Respondents agreed that they could decrease damage to their organisations in a potential economic downturn by utilising the procurement strategies they employ in their day-to-day jobs.

• Identical to the 2018 survey, only one in four respondents described themselves as excellent business partners that contribute significant strategic value.

• Respondents cited an economic downturn as the top risk impacting procurement.

• Even among respondents who anticipate an economic downturn, most CPOs plan to employ traditional tactics in response, such as contract renegotiations with existing suppliers (58 percent), conducting competitive bids with new suppliers to reduce prices (54 percent), and reducing costs by changing design requirements (54 percent).

There’s a significant need for procurement to maintain functional alignment, both as a service provider for stakeholders and as a business partner in strategic planning.

• While cost reduction is still the number one focus, leaders also cited procurement risk management (managing corporate risk, 53 percent; managing corporate social responsibility, 43 percent) and growth (expanding or introducing digital business models, 50 percent; introducing new products/services or expanding into new markets, 46 percent) as top areas of focus.

• Most respondents look to digital procurement transformation to improve and automate processes via modern IT tools.

CPOs must tackle the industry-wide shortage of analytical and technical skills needed for success but also embrace new ways of thinking about talent.

• Respondents noted improvement in the talent gap; at least 45 percent claimed their current teams were “to some extent” at the level of sufficiency, and an encouraging 38 percent of organisations were “to a large extent” appropriately skilled.

• This year, respondents report increased training emphasis on technical procurement skills, with 62 percent planning to address it in the coming year compared with 41 percent last year.

• In addition, respondent teams’ soft skills jumped to 49 percent this year compared with 36 percent in 2018.

CPOs must rely on a core set of technologies that automate tactical, low-value work and enhance the function’s ability to focus on more strategic efforts.

• More than half of respondents (54 percent) viewed analytics as the technology area that will have the most impact on their businesses going forward, showing CPOs are eager to leverage the proactive and predictive capabilities of this technology.

• Responses indicate that the technologies that are driving the Fourth Industrial Revolution, AI/cognitive (49 percent) and computing and blockchain (63 percent), are of little focus and haven’t been utilised at their respective organisations.