Today we a launch our new blog series Perspectives Beyond Procurement – insights and inspiration for ambitious procurement professionals. In the week of the British Grand Prix, we kick off with how the ESG agenda is driving major change in F1.

During the months of May and June 2021, Procurious and Ivalua surveyed over 470 procurement and supply chain professionals in order to assess the maturity levels of sustainability across multiple supply chains, what impact organisations are driving, and how sustainability can be improved by procurement teams.

Described as the “untidy room in the house”, tail spend presents a huge opportunity for efficiencies and savings.  Maistro Director - Lawrence Dallaglio sat down with CIPS CEO, Malcolm Harrison, to discuss thoughts on what forward-thinking professionals can achieve by actively managing their low-value spend.

Tail spend has a specific set of challenges, quite different to those faced with the management of strategic spend. We recently spoke with several procurment leaders about some of these challenges and how they might be addressed.

To be competitive and efficient in today's market it goes without saying that adopting automation in some guise is almost now a prerequisite. 

In recent times, aspects of zero-based budgeting have made an appearance in the spend planning practices of many companies, but this past year has made the case for adopting the concept much stronger.

During the past year, the need for more resilient supplier networks has steadily risen to the top of every CPO's importance list.

In early 2021, IHS Markit conducted a survey with procurement professionals under the title 2021 Supply Chain Insights Global Survey , revealing that "supply chain professionals often lack the tools, data, and platforms needed to diversify their supply chains and optimise their processes."

In April 2021, Forrester Consulting conducted a study commissioned by Ivalua with 454 finance, procurement, and supply chain professionals in which they revealed that 50% of organisations are planning to increase their investments in procurement, and 85% recognise that procurement plays a key role in revenue growth.