The Modern Indirect Procurement Trap

Why commercial accountability fails without decision rights and delivery investment.

The full evidence-based paper supporting my shorter practitioner essay, Why Procurement Leaders Are Often Set Up to Fail.

If the shorter essay was the argument, this paper is the evidence behind it.

The central question remains unchanged:

Can organisations legitimately hold Procurement accountable for savings, risk and commercial value if the critical decisions sit elsewhere?

The answer matters because many modern indirect procurement functions are expected to deliver commercial outcomes that depend on business, technology, finance and operational decisions outside their direct control.

Rather than relying solely on personal experience, this paper explores the available evidence, current operating models, public governance approaches and practical tests that boards can apply to their own organisations.

Why commercial accountability fails without decision rights and delivery investment

Jon Wensley – September 2026

The central problem is not whether Procurement should control every business decision. It is whether accountability for savings, risk and wider commercial value is matched by timely authority, explicit business obligations and funded delivery capacity. Boards should test that alignment before setting targets, redesigning the function or replacing its leader.

A senior procurement role can look formidable on paper: a substantial spend portfolio, a savings target and responsibility for supplier risk. In practice, other executives may choose suppliers, control demand and decide whether to fund change. Procurement is then accountable for the target and the negotiation, but not for all the decisions that determine whether the result can be delivered.

I have experienced versions of this mismatch, including responsibility for savings without the authority or investment to deliver them. I have also worked within a model where business and Procurement approvals were both required before a contract could be agreed. That contrast raises a question for boards and consultants: what decision rights actually sit behind a procurement leader’s accountability?

The public evidence reviewed supports concern about fragmented responsibilities and stretched capability. There is anecdotal evidence and visible leadership movement, but neither establishes that turnover among senior procurement leaders is accelerating or that weak authority causes individual departures; evidence specific to indirect procurement is particularly limited. The absence of proof of a market-wide trend does not remove the organisational question: boards can test the alignment of accountability, authority and resources now by examining their own decisions, contracts and benefit records.

Indirect procurement here means externally supplied goods and services used to operate the organisation rather than incorporated directly into what it sells. It includes technology, professional services, facilities, marketing and HR services. Much published CPO research combines direct and indirect procurement, so its findings require that qualification. “Indirect” also says little about operational importance: payroll, cyber security and critical outsourced services may be essential to keeping a business running.

What Procurement is actually there to do

This discussion can become too narrow if Procurement is reduced to savings targets, tendering and the final contract signature. A capable indirect Procurement function gives the organisation a joined-up commercial view of what it buys, why it buys it, how it will manage the supplier and what risks it is accepting. That work matters over several years, not simply in the next annual budget cycle.

Strategic sourcing begins with understanding the requirement and the market before a supplier has been selected. It includes building category strategies, removing duplicate and non-strategic suppliers, consolidating expenditure where that makes operational sense and using purchasing scale where it creates a real commercial advantage. It also means asking whether an existing service, licence or contract can meet the need before another one is added.

This is demand management as much as sourcing. Procurement needs to work with IT, HR, Facilities and other teams closely enough to understand the operational need, usage and implementation consequences. It can then challenge excess licences, overlapping services and poorly defined specifications, and bring useful supplier options or innovation into the conversation before a decision is fixed. The aim is not to second-guess every operational choice; it is to make the dependencies and trade-offs visible while they can still be acted on.

Risk is another core part of the role. Legal gives legal advice, Information Security sets security requirements and Finance assesses financial exposure. Procurement should bring those views together in the commercial process: testing supplier capability and capacity, financial health, resilience, data-processing arrangements, contract dependencies and exit options. It can ask for stronger terms, evidence, remediation plans or other controls where the business risk warrants them. The business owner remains responsible for the operational decision, and the relevant specialists retain their own professional approvals.^[11]

Good Procurement also makes the normal route easier to use. Clear spending rules, sensible approval workflows and approved buying channels can stop rogue or un-negotiated spend while allowing employees to buy routine, authorised goods and services quickly. Control should reduce needless administration for ordinary purchases and concentrate challenge on commitments where value, risk or complexity justify it.

After signature, the work does not disappear. Someone needs to monitor supplier performance, manage service levels, track consumption, plan renewals and deal with deteriorating delivery. Procurement may lead or support that supplier relationship management, depending on the category and operating model, but the responsibilities need to be explicit. Otherwise contracts renew by inertia, poor service goes unchallenged and suppliers receive spend without a coherent commercial relationship.

Taken together, these responsibilities explain why the argument about authority matters. Procurement cannot be expected to reduce cost, improve supplier performance, manage risk and remove duplication if it only enters the process to negotiate terms after the important choices have been made. Equally, it should be judged on the quality of the commercial work it controls, with the business held accountable for requirements, adoption and implementation.

What the evidence does, and does not, show about procurement leadership turnover

Visible CPO moves and frequent recruitment activity create an understandable impression that senior procurement roles are becoming harder to sustain. The available evidence, however, measures different things. A vacancy shows that a role is being recruited. A tenure study shows how long current incumbents have been in post. A turnover rate requires evidence of departures or replacements within a defined population over a defined period. These measures are related, but they are not interchangeable.

Across these sources, there is no comparable time series establishing that senior procurement turnover is increasing, and none isolates leaders of indirect procurement. Newly created roles, internal promotions, reorganisations, retirement and unsuccessful appointments can all produce visible movement. A high proportion of recent appointments can coexist with expansion of the profession. Chief people officer statistics, which also use the abbreviation CPO, must be excluded entirely.

Hypothesis 1 is that repeated accountability without sufficient decision rights, executive backing or delivery resources contributes to avoidable departures. The proposition is plausible and testable, but the evidence reviewed does not establish it as the explanation for an individual’s exit or as the cause of a profession-wide trend.

The documented pressure behind the concern

The evidence therefore supports a narrower conclusion than a claim of accelerating turnover. Procurement leaders are operating amid documented organisational barriers, capability constraints and rising workloads. The next question is whether their operating models give them enough authority and support to respond.

Deloitte’s 2025 survey covered more than 250 CPOs in 40 countries. Respondents identified siloed working (57%), competing priorities (46%), organisational or technology capability (40%) and the talent gap (34%) as barriers to delivering value.^[5] The survey therefore documents the prevalence of perceived constraints across a broad procurement population. It does not identify which constraint caused a particular savings programme to fail or a leader to resign.

World Commerce & Contracting’s 2025 benchmark summary reports that 48% of respondents acknowledged unclear accountability for the quality and integrity of contracting or the commercial process.^[6] Its coverage extends beyond procurement to commercial and contract management. The finding is relevant because the contract lifecycle crosses functional boundaries; it does not mean that 48% of CPOs have no authority.

The resource pressure is also current. The Hackett Group’s 2026 study projects an 8% increase in procurement workload alongside declining headcount and operating budgets.^[7] This is an outlook reported in the study, rather than a verified year-end outcome. Taken together, the research supports examining how work and authority are allocated before assuming that a more capable individual can absorb every additional responsibility.

There is counterevidence to a simple story of procurement becoming progressively weaker. ProcureAbility’s published summary of the 2026 ProcureCon CPO–CIO survey says 53% of respondents described the two leaders as equal partners in technology procurement, compared with 45% in its 2025 comparison.^[8] That is a positive signal. The release does not establish a matched panel or audited decision rights, so it cannot prove that formal authority improved across the market. It does show why a universal decline narrative would be too strong.

How the profession may have helped create the problem

Procurement has argued for strategic relevance, and there are sound reasons for it to influence investment, resilience and supplier choices. The risk is accepting broad outcome targets without agreeing the practical authority and resources needed to deliver them. A seat at the table helps only if the decision process gives that seat a purpose.

This interpretation concerns the operating model rather than a finding measured by the surveys. The profession may sometimes have argued for influence by citing the value of spend it “manages” without defining what management entails. Visibility of expenditure, negotiation of a contract, approval of a commercial commitment and control of consumption are distinct responsibilities. A single spend-under-management percentage can therefore overstate Procurement’s practical authority unless those responsibilities are separately identified.

Consider the illustrative statement, “Procurement owns technology spend.” The technology organisation then independently decides, “We are buying Oracle.” Procurement may still negotiate effectively and challenge licence quantities, contractual flexibility and implementation scope. But once the platform choice is effectively irreversible, Procurement no longer controls the fundamental commercial option of whether to select that platform. Its target should therefore reflect both the choices still open to it and the business decisions on which further savings depend.

A Microsoft renewal illustrates the same issue. A larger discount can accompany higher total expenditure if the business buys more licences, broader bundles or new capabilities. Whether those choices are worthwhile depends on requirements, utilisation, adoption and the removal of overlapping costs. Procurement can lead the commercial challenge; technical and business owners must supply evidence and implement the resulting decisions. These are hypothetical purchasing scenarios, not accounts of supplier conduct or named customer transactions.

In my experience, Finance often has more institutional power because budget and approval controls make its intervention unavoidable. Commercial challenge can be easier to bypass. That distinction need not become a contest between functions: financial approval, technical acceptance and commercial approval answer different questions, and all may be required for the same commitment.

Published examples of how authority can be divided

Three public frameworks illustrate different ways to separate budget ownership, specialist review and commercial governance. They are useful as design patterns rather than proof of superior outcomes: each describes intended controls, and its thresholds and legal setting should not be copied mechanically into a private business.

3i separates budget approval from procurement responsibilities

3i’s September 2025 policy summary assigns budget holders responsibility for available funds and spend approval. It requires specific CEO approval for expenditure of £100,000 or more, even if budgeted, and early central Procurement review for non-deal costs at that level. The threshold includes applicable taxes and connected cumulative expenditure. Group Procurement also has responsibility for high-risk activity, while operations or service managers monitor supplier performance.^[9] The lesson is the explicit allocation of responsibilities; the public summary does not establish a universal Procurement veto.

Glasgow Caledonian University adds review before signature

The university’s October 2024 delegated authority policy requires contracts to remain within signing limits and obtain prior approval from Procurement in Finance, Research and Innovation, or Governance and Legal Services, according to the contract concerned. Multiyear procurements use total value to determine the approval level.^[10] This makes specialist review a condition of the process while recognising different contractual remits.

The UK commercial standard retains a named business owner

Government Functional Standard GovS 008 assigns direction and governance to a senior commercial officer. A senior business owner is accountable for assigned contracts or supplier relationships and should ensure specialist involvement throughout the lifecycle; the contract manager reports to that owner.^[11] Business ownership after signature can therefore be entirely compatible with a strong commercial function. The essential requirement is that ownership has named duties and resources.

My own anonymised example followed a comparable principle. The business defined the requirement, and both business and Procurement approvals were required within the relevant delegation before contracting. A workflow enforced the approvals. The business could then consume within the approved agreement and budget. This is a recollection of professional practice, not evidence about any employer’s current arrangements.

Authority needs to operate before the options disappear

A mandatory signature at the end can still be too late. By then a programme may have announced its supplier, designed around the product and committed to a launch date. Procurement needs involvement while requirements and commercial options can still change. The business owns the desired outcome and technical integrity; Procurement should help test assumptions, specifications and market alternatives as they develop.

The following is a proposed allocation for material or higher-risk commitments. Each organisation should define thresholds, delegates and escalation routes. Shared approval means identifiable decisions by named people, supported by a final executive route for disagreements.

Procurement concurrence can be recorded in the workflow and need not require two signatures on every contract. Legal, information security and other specialists retain their own defined approvals, while routine purchases within approved agreements can remain delegated. For an exception, the record should identify who decided, why the normal route was not followed, what risk was accepted and how the decision changes the benefit forecast.

The quality of participation matters as much as its timing. The National Audit Office’s January 2025 review found that government commercial teams did not always involve digital experts at the right time and could use contract designs that restricted effective delivery.^[12] Procurement can itself contribute to fragmentation. The response should be reciprocal involvement and appropriate expertise, with obligations on commercial teams as well as on the business.

Savings need an implementation owner and funding

Negotiation alone does not realise every saving. Supplier consolidation, software retirement and a change of service provider may require technical assessment, exit costs, migration, training or temporary capacity. Unless an authorised owner can secure those resources, the saving remains conditional. A large target does not create an implementation team.

The cost to achieve does not have to sit in Procurement’s own budget. It does need a funded business case, an accountable sponsor and access to delivery capacity. Where the investment is declined, the organisation should record the resulting effect on the benefit plan. The CPO remains accountable for the quality of the opportunity and its commercial assessment; the investment decision belongs to the authorised decision-maker.

Finance should help distinguish negotiated price reductions, avoided increases, reduced demand and realised net benefit. A discount against a supplier’s opening proposal is not automatically a reduction in the operating budget. Transition costs, volume changes, timing and double counting can materially alter the outcome. Shared definitions protect Procurement’s credibility and make the business’s implementation obligations visible.

Hypothesis 2 is that opportunities approved with implementation funding and a named business owner will realise a higher proportion of forecast net benefits than comparable opportunities without those provisions. Test it by tracking forecast and actual outcomes, together with reasons for delay or cancellation, across both groups. The analysis would also need to account for differences in complexity and selection. No effect size is established here.

Spend, cost, savings and value are not the same thing

Spend is the cash paid to suppliers in a period. Cost is the full economic burden of a decision, including supplier charges, implementation, internal effort, transition, exit costs and any period of paying for overlapping services. Savings are verified reductions against an agreed baseline, with price reduction, demand reduction, cost avoidance and realised budget benefit distinguished rather than combined. Value is the benefit the organisation receives relative to cost and risk, including capability, service quality, resilience, flexibility, risk reduction and financial return. A decision can increase this year’s cash spend and still be the right one if it produces sufficient value; equally, a substantial supplier discount may create no real saving if the business buys more than it needs.

Procurement and Finance should therefore agree what is being claimed and how it will be evidenced. Is it a reduction against an approved budget, an avoided future increase, lower demand, improved value for the same cost, or a realised net financial benefit after the cost of change? Without that clarity, a discount can be reported as a saving while cash spend and total cost continue to rise. Not every improvement in resilience, service or risk should be converted into a speculative financial saving, but it should remain visible as a separate value outcome.

The counterarguments deserve practical answers

Influence remains part of the job

Every senior role depends on people it does not directly manage. Procurement must earn early engagement through useful insight, commercial skill and an understanding of business priorities. Poor service, weak category knowledge or an inflated savings claim cannot be excused by pointing to the authority matrix. Clear rights provide a reliable route for resolving disagreement; they do not replace leadership.

A chosen incumbent can be the right decision

Standardisation, integration, service continuity and the cost of switching may justify staying with a major technology supplier. A competitive exercise with no credible alternative wastes time and can damage trust. Procurement should test whether the rationale holds, assess the available commercial options and document the decision. The board may rationally favour resilience or speed over a cheaper bid.

More approvals can reduce performance

DWP’s 2024–25 annual report provides a useful example. It says a rise in its Commercial Approval Board threshold from £100,000 to £400,000, with a lighter process between those values, reduced decisions requiring full board approval by about 50%. The department reported ongoing assurance and capacity released for more complex activity.^[13] This is a reported process outcome, not proof of improved savings. It demonstrates why the design should concentrate review where risk and value justify it.

A small or shared team can be effective

Neither a senior title nor a job advertisement reveals the delivery capacity behind it. Pooled teams, specialist support and automation can work well where priorities, access and service expectations are clear. The practical questions are how much capacity is committed to the category, who covers specialist judgments and what happens when demand exceeds that capacity. A shared team becomes a problem when a leader’s obligations are fixed but their access to support is not.

What boards and advisers should test

Taken together, the proposed model has five requirements: the organisation defines Procurement’s intended contribution; Procurement is involved while meaningful choices remain open; material commitments require proportionate commercial and business approval; every benefit has an implementation owner and a credible route to funding; and exceptions are recorded against the associated risk and benefit forecast. The diagnostic below tests whether those requirements operate in practice rather than merely appearing in policy.

Before redesigning the organisation or recruiting another leader, examine a sample of recent material purchases, renewals and savings projects. Trace the actual decisions from the first requirement to the realised result. A policy and an organisation chart are useful starting points; timestamps, approvals, exception records and delivery evidence show how the model operates.

• Has the organisation defined Procurement’s role across sourcing, demand management, supplier risk, controlled buying and supplier lifecycle management?

• Could Procurement influence the requirement and sourcing route before the supplier choice became effectively irreversible?

• Did the workflow require the appropriate business, commercial and specialist approvals, and were exceptions visible to the accountable executive?

• Was someone named and resourced to manage the contract, consumption, renewal and implementation after signature?

• Did Finance and the business agree the benefit baseline, cost to achieve and actions needed to realise the saving?

• Where a leader left, what evidence distinguishes promotion, personal choice, performance, restructuring and an unworkable mandate?

Hypothesis 3 is that earlier commercial involvement, combined with proportionate approval rights, improves net outcomes without unnecessary delay. Test it across comparable transactions by measuring total cost, service outcomes, rework and elapsed time from requirement definition to commitment. Completion rates and reported savings should not be considered in isolation, and the analysis must account for differences in category, complexity and market conditions.

For turnover, examine both leavers and people who stayed. Record the scope of the role, tenure, reporting line, sponsor changes, delegated rights and available resources. Validate reasons through more than one perspective. A pattern in one business can justify intervention there; demonstrating a wider industry trend would require comparable data from a defined group of organisations over time.

For consultants, this changes the starting point of a savings or value engagement. Alongside the opportunity assessment, establish what contribution Procurement is expected to make, who can approve each change, which business owner will implement it, how risk will be treated, how the cost will be funded and which outcomes will be recognised beyond annual savings. The same discipline should govern the client’s target and the adviser’s claims. A forecast dependent on unresolved decisions should remain visibly conditional.

A more honest mandate

The organisation should be explicit about the boundary of Procurement’s accountability and the breadth of its intended contribution. Procurement can own the commercial process, provide informed challenge and answer for work within its remit. Business leaders remain accountable for requirements, operational decisions, risk acceptance and implementation. Specialist functions retain their defined approvals. Where an outcome depends on several functions, their decision rights, resources and commitments should be recorded.

The proposed principle is straightforward: the business owns the requirement, operational outcome and budget; Procurement has defined authority over the commercial process and a clear mandate for sourcing, demand, supplier risk and lifecycle value; material commitments require the agreed approvals; and the executive team resolves exceptions and funds approved change. Performance measures should recognise realised savings without treating them as the whole of Procurement’s contribution. Those arrangements should continue to work when individual leaders move on.

A change of leader may be necessary, but it should trigger a review of the mandate the next person will inherit. Before holding Procurement to a savings or value target, the board should be able to identify what Procurement was expected to do, who controlled the underlying decisions, who owned implementation and risk acceptance, whether the required delivery capacity was funded and how wider value would be recognised. If those answers are unclear, replacing the individual may leave the operating problem untouched.

Evidence notes and primary sources

Public sources reviewed to 25 September 2026. This is a focused review, not a census of leadership movements or a systematic statistical study. Research samples generally combine industries and procurement remits; survey findings describe respondents, while published policies describe intended controls. Where only a publisher’s public summary was available, the citation identifies it. Personal experience is anonymised; Hypotheses 1 to 3 are the author’s propositions for testing.

[1] Procurement Leaders — David Rae, Procurement’s Transformation Era, 20 January 2025.

Industry commentary on CPO churn. No defined population, turnover series or causal analysis is supplied.

[2] BCG — The Procurement Leader’s First 100 Days, 29 January 2026.

Advisory commentary. The four-to-six-year tenure statement has no disclosed longitudinal method.

[3] Russell Reynolds Associates — Procurement for the Future, 29 July 2024.

Demographic analysis of 77 CPOs, May 2024. The tenure figure concerns the first-time CPO subgroup, not the separate personality study.

[4] Heidrick & Struggles — Supply-chain officer focus The strategic value of succession planning, 11 September 2025.

Analysis of over 360 CSCO roles across Fortune 1000, Fortune Europe 500 and APAC 150 companies, 2023–2025 year to date.

[5] Deloitte — 2025 Global Chief Procurement Officer Survey, publisher’s press release, 19 August 2025.

Survey summary; over 250 CPOs in 40 countries. Reported barriers across procurement, without causal estimates.

[6] World Commerce & Contracting — Benchmark Report 2025, public executive summary.

Commercial and contract management benchmark. The 48% measure concerns accountability for the quality and integrity of the process.

[7] The Hackett Group — Reports Rapid Progress in Procurement’s AI Agenda, 17 March 2026.

Publisher’s summary of its 2026 Procurement Key Issues Study. Workload growth is projected; the release gives no sample size.

[8] ProcureAbility and ProcureCon — 2026 CPO–CIO report, issuer’s release, 29 April 2026.

Sponsor’s survey summary through PR Newswire. Reports perceptions of partnership; no sample size, matched panel or audited decision rights established.

[9] 3i — Summary of Expenditure and Procurement Policy, September 2025, sections 2.5 and 3.

Company policy summary, pages 4–5. Thresholds include applicable taxes and connected spend; deal-related costs have a separate route.

[10] Glasgow Caledonian University — Delegated Authority Policy, October 2024, section 1.4.

Institutional policy. Prior review depends on contract category; Procurement is one of several responsible functions.

[11] Cabinet Office — Government Functional Standard GovS 008 Commercial, sections 4.6.4–4.6.6, accessed 25 September 2026.

Government standard defining commercial direction, business ownership and contract management. A design reference, without evidence of performance effects.

[12] National Audit Office — Government’s approach to technology suppliers addressing the challenges, January 2025.

Independent public audit insights concerning major digital business change. Findings do not cover every commercial team or commodity technology purchase.

[13] Department for Work and Pensions — Annual report and accounts 2024 to 2025, Commercial Controls.

Departmental annual report. Reports fewer full-board decisions following the threshold change; does not establish savings or an overall outcome effect.

Over to You

I have worked with organisations where Procurement had significant influence over commercial outcomes, and others where accountability and authority were badly misaligned.

I am particularly interested in hearing from Procurement leaders, CIOs and technology leaders, Finance professionals, consultants, and contract and commercial managers.

Where do you think accountability should sit?

Can Procurement realistically be measured against savings targets if implementation depends on decisions outside its control?

And have you seen a governance model that gets this balance right?

Leave a comment below. Practical examples of what has worked — and what has not — would be especially valuable.