How to stand up a modern procurement process
02/04/2025

This content does not express the views or opinions of Spend Matters.
Ramp recently hosted a panel of seasoned procurement practitioners to discuss and debate next-gen procurement, how procurement should be positioned and approached for businesses implementing a formal process for the first time, and practical steps to stand up a function from scratch. You can watch the full discussion in the video or read the detailed recap below.
Procurement is no longer just a back-office function. It’s evolved into a strategic part of an organization that directly influences the bottom line. By managing costs earlier, negotiating better supplier terms and ensuring the best value for money, procurement has become a critical driver of long-term financial performance.
Following are key considerations to transform the procurement process from a ticketing function followed by a handful of employees to one that actually drives down costs and is 100% adopted by employees.
Reposition procurement
Procurement is only successful if employees actually adopt and follow your process. It must be approachable. In many organizations, procurement is often perceived as a ‘black box’ or a slow-moving, bureaucratic process that eventually creates friction between procurement teams and other departments, especially if employees feel that procurement is a barrier to getting their work done.
Create a ‘people-first’ approach to procurement that emphasizes relationships over processes and takes the time to deeply understand employee needs. By building strong, long-term internal partnerships, procurement becomes a trusted partner rather than a transactional service, fostering a win-win relationship.
Make your process as transparent as possible
Modern procurement is transparent by design. When employees understand how procurement works and see the rationale behind decisions, they are more likely to further adopt your process and engage positively with the function.
Operate in the open, put your DMs in public channels, and bring your colleagues along for the decision-making journey.
Embrace new technology
‘Procure tech’ is having a moment with a plethora of new tools available to streamline workflows, improve data visibility and enhance decision making. For example, vendor price intelligence democratizes spend data so procurement and finance teams are armed with data going into a negotiation. AI is becoming deeply embedded in intake-to-pay software to eliminate all the painful, manual work normalized by legacy tools.
However, it’s important not to jump into new technology without first understanding your organization’s needs and conducting due diligence to ensure that the tools you roll out are flexible, scalable and capable of supporting long-term growth.
Roll out procurement with a simple framework
Standing up a modern process involves more than just adopting new technology. Consider the below steps to help build a new procurement strategy that fits your business today and in the near-term future:
- First, know when it’s time for a new process: There are several key indicators that a procurement process needs to be updated, like a spike in rogue spending, overlapping vendors, missed contract renewals and a lack of visibility into employee requests. If your business is scaling and experiencing these pain points today it may be time to uplift the function.
- Gather a deep understanding of historical purchasing performance: Identify what worked, what didn’t, what part of your process needs clarity, and which part is too rules-driven. You may find that certain purchasing decisions were made without sufficient vendor evaluation or there was a lack of transparency in decision-making, resulting in cost overruns. By analyzing past purchasing activities you can iterate on process improvements and ensure your new process is built on a solid foundation to quickly earn buy-in from employees and stakeholders.
- Double down on employee experience: Employees are the end users of your process and are actively involved in the buying process, so understanding their experience from intake to payment is essential to building a process that works for everyone. Conduct a roadshow, show face in their team meetings, and listen to their feedback. By uncovering and understanding the user’s pain points, you can design a more straightforward, user-friendly process that minimizes roadblocks and fosters smoother collaboration.
- Don’t be afraid to iterate: As your business evolves, so must your procurement function. With more buyers come more spend categories to capture and oversee. Maintain an agile mindset and continually enhance your process to address new types of spend and the associated risks that come with it.
Want to learn more? Hear from leading procurement practitioners first-hand in Ramp’s webinar: The future of procurement: moving from antiquated to automated.
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EPRO P2P SOURCING09/02/2016
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AP/I2P EPRO P2P03/12/2018
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P2P11/08/2018
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AP/I2P P2P S2P SOURCING SXM SRM10/03/2019
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EPRO P2P SOURCING09/02/2016
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AP/I2P EPRO P2P03/12/2018
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P2P11/08/2018
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AP/I2P P2P S2P SOURCING SXM SRM10/03/2019
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