State of Procurement: Why eSourcing is Key for Procurement Leaders

Will this year be remembered as a defining year for procurement? Will we look back on it as the moment everything changed? Only time will tell. 

What we do know is that we’re now operating in a time of global uncertainty, persistent inflation, supply chain fragility, and escalating geopolitical conflicts, all set against the backdrop of rapid technological disruption, particularly the rise of AI. 

Ardent Partners CPO Rising: Navigating Global Uncertainty & Unlocking an AI-Driven Future report highlights that Chief Procurement Officers (CPOs) face a challenging year, with nearly 60% viewing 2025 with “great” uncertainty. Not one of the 320+ CPOs surveyed believes this year will be less difficult than 2024, and a striking 90% expect it to be even more challenging.

The report’s data-driven research provides valuable insights into the state of procurement and offers recommendations for success. Download your complimentary copy today 

A central theme is that technology is a critical enabler for navigating uncertainty, improving performance, and leveraging the potential of AI. While CPOs are increasingly recognising the strategic importance of procurement, they often face internal barriers like budget constraints (38%), misaligned processes (32%), and technology gaps (30%).

The good news is that technology solutions can help procurement teams implement key strategies and overcome these hurdles. Market Dojo’s suite of on-demand procurement software is designed to help teams, regardless of budgets or experience, to digitalise, streamline, and automate procurement performance.

Here’s how you can practically implement key recommendations from the Ardent Partners CPO Rising report using Market Dojo’s solutions.

Ardent Partners stress that having visibility into spend, process, and the supply base is the foundation upon which Best-in-Class procurement performance is built. Best-in-Class organisations are nearly 60% more likely to possess full visibility into enterprise spend.

• How Market Dojo helps: Market Dojo’s solutions provide centralisation and reporting capabilities that help teams gain the critical visibility needed for informed decision-making. For example 
  • Opportunity Analysis is a category management solution to help validate strategy and identify category spend with powerful insights 
  • Supplier Management and Contract Management provide a centralised database of all supplier and contract documents plus advanced performance reporting
  • Sourcing”our flagship e-sourcing solution”centralises all RFx and tender events whilst providing real-time dashboards and PowerBI reporting for data-informed decision making. By delivering average savings of 16% across sourcing events and offering flexible pricing structures to suit varying business needs, Market Dojo helps procurement teams maximise value while enhancing visibility”an essential driver of Best-in-Class performance, as identified by Ardent Partners
  • Intake & Orchestration”through our partnership with Focal Point, Market Dojo extends procurement capabilities to include enterprise-grade intake and orchestration. This integration enables teams to centralise procurement requests, automate workflows, and manage projects efficiently. By enhancing visibility and control from the initial request through to execution, organisations can streamline processes, improve collaboration, and proactively manage risks

Digital transformation is the leading strategy pursued by 45% of procurement leaders. The report highlights that, “This reflects a growing recognition that technology, particularly automation, AI-driven analytics, and integrated procurement platforms, can enhance efficiency, reduce manual processes, and improve supplier management.”

• How Market Dojo helps: Market Dojo’s aim is to digitalise, streamline, and automate procurement performance. Our solutions support key processes such as Sourcing (RFx and eAuctions), Supplier Onboarding and Supplier Management. Automated supplier onboarding, for example, can accelerate the process from weeks to days; while running automated tenders and negotiating digitally, via reverse auctions, will identify the most suitable suppliers in the market and rapidly save time and money.

Expectations for AI are rising fast, with a significant majority of CPOs expecting AI to deliver a significant (50%) or transformational (23%) impact over the next 2-3 years. CPOs are looking to AI to increase productivity (80%), decision-making (49%), and improve efficiency (40%). 

eSourcing is currently leading the AI charge in procurement, with usage most prominent in RFP development (18%) and supplier discovery (17%). Best-in-Class organisations are more likely to utilise embedded AI. Ardent’s recommendation for leveraging AI is to start with clear, practical use cases that address pain points, such as automating parts of the eSourcing process or streamlining onboarding.

• How Market Dojo helps: Market Dojo has integrated AI and automation into its Sourcing and Supplier Onboarding solutions for auto-selection of lots, suppliers, event templates and documents. Plus, AI-driven questionnaires will pre-fill events with relevant supplier questionnaires for policy adherence. Watch the short video to learn more about how AI and automation can help simplify processes, ensure compliance, and save time.

For the CPOs surveyed, increasing investment in supplier management technology (58%) and building out supply relationship management capabilities (57%) are major planned changes in supply chains over the next 24-36 months. 

Nearly half (48%) of CPOs also intend to strengthen their supplier and market intelligence capabilities”an approach that reflects the wider shift towards data-driven procurement. 

When macro forces such as tariffs and geo-political instability threaten sourcing strategies, better intelligence is crucial to support proactive sourcing and stronger negotiation positions. Investing in supplier management tools, technologies, and insights is a strategic move towards securing a sustainable competitive advantage.

• How Market Dojo helps: Our easy to use, integrated solutions for Supplier Discovery, Supplier Onboarding, and Supplier Management provide a centralised database for supplier information, performance tracking, risk management features, and enable collaborative engagement with suppliers.
  
  What’s more, our modular, best-of-breed solutions can be seamlessly connected to your existing procurement ecosystem”without the need for complex IT integrations”enabling one single source of truth throughout your organisation for smarter collaboration and insight.

The report recommends intelligently sourcing tail spend using automation to bring previously unmanaged spend under control and deliver savings.

• How Market Dojo helps: Market Dojo Quick Quotes solution is specifically designed for tail spend in an easy-to-use tool. It offers RFQ functionality aimed at driving company-wide adoption and allows for fast analysis and comparison of your quotes. As a recent customer noted;
  “Quick Quotes is an undeniable advantage. It’s as simple as sending an email to a supplier”but with the advantage of traceability. It’s a win-win!”
• To support this, our partnership with Focal Point adds Intake and Orchestration capabilities that streamline how sourcing requests are submitted, triaged, and managed. This ensures tail spend is captured early, routed through the right workflows, and executed with full visibility and control”helping organisations bring even more unmanaged spend under governance.

Ardent concludes that a key differentiator between Best-in-Class procurement teams and their peers lies in the extent to which sourcing and contracting processes are integrated. 

While 45% of Best-in-Class teams report strong alignment between these functions, only 28% of other teams do the same. This disparity illustrates how leading organisations effectively connect sourcing and contracting workflows to secure agreed-upon value, uphold compliance, reduce process durations, and ensure a smooth transition from supplier selection to finalised contracts.

In addition, nearly 70% of Best-in-Class organisations have implemented standardised sourcing procedures. These frameworks support consistent approaches to supplier assessment, negotiation, and selection, enabling procurement teams to identify the most suitable suppliers for their specific needs and financial constraints. This structured methodology not only shortens sourcing cycles but also supports more comprehensive evaluations of key considerations such as quality, reliability, risk, and total cost of ownership.

• How Market Dojo helps: Market Dojo’s solutions inherently bring standardisation to eSourcing, Supplier Onboarding & Performance Management, and Contract Management processes through consistent workflows and centralised data storage. While our integrated Source-to-Pay suite helps Finance and Procurement teams enhance collaboration throughout their processes and facilitate better financial outcomes. Our customer success stories are testament to the efficiency, reduced risk, improved compliance and overall value that is achieved by procurement teams of all sizes.

Next steps 

The message from Ardent Partners is clear”a focus on technology adoption, automation, improved visibility, and strategic supplier management is key to navigating global uncertainty, unlocking the potential of AI, and driving next-level procurement performance.

By leveraging the practical and accessible solutions offered by Market Dojo, procurement teams can effectively implement the strategies recommended in the Ardent Partners CPO Rising report. 

Book a demo today to explore how Market Dojo’s solutions can transform your procurement and sourcing outcomes.

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