The Obsolete Procurement Platform Checklist

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Hi {{FIRST_NAME|readers}},

In last week’s poll, 47% of you said your biggest purchasing channel frustration was "too many free-text POs":

That's not a purchasing channel problem... That's a platform problem.

When your system can't handle how purchasing actually happens, you get workarounds: Free-text POs. Manual data processing. Spreadsheet tracking. And free-text POs are just one symptom... I've seen this pattern repeat dozens of times.

Tonight’s article covers 10 dead giveaways that you're working on obsolete procurement technology.

Quick question before you read it:

Count how many of these issues (+ 7 more red flags covered tonight) apply to your current system while reading.

If it's more than four, we need to talk about what comes next in 2026… (uh oh… 😅)

Onwards!

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Most procurement teams are burning budget on platforms built for a world that doesn't exist anymore.

I've seen the pattern repeat at least a dozens of times... A company drops six or even seven figures on a "modern" procurement suite, only to discover six months in that they've bought a dressed-up legacy system.

The vendors won't tell you this. The consultants mostly won't (👋). But there are dead giveaways that scream "this platform was built in the 2000s and they just slapped a new UI on it."

Here's the checklist to determine if it might be time to start a new business case…

Tally up your score /10 as you read through…

I’ll give you your diagnosis at the end.

You know the exact project you’re looking for... You type in the exact description you filled in a few days ago… The system returns 47 results, none of which are the one you're looking for.

You try the contract number. Nothing. You try a partial match. Still nothing. You give up and manually scroll through pages of records to find your project… 😥

Search should be instant. It should be smart. It should understand partial matches, typos, and synonyms. It's not 1995 anymore… We've solved this problem.

If you find yourself regularly saying "it's faster to just look through the list manually," the search functionality isn't just bad. It's actively wasting your time.

The tell: When experienced users develop elaborate workarounds to avoid using search, you know the feature is broken.

Sure, you can open it on your phone. Technically. The same way you can eat soup with a fork… 😅

If approvals on mobile require zooming, scrolling horizontally, or any phrase that starts with "just tap the small icon," the platform wasn't built mobile-first. It was built desktop-first and someone added a responsive stylesheet later.

The test is simple: Try to approve a purchase requisition while standing in line at a coffee shop. If you can't do it before getting to the counter, the mobile experience is theater.

The platform has a "robust reporting engine." Which means: you need to learn their proprietary query language, understand their byzantine data model, and probably take a three-day training course.

Meanwhile, you just want to know what suppliers were paid last quarter…

Modern platforms make custom reporting feel as easy as ordering ice cream… Leaders are creating the reports automatically based on your text prompts…

This applies when: Legacy platforms make reporting an upsell opportunity when you say it’s complicated...

They call it flexible. They call it configurable. They call it "no-code workflow automation."

What you actually get: a glorified form builder where you can add fields, make some of them required, and route the form to different people based on simple if-then rules.

What you can't do: handle the messy reality of how procurement actually works. Parallel approvals? Conditional logic based on external data or stakeholder decisions? Workflows that span multiple objects or systems? Sorry, that requires "Professional Services."

The test: If you can't model your actual procurement process without buying consulting hours, the platform isn't flexible. It's rigid with expensive workarounds.

Your suppliers need a separate login. That only works in one specific browser. That requires them to download a PDF, print it, sign it, scan it, and upload it back. In 2025.

If your supplier portal feels like it was designed by someone who's never actually been a supplier, you're using legacy technology.

Better yet, the supplier portal should be optional. “Supplier enablement" should happen automatically for 100% of your suppliers via email at Go-Live. Not over the next 12 months that turns into never…

Suppliers who want to use the portal can, the ones who don't can be completely oblivious and everything still works… You still get the system benefits.

The supplier test: Send the portal link to a friend who's tech-savvy but not in procurement. If they can't complete a basic task without calling you, the platform is obsolete.

Want to adjust an approval threshold? Submit a ticket. Need to add a field to a form? Submit a ticket. Want to change who gets notified about something? You guessed it… Submit a ticket.

Modern platforms put configuration in your hands. You have admin controls. You can test changes in a sandbox. You can make adjustments in real-time.

Legacy platforms? Configuration is locked down tighter than a bank vault. Why? Because the system is so fragile that letting users touch settings might break something... For other customers 😭

How you know: You're not just paying for the platform. You're paying for the vendor to do basic admin work that should take you 30 seconds.

This one's my favorite red flag because it's so brazenly user-hostile.

You can bulk-import supplier records. Great. But when you try to export them? Half the fields are missing. The custom fields you created? Not exportable. The approval workflow history? "Contact support for a custom report."

This isn't a bug. It's vendor lock-in by design. And it’s gone in newer platforms.

Translation: Legacy vendors don't trust you to leave. Because they know you’ll soon want to leave.

"We integrate with everything!" they said.

What they meant: “We can import CSV files from an SFTP server every night at 2 AM and send you email notifications when something breaks.”

Real integrations are bidirectional. They're real-time (or near real-time). They handle conflicts gracefully. They don't require a PhD in data mapping to configure.

If the word "webhook" doesn't appear in vendor documentation, if their idea of real-time sync is "hourly batch jobs," if every integration requires vendor Professional Services, you're not using modern procurement technology…

The tell: You're using a database with a web interface and some scheduled scripts.

If the API docs are buried three levels deep on a support portal, require a separate login, or were clearly written by someone who's never actually used an API, you're in trouble.

Modern platforms treat APIs as first-class citizens. They document them publicly. They provide integrated testing tools. They make integration easy.

Legacy platforms? The API is an afterthought. A compliance checkbox. Something they built because customers kept asking for it.

Reality check: If you need to schedule a "technical consultation call" just to understand how to pull basic data, that's not a feature. That's a warning.

Ask to see the data model. Watch what happens.

Modern platforms? They'll show you the schema. They'll explain the relationships. They'll give you an Entity-Relationship Diagram (ERD). They're proud of their data architecture.

Legacy platforms? "That's proprietary." Or worse: "You don't need to worry about that… Just use the UI."

Here's why this matters: If you can't see how data is structured, it’s hard to understand what the platform can actually do. Every customization becomes a guessing game. Every integration becomes a negotiation. Every report becomes a murder mystery.

In the “age of AI”, data models need to be public and extensible (e.g. you should be able to add fields to every data object, like your vendor master, easily).

The acid test: If you can't export a complete data model diagram, you don't control your data. The vendor does.

So why are we freaking out about a few features…? If the work is getting done, it’s fine right? This is an overreaction?

Nope.

Obsolete platforms don't just cost money. They cost velocity.

Every workaround your team builds. Every manual export-import dance. Every "we'll just track that in a spreadsheet" conversation… That's organizational drag. That’s time you could be using to develop new skills, insights and impact.

That's procurement moving at 2015 speeds in a 2025 world.

Count how many of these rang true. One or two? That's normal… No platform is perfect. Three or four? Worth noting.

But if more than four of these are ringing true for you, that's the signal. It's time to start building the business case for a new generation procurement system. One where all of these legacy issues have been addressed from the ground up.

Start documenting the pain. Every time someone says "the system can't do that," write it down. Every workaround, every manual process, every integration that breaks, that's your business case.

The procurement technology landscape has fundamentally shifted in the last five years. Platforms that were cutting-edge in 2018 are legacy systems today.

Your procurement platform should be the wind at your back, not the spit in your face 😅

Here's the thing: Most vendors aren't deliberately trying to swindle you.

They've just gone past "peak maturity." Their client base is too large to modernize the platform properly without creating unacceptable disruption. They're trying to support everything as best as possible while avoiding a business model implosion.

And those lock-in features? They get trapped into deploying them. When you're a public company (or PE-backed), investors demand returns. And unwittingly, you might be doing this to yourself via your retirement account’s portfolio manager… 😅

The economics of mature software businesses create these constraints. It's not malice. It's the system we’ve built… We’ll probably be having the same conversation about the new entrants in under a decade if they’re not careful about how they build and sell…

Gone are the days when you could implement a procurement system every 25 years…

But understanding why the lock-in exists doesn't mean accepting it… Especially, if you’re being asked to pay 2025 prices for 2015 functionality…

So… What did this checklist tell you?

Should you be looking at a new procurement system in 2026?