to unify the entire procurement process — from sourcing through contract management to invoice payment. For many organisations, they deliver on that promise. But there is one area where they consistently fall short: deep supplier relationship management. This is not a criticism of S2P vendors. It is a structural limitation. S2P platforms […]

The all-in-one procurement suite had a good run. The promise was compelling: one vendor, one contract, one interface for everything from sourcing to payment. For large enterprises with dedicated implementation teams and multi-year deployment budgets, it sometimes delivered. For everyone else, it usually meant paying for capabilities they did not use, waiting years for features […]

When procurement teams outgrow spreadsheets, the instinctive first move is to look at what the ERP can do. Most modern ERPs have a supplier module. It stores vendor master data, tracks purchase orders, manages contracts. It looks like it should handle supplier performance management. It usually does not — at least not well. Here is […]

Procurement technology has matured significantly over the past decade. What was once a specialised concern of large enterprises — structured sourcing, digital supplier management, automated compliance — is now accessible to mid-market teams at a fraction of the historical cost. But the technology landscape has also fragmented. There are dozens of tools claiming to solve […]

Most CFOs view supplier management as a cost centre — a necessary overhead, not a driver of financial performance. This perception makes it difficult to secure budget for better tools, more headcount, or dedicated supplier development programmes. The problem is not that CFOs are wrong to be sceptical. It is that procurement teams rarely present […]

Managing supplier performance for 10 suppliers is straightforward. A spreadsheet, a quarterly call, and a shared folder of documents is genuinely sufficient at that scale. The process fits in your head. At 50 suppliers, the cracks appear. At 100, the spreadsheet breaks. At 200+, you are either running a dedicated system or you have effectively […]

Benchmarking indirect suppliers is one of the more genuinely difficult problems in procurement. Direct suppliers — raw materials, components, contract manufacturers — generate rich operational data: delivery times, defect rates, fill rates. The numbers are concrete and the connection to business outcomes is clear. Indirect suppliers are different. The IT services provider, the facilities management […]