Procurement execs don’t see cost savings as No. 1 for bottom line

A new survey of procurement executives reveals near-unanimous agreement as to what factor drives the bottom line – and you may be surprised.

According to “On Solid Ground,” a survey of 200 procurement and sourcing executives (director-level or higher) at companies with $200 million or more in annual revenue conducted by Wakefield Research for supplier intelligence platform Tealbook, 96% of respondents say being agile is more important than cost savings for their companies’ bottom line in the long run. This figure includes 42% who feel strongly that this is the case.

Although 72% of respondents feel their companies’ supplier intelligence has not significantly improved in the year since COVID-19 upended supply chains, 73% have not yet made investments to future-proof their supply chains. Leading concerns respondents have about their lack of data foundation include missing out on innovation (30%), falling behind the competition (26%), and not being able to determine ROI (22%).

In addition, nearly three in four (74%) respondents are concerned their company isn’t in a position to leverage supplier relationships to drive innovation—including 21% who are extremely concerned.

And 91% of respondents cite multiple concerns stemming from a lack of high-quality supplier data. Leading concerns include compromising the integrity of IT solutions (29%), falling behind the competition (26%), not being able to assess or improve supplier diversity (26%), not being able to determine ROI (22%) or having a less efficient and effective company (21%). Nearly as many are concerned about partnering with untrustworthy vendors (19%) and being more impacted by disruptions (19%).

One in three respondents admits to having no way of determining the cost of their supplier data. Among those who do know the cost, only 29% are completely confident their company knows the accurate cost for managing supplier data throughout the entire supply chain. Only 54% have real-time access to supplier data, while 57% still enter supplier data manually.