Accelerating Procurement Tech Success

Securing funding for procurement technology investments is notoriously difficult. Despite strong business cases, procurement departments often struggle to convince decision-makers of the value of these investments, with requests being deprioritized for other technology investments deemed more important or denied entirely. According to Gartner’s 2022 Accelerating Procurement’s Digitization Survey, procurement teams secure the exact tools they need only 17% of the time! This challenge often leads procurement teams to have to continue working under increased workloads, delayed responses to business needs, and missed opportunities to help the organization achieve its broader strategic goals.

Over my short time at Ivalua, I've had the opportunity to engage with 16 customers to date, and three of them have stood out to me for successfully securing full funding for their procurement technology investments in record time. Not only did they achieve faster approvals, but they also secured budget for the exact tools they needed, avoiding the compromises that many organizations are forced to make. Their success came from a clear focus on cross-functional collaboration, early stakeholder alignment, and thoughtful engagement with technology providers. Here are some of the best practices I have observed from these customers that I believe led to their rapid success.

Recognizing the Cross-Functional Nature of Procurement

A key factor in these organizations’ success was their recognition that procurement is not just the responsibility of the procurement and supply chain teams. The full procurement lifecycle touches multiple areas, including finance, accounts payable, legal, quality assurance, compliance, and IT, among others. These organizations understood that any procurement technology investment must address the needs of all these departments, as well as integrate seamlessly with existing systems and processes.

To ensure all voices were heard, they conducted thorough stakeholder mapping exercises early in their sourcing process to identify key individuals from each relevant department. This mapping allowed them to define roles, levels of involvement, and the specific concerns of each stakeholder group. For instance, finance teams prioritized budgetary alignment, SOX compliance, and ROI, while IT stakeholders focused on integration requirements and long-term scalability. By engaging these stakeholders from the outset, the organizations avoided siloed decision-making and created a foundation for broad-based support.?

The Role of Executive Sponsors in Driving Success

One of the most critical elements in these success stories was the presence of a committed C-suite executive sponsor, such as the CFO or CIO. Each organization identified an influential leader who championed the initiative from the beginning, helping to bridge the gap between procurement’s goals and the strategic priorities of the broader organization. These sponsors not only provided credibility but also ensured that the technology investment remained a high priority during executive-level discussions.

Executive sponsors played a crucial role in tying the investment to long-term business objectives improving operational efficiency and supporting innovation. They worked closely with procurement teams to shape business cases that highlighted the impact of the technology on broader organizational goals. For example, instead of presenting the benefits solely in terms of procurement metrics like cycle time reduction, the business cases emphasized how the technology would enable faster time-to-market for new products, avoid hinderance of exponential revenue growth, provide increased transparency for internal customers, increased compliance, or reduce supplier risks in ways that supported enterprise-wide initiatives.

Leveraging Discovery Sessions to Refine and Broaden Perspectives

Rather than jumping directly into formal RFPs, all three organizations prioritized in-depth discovery sessions with prospective technology providers. These sessions were invaluable in helping both the customers and vendors develop a clearer understanding of the requirements, challenges, and opportunities at hand. By inviting vendors to participate in these conversations, the organizations gained new insights into how other companies addressed similar challenges. This often helped them uncover additional needs or refine their approach to achieving their goals and helped the procurement teams draft meaningful RFP requirements aligned with the company's needs.

Discovery sessions also allowed solution providers to tailor their proposals, ensuring alignment with the organization’s pain points, needs, and strategic initiatives. These deep dives clarified which combinations of products, licenses, and configurations would work best, while also providing realistic implementation strategies, costs, and timelines that helped avoid unforeseen implementation cost increases and delays after a purchase was made. This collaborative approach enabled vendors to craft higher-quality proposals, mapping specific functionalities to specific challenges. Furthermore, these sessions helped vendors identify the best-fit implementation partners by considering industry expertise, familiarity with existing systems, and track record with similar projects.

Avoiding Generic RFPs and the Danger of Misaligned Solutions

One of the most common pitfalls in technology procurement is issuing RFPs with overly generalized requirements that fail to capture the organization’s specific needs. These RFPs often focus on broad, surface-level criteria, such as requesting “standard procurement features,” while neglecting to outline critical details like pain points, integration requirements, or scalability needs. As a result, the proposals received may struggle to address key challenges or align with long-term strategies. This lack of specificity makes it difficult to differentiate between proposed solutions, increasing the risk of investing in technology that ultimately fails to meet the organization’s needs. Such misaligned investments often lead to dissatisfied users, with organizations blaming the technology provider for delivering a solution that doesn’t fit, when in reality, the issue stems from insufficiently detailed requirements.

An analogy helps illustrate this point: imagine you’re looking to purchase an SUV for off-road adventures on rocky terrain, outfitted with emergency tools and extra fuel tanks for overlanding. If your RFP simply states that you need “a vehicle with four wheels, a windshield, and headlights,” you might receive proposals for everything from go-carts to luxury sedans to monster trucks. While these vehicles might meet the basic criteria, none of them would fulfill your specific needs.

Similarly, generic RFPs for procurement technology often lead to expensive tools that lack the flexibility, integration, or scalability required to support long-term goals. By contrast, the most successful customers used discovery sessions to craft highly targeted RFPs. The requirements articulated their precise needs, from advanced analytics and supplier risk management to specific integration requirements with ERP systems. This specificity ensured that proposals were aligned with their strategic vision and addressed critical pain points, avoiding costly mismatches.?

Maintaining Momentum Through Engagement and Iteration

Throughout the evaluation process, these customers maintained high levels of engagement with both their internal stakeholders and prospective vendors. Executive sponsors actively participated in a significant portion of the discovery sessions and demonstrations, ensuring alignment at the highest levels. Stakeholders across departments made themselves available for follow-up discussions, additional demonstrations, and deep dives into specific topics like IT architecture or accounts payable workflows. This iterative approach allowed teams to refine their requirements and address concerns as they arose, preventing delays and miscommunication.

A standout practice among these organizations was their willingness to conduct reverse demos, where stakeholders demonstrated their current processes, workflows, and tools to prospective solution providers. By sharing their existing landscape in detail, the organizations provided vendors with a clear understanding of their operational challenges, inefficiencies, and integration needs. This not only helped vendors tailor their proposals and product demonstrations to align more closely with the organization’s unique requirements but also fostered a collaborative environment where both parties worked toward a shared vision for success.

Additionally, all discovery sessions and demos were recorded and made available for on-demand access. This ensured that stakeholders who couldn’t attend live sessions had the opportunity to review the material and provide informed feedback, further strengthening internal alignment and support. By combining reverse demos, high levels of engagement, and iterative feedback loops, the organizations were able to accelerate decision-making and ensure their technology investments were well-informed and comprehensive.

?Summary of Best Practices

The success of these organizations underscores the importance of cross-functional collaboration, executive sponsorship, and thoughtful engagement with technology providers. By involving all relevant stakeholders from the start, aligning objectives with long-term strategies, and leveraging discovery sessions to refine requirements, they were able to secure funding faster and more effectively than the industry average.

Their experiences highlight a critical lesson: investing time upfront to engage stakeholders, tailor business cases, and align with strategic goals doesn’t just accelerate approvals—it ensures that the chosen solution delivers meaningful, long-term value. For procurement teams seeking to modernize their technology stacks, adopting these best practices can make the difference between frustration and transformative success.