CPO Study: Why Procurement Must Move Beyond Ambition

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Procurement’s strategic importance has never been greater. Yet the gap between ambition and execution is widening. While 91% of respondents report growing significance and 70% describe Procurement as proactive at Board level, many organizations still struggle to turn influence into measurable impact.

Based on insights from nearly 600 survey respondents, Inverto’s CPO Study 2026 explores how Procurement leaders are responding to rising business risks, shifting value expectations and the accelerating adoption of AI, and what separates those creating lasting impact from those falling behind.

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Procurement’s Next Challenge: Turning Influence Into Impact

Having gained a stronger position in the business, Procurement now faces a different set of challenges. Lack of influence (50%), insufficient capabilities (48%) and cross-functional friction (47%) have become greater obstacles to value creation than budget constraints (39%).

The findings reveal a critical shift: securing a seat at the table is no longer enough. Procurement must strengthen its capabilities and cross-functional collaboration to translate strategic influence into measurable business value.

Resilience Has Caught Up With Cost, but Managing Risk Requires More Than Visibility

For the first time, supply resilience (45%) has overtaken cost efficiency (44%) as the business outcome most influenced by Procurement. Meanwhile, competitiveness (38%), tight supply markets (33%) and geopolitical uncertainty (32%) lead an increasingly fragmented risk landscape.

Supplier mapping remains the most common value-protection lever (34%), but more mature organizations move beyond visibility toward a broader set of protection measures. A risk map is not a resilience strategy.

Procurement’s Scorecard Is Shifting Toward Enterprise Value

Revenue and margin growth now lead Procurement’s financial KPIs (42%), alongside recurring savings, while cost avoidance has slipped to third place (40%).

Impact Leaders increasingly focus on sourcing partnerships and technical levers, while Foundational teams rely more heavily on tenders. With 93% of organizations having evolved their operating model within the past five years, the focus is shifting from traditional cost savings toward broader enterprise value.

AI Is Procurement’s Leading Lever, but Ambition Is Outpacing Maturity

AI and automation are now Procurement’s most-cited lever for mastering business challenges (41%). Yet around 75% of reported GenAI use cases remain generic, with only around 25% focused on Procurement-specific applications.

While data and analytics (35%) and AI and automation (29%) dominate CPOs’ vision of the future, only 8% mention skills, collaboration and governance. Organizations with broadly embedded GenAI are nearly twice as likely to have fully equipped buyers as those still piloting.

Technology may redefine Procurement, but capability will determine its impact.

Download the Study Results

Is your Procurement organization ready to turn ambition into impact?

Download the CPO Study to explore the key findings, understand how Procurement leaders are responding to evolving risks and AI opportunities and discover four priorities for driving measurable business value.

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