ProcureTech Unpacked Conference Summary

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"Oh ok, so all procurement platform vendors have reached parity and we can just pick the one with the best price?"

I had just walked off stage after making the case for "The Great Convergence" and that was the first question I got. Then I got it again. And again.

Three times in 20 minutes. Same question. Same misconception.

I'll get to my answer in tonight's note because it’s important (spoiler: God no)!

But FIRST, the 2026 ProcureTech Cup results you've been waiting for!

Twenty-four vendors. 1 week of community voting on LinkedIn.

The goal? Help you discover new ProcureTech solutions.

Here's where it landed (~1000 votes total):

My “discovery of the year”: Qolabra (SRM solution) who went all out and made a video for the event!

Full standings (all 24 vendors) in tonight's note.

Conference attendees voted on the best educational vendor session after our inaugural conference last Friday. The result?

A three-way tie between:

👏👏👏

(I had not planned for this outcome 😅)

This prize wasn’t about having the flashiest demos… It was about highlighting the vendors that did the best job as “educators” during the conference!

(I swear I didn’t plan this!! 😂 I didn’t even vote in any stream!)

One session was deeply human. One session was deeply technical.

The fact that both won tells you everything about where this industry's head is at right now.

Congratulations to all the winners!

(And a big thank you to KonnectHouse for partnering with us on this novel event concept)

Last week was a very intense week for us at Pure Procurement. But based on the feedback received so far, it was well worth it!

Three half-days. 16 sessions. 3 keynotes. 10 vendor-led “Making sense of” sessions. 3 workshops. And a whole lot more than I can fit in this intro! 100% virtual.

We’ll definitely be back next year.

Tonight's full note has every session takeaway, the complete Discovery Stream standings, and a proper answer to the question that won’t stop ringing in my ears.

Onwards!

📰 In this week’s edition:

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.

I opened ProcureTech Unpacked with a keynote called "The Great Convergence."

The main thesis? It's no longer useful to ask whether you should buy a Source-to-Pay suite or an Intake & Orchestration platform. In the past few years, S2P suites have bolted on I&O functionality. I&O players have been filling out their offerings in an attempt to become your end-to-end procurement platform provider.

I chose those words carefully. In an attempt.

To make the case, I analyzed publicly available vendor press releases. Two slides told the whole story:

These two slides generated more questions than the rest of the keynote combined.

The most common? "So all vendors have reached parity and we can just pick the cheapest one?"

No. Press releases are marketing documents!! Two modules can share the same name and deliver WILDLY different business outcomes.

My point was that you can now start evaluating all End-to-End Procurement Platform vendors apples-to-apples…

You can stop asking whether you need a S2P Suite OR an Intake & Orchestration solution… They now all CLAIM to do it all.

To help you see these differences for yourself, I'll be publishing two assets over the coming weeks:

Why P2P and SRM?

After 15+ years implementing S2P technology, these are the two hardest functional areas to get right… And the best proof that "same name" never means "same capability."

Stay tuned.

You voted on LinkedIn this week. Here's where it landed.

Twenty-four ProcureTech vendors participated in the Discovery Stream. Attendees voted for the solutions that impressed them most. Here are the final standings:

Congrats to Kyyte for the top spot! Make sure you check out vendor websites by clicking above for the vendors you don’t know!

10 vendors led “Making Sense of…” session for their respective software categories.

Conference attendees voted via the end of conference survey for their “favorite educator” of the vent.

We ended up with a three-way tie!

These are the 3 vendors attendees said taught them the most. Not the flashiest demos. Not the slides with the most client logos. The ones who showed up, shared real insight, and made the audience smarter.

That's the bar. And these three cleared it.

Congratulations! I hope to be able to let you hoist the ProcureTech Cup soon!!

Two-way tie based on end of conference survey votes:

What I love about this result: the audience simultaneously craved deeply human content (how do we stay relevant and choiceful as AI takes over more tasks?) and the deeply technical content (show me how this actually gets built, live, right now).

That tension (human judgment vs. technical capability) was the undercurrent of the entire conference.

Thirteen sessions. One sharp take from each. Here's what hit hardest:

SpendHQ — Making Sense of Spend Analytics

Without a solid spend taxonomy, everything downstream falls apart. Don't just default to UNSPSC. A custom taxonomy is worth the effort. And don't conflate who buys something with what is bought.

Fairmarkit — Making Sense of Sourcing

The future of sourcing is adaptive. You shouldn't be locked into a rigid, linear flow (RFI → RFQ → RFP → Auction). You should be able to change strategy mid-flight based on context — and your system should follow.

Keelvar — Making Sense of Sourcing

60–70% of addressable spend is never competitively sourced in most organizations. AI in sourcing is about closing that gap and increasing impact.

ConvergentIS — Making Sense of End-to-End Procurement Platforms

End-to-end platform providers should be selling you outcomes, not software licenses. How they price tells you how they see themselves.

Market Dojo — Making Sense of eAuctions

Don't hide behind eAuctions by limiting supplier communication. If anything, you need to be more communicative to get great results from this tool.

BeNeering — Making Sense of Intake & Orchestration

The hard part of I&O isn't intake or orchestration. It's understanding that these tools are the piping that leads to sourcing and purchasing channels. Without robust channels on the other end, I&O alone won't deliver.

Trust Your Supplier — Making Sense of SRM

An SRM platform without proper stakeholder management and governance is just an expensive vendor database.

Graphite — Making Sense of SRM

The organizations getting the best results from supplier management aren't faster because they work harder. They're faster because their data is better — and their processes make it better automatically over time.

Pactum — Making Sense of Specialized Procurement Solutions

Specialized platforms shouldn't just provide technology. They should deliver procurement best practices adapted to your context. The goal isn't replacing human behavior… It's amplifying and scaling the best of it.

Axiom — Making Sense of Tail Spend Management

“Old guard” P2P systems and catalog management platforms were built for your top suppliers. They were never designed for the plumber, the emergency print job, or the one-off training provider. Rethinking catalog and supplier content management is how you solve the tail spend problem.

Tom Mills — Soft Skills in the Era of AI

In the era of AI, procurement needs to be the conscience of our organizations. We need to be choiceful about what — and how much — we outsource to AI if we want to keep our competitive advantages.

Tanya Wade — Bias, Hallucinations and Liability

LLMs are trained to tell users they're absolutely right. This reinforces biases and creates real liability. "AI hygiene" isn't optional for organizations that want to stay intellectually honest.

Brajan Gatys — Build vs. Buy Workshop

Building your own AI agents can be powerful, cost-effective… and dangerous. Without careful deployment and maintenance, they become the equivalent of that critical macro-ridden Excel file nobody wants to touch.

Of course, there was a lot more great content than just the above at ProcureTech Unpacked 2026. For me, the industry breakout groups were the most impactful part of the event.

Thanks again for everyone who made time to attend.

See you all next year!

P.S. If you have a ticket, you have 30 days to watch recordings and download conference assets :)