My 2025 ProcureTech Predictions

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Hi readers,

Happy New Year!

Given the new year gets us thinking about the future, I wanted to share 5 predictions and 5 “hopes” for procurement technology in 2025.

The predictions are about factors outside your control (where the market is going).

For the hopes, these are things you can influence in your own organization to maximize the value gained for your procurement technology.

If I’m wrong, please let me have it in the comments. Let’s get some good discussions going…

I wish you health, wealth and happiness in 2025.

Onwards!

📰 In this week’s edition:

• 📋 5 procurement jobs that caught my eye

• 🏆 The Road to the ProcureTech Cup : Episode 17

• 🌙 My 2025 ProcureTech Predictions

Tap the poll at the bottom of this email after reading.
It helps me ensure I haven’t yet turned into a mad scientist…

Note: Some of the content listed above is only available in the email version of this newsletter. Don’t miss out! Sign up for free to get the next edition.

👀 In Case You Missed It…
My Best Linkedin post this week:

24 ProcureTech Lessons to Finish 2024 Off Strong…

The Journey Continues…

The Road to the ProcureTech Cup is back on this week after the holiday break.

This Friday Veridion comes on the show to demo their AI-powered business/vendor data platform.

Veridion is helping businesses gain access to better supplier and partner data by attempting to curate the most complete database of company data.

Last Episode

If you missed the holiday edition of the show, you can still tune into the replay.

I was joined by 5 other ProcureTech consultants to discuss the best surprises from the first half of the season and where they want to see ProcureTech go in 2025.

If you missed it, ALL the replays are available for you on YouTube:

What is the ProcureTech Cup? Start Here.

Did You Know…

There’s a Pure Procurement Newsletter YouTube Channel?

Lots of content planned for 2025. Subscribe now.

My 2025 ProcureTech Predictions

I’m not much of a futurist… In fact, most of my time is spent in the “present” with clients trying to implement and tweak existing tech to maximize business results.

That’s why most of my content is centered around helping organizations develop the right reflexes and habits to do just that. I’m a “presentist” that educates you on how to get the most out of what exists instead of dealing in what could be.

That being said, I’ve been much more plugged into the market in 2024. And, it’s always fun to “guess the future.”

That said, I’ve been more tuned into the market this past year, and let’s face it—predicting the future is fun. So, I’m stepping out of my comfort zone to share 5 ProcureTech predictions for 2025. Come January 2026, we can revisit these and see how wrong I was! 😅

Why Predict?

The value of predictions isn’t in being right or wrong; it’s in sharpening our analytical skills to better understand trends and signals. As you read, ask yourself if you agree or disagree with me and why…

I’ve also included 5 hopes—not predictions, but aspirations for what I believe would make ProcureTech more successful in 2025.

Let’s dive in:

5 Predictions

1. Explosion in the Use of Risk Management Functionality. Driven by increased global uncertainty (further exacerbated by global leaders who use unpredictability as a strategy), procurement organizations will increasingly want to adopt risk management and mitigation practices in 2025. They will push their existing software providers to develop more embedded risk management functionalities or seek new tools that provide them.

2. Niche ProcureTech Providers Will Continue to Proliferate. As funding and tech engineering talent continues to flood the market, we will continue to see the number of specialized ProcureTech providers grow.

   They will focus on even smaller verticals and/or unique use cases than before, creating a more fragmented but innovative ecosystem. This will be made possible by the growing culture of vendor partnerships in our space and the open (API friendly) architectures of their solutions.

   
   These could be supported (or not) by AI Agents. Business outcomes will be what is important.
   
   I don’t see the market collapse / massive consolidation others have predicted… At least not in 2025 😅

3. The (Continued) Rise of Intake and Orchestration Solutions. Flexible intake and orchestration (I&O) platforms will continue to gain traction, gradually overshadowing traditional S2P suites as:

   • the “main procurement system” sitting on ERPs (net new installations)

   • the “solution” to bridge the gap with S2P business cases (existing installations)

   I&O suites are just more adaptable and user-centric procurement applications than S2P suites, plain and simple. They’ve also been built on newer technology and code bases. There are less “technological debts” in I&O applications.

   
   S2P suite providers will (re)release I&O functionality (intake has been around for more than a decade after all…) to try to ward off native I&O providers.

   We’ll also start hearing much more about “Direct” I&O scenarios (launching workflows in an orchestration layer from requisitions generated by MRP in the ERP system). This will make I&O a more viable investment for big manufacturers and MRO heavy industries as they can include this spend in the business case.

   
   That being said, we will also start to hear about the first big failures with I&O projects because, just like S2P suites, you need solid complimentary skills to get all the value out of I&O and lots of companies underestimate this.

   
   Perhaps we also see the first “Built for AI”, natural language, business rules based procurement suites emerge in 2025 but I don’t think they’ll steal I&O’s momentum in 2025. We need more proof that this is possible first.

4. Gen AI Comes Down from the "Peak of Inflated Expectations." As the overblown hype around Gen AI subsides because of overpromised business outcomes (“it will do everything and replace everyone!”), businesses adopt a more pragmatic approach to all AI related solutions.

   Organizations start caring less that a solution is “supported by AI.” Their focus shifts to evaluating clear ROI and business outcomes rather than chasing trends. Vendor messaging adjusts consequently to be centered around business outcomes instead of “leading with AI.”

5. Companies Start (Re)Hiring for AI Literacy. Organizations that made sweeping layoffs in response to AI adoption realize they need specialized, AI-competent talent to unlock the full potential of these technologies and address gaps left by oversimplified workforce reductions. However, they don’t hire back as many workers as they initially let go, given new levels of productivity.

5 (Matching) Hopes

1. Organizations Realize That Risk Management Doesn’t Have to Be Very Complicated to Generate Value. Businesses embrace simpler, more practical risk management approaches, focusing on tangible, low effort/high reward outcomes (e.g. internal vendor risk evaluation survey at onboarding) rather than over-engineered processes and solutions.

2. Democratization of ProcureTech. The explosion in affordable, user-friendly solutions offerings in the ProcureTech market helps the market go “mainstream”, especially with SMBs. This levels the playing field and enables smaller businesses to match the maturity of large procurement organizations, if they have the motivation to do so.

3. Increased Focus on Business Process Management (BPM) and Change Management in Procurement. Organizations prioritize documenting, governing and systematically improving business processes (supported by technology) and rigorously manage change to ensure technology adoption drives real business outcomes (especially in the context of Intake and Orchestration solution implementations).

   They finally understand that no silver bullets exist in technology (not even in intake and orchestration or AI!) and that you need to master your strategy, data, required capabilities, business rules and processes to realize your business case (I know… This hope is a stretch…😅).

4. We Have More Specific Discussions About AI in ProcureTech. The industry shifts to detailed, practical conversations about AI’s specific subfields, applications and challenges, with businesses focusing on understanding how each subfield is driving measurable business outcomes rather than being generally captivated by AI’s functionality.

   (I’ll be working hard this year to make sure this happens as I have been guilty of generalities more than once in 2024!)

5. Emphasis on Internal Procurement Training Program Development. Companies realize that investing in building robust internal training and upskilling initiatives to develop talent in-house is a winning strategy.

   They realize that relying on traditional education streams (universities, certifications, etc.) amid a tightening labor market (hello demography!) is insufficient to create workers with the appropriate mix of skills required to thrive in unique organizational contexts. They work to develop their own “procurement skills curriculum” in-house (and get everyone to read The Pure Procurement Newsletter 😂).

   (The old saying: “if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself” applies here)

There you have it. 10 thoughts on where ProcureTech is (and should) be heading in 2025.

How did I do? Am I way off track? Did I miss a “big rock”?

Let me know in the comments 👇

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