“The greatest challenge facing the world today isn't tariffs or monetary uncertainty – it's stagnating productivity.” - Baber Farooq, Senior Vice President, Product Marketing SAP Ariba & SAP Fieldglass

Navigating today's interconnected global business landscape has thrust procurement directly into the heart of strategic risk management. Supply chain disruptions, new AI-driven realities, looming ESG regulations, and shifting diversity initiatives pressure leaders to redefine procurement’s strategic impact.

In this episode, Baber Farooq, Senior Vice President, Product Marketing SAP Ariba & SAP Fieldglass, joins Philip Ideson to unveil pivotal findings from the latest SAP Economist Impact report: “The Resilient Edge: Procurement in an Era of Polycrisis.”

Baber shares why procurement leaders everywhere must proactively align their operating models to evolving global challenges – especially in preparation for generative AI, stringent sustainability standards, and shifting supply chain landscapes.

Baber covers how to:

• Navigate escalating supply chain and geopolitical risks
• Prepare teams for an inevitable AI-driven procurement environment
• Prioritize ESG initiatives to anticipate regulatory impacts effectively
• Apply advanced spend analytics to move beyond simple reporting and drive actionable insight

Links:

• Baber Farooq on LinkedIn
• Optimizing Procurement’s Source-to-Pay Strategy
• Bridging the Confidence Gap to Achieve the Best Business Outcomes
• Learn more about SAP
• Subscribe to This Week in Procurement
• Subscribe to Art of Procurement on YouTube

Procurement 6 is a short podcast from Art of Procurement that publishes in the Art of Procurement feed every Friday morning at 6am US Eastern Time.

Presented by a member of the Art of Procurement team, each episode has 6 short segments that summarize the week in procurement.

Segments range from procurement tips to podcast summaries, from details of events to news or overviews of blog posts that capture our attention.

Sometimes the most damning evidence about an industry or an organization comes from the inside. In this second installment of “Buy: The Way…To Purposeful Procurement’s” deep dive into supplier tactics, two former supply executives continue exposing the ins and outs of the supplier playbook they used on procurement when they were on the other side of the fence.

Bob Schreiner, former CIA section chief and G4s operations executive, explains how security guard service providers can obscure margin increases within seemingly reasonable wage adjustments for officers. He also exposes the “position rate variance” tactic, where suppliers charge premium rates for senior guards to fill junior positions, and also how disasters can become margin-grabbing bonanzas for suppliers.

Keith Robinson, one of only 150 board-certified entomologists working commercially in North America, exposes seasonal billing schemes in the pest control industry, where compliance rates plummet in colder months, yet billing continues unchanged. Perhaps most shocking is his revelation that 80-90 percent of fogging and fumigation services are often completely avoidable.

These true stories from industry insiders point to a troubling reality: procurement is sometimes so focused on up-front savings that they inadvertently signal to suppliers exactly how to game the system. In effect, procurement ends up creating the perfect conditions for the kind of post-contract chicanery that can create significant cost increases for the business over the years, without any change in service scope or delivery.

Links:

• Bob Schreiner on LinkedIn
• Keith Robinson on LinkedIn
• Rich Ham on LinkedIn
• Learn more at FineTuneUs.com