Businesses have been rethinking the procurement's role, and their strategy to navigate in the uncertainties, especially with the ever increasing geopolitical and macroeconomic risks.

“Recent events, like the covid-19 pandemic and focus on sustainability, have given us the opportunity to establish procurement and supply chain as a key value function instead of a simple support function”, says Klaus Staubitzer, CPO and head of supply chain at Siemens. However, limited cross-functional visibility into procurement’s commercial value can make it difficult for leaders to retain this reputation.

To understand the most recent procurement priorities and challenges, and how executives are perceiving procurement, Economist Impact, sponsored by SAP, conducted a global survey of 2,307 C-suite leaders in January-Mar, 2023. This third iteration of The Procurement Imperative programme looks at how businesses and industries are transforming procurement to meet existing and emerging challenges amid disrupted supply chains, rising costs and growing uncertainty.

This briefing paper analyses the results through an extensive interview programme with procurement leaders from a range of industries, including automotive, chemicals, consumer goods, life sciences and manufacturing.