Art of Procurement

Procurement technology is changing so fast that the tool you buy today will look different in two months. Many CPOs are tempted to wait for the market to settle, but a steady state may not arrive any time soon. Teams that hold back also risk missing the window where they can shape how these solutions develop.
In this episode, Philip Ideson is joined by Cyril Wasem, Chief Procurement Officer at The Vita Group and a judge in Art of Procurement's ProcureTech100 program. 
Cyril shares how he blocks out time for startup pitches, why his team went live with an orchestration platform in just eight weeks, and how he decides which providers are true partners rather than one-time implementations.
If you've been holding off on a technology decision until things calm down, Cyril's experience makes a strong case for starting now and course-correcting as you go. It's a practical, honest conversation with a CPO who is doing the work.
In this episode, Cyril covers:
- Selecting providers for their people and culture, treating each implementation as the start of a joint development
- Launching fast with a phase one that captures most of the benefits, then integrates and adds features over time
- Enriching and connecting fragmented data rather than waiting for it to be perfectly structured
- Showing management what new technology makes possible, and using that investment to attract and keep curious talent
Links:
Cyril Wasem on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cyril-wasem-cpo/ 
Subscribe to the AOP Newsletter: https://resources.artofprocurement.com/art-of-procurement-podcast-subscribe 
Subscribe to Art of Procurement on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ArtofProcurement

"Supply chains are going to get more complex. As we adopt more agents, there's going to be more coordination, not just between humans but between bots and humans and bots themselves." Nick Gospodinov, Founder and CEO, Mandel AI
Today's procurement organizations live in two worlds: ERP platforms and mountains of emails and spreadsheets. That disconnect can (and all too often does) lead to missed quotes, lapsed deadlines, and significant hidden costs… especially in direct procurement, where stakes are high. 
With AI finally mature enough to process natural language, the opportunity to bridge these worlds is here.
In this Startup of the Week episode of the ProcureTech Insider podcast, Mandel AI founder Nick Gospodinov shares how his team built an "AI supply chain coordinator" focused on the true communication backbone of procurement. Mandel AI doesn't just automate ERP tasks, it reads buyers' inboxes, detects disruption, and escalates real business risk before procurement even knows there's a problem. 
Listen in to hear why fast, scenario-based deployments can drive immediate value, how escalation features find money others miss, and what CPOs need to ask before introducing new tech.
In this episode, Nick covers:
- Connect real-time communication to procurement action  
- Tackle the "coordination tax" that slows supply chains  
- Overcome trust and adoption hurdles for AI in manufacturing  
- Find deeper ROI beyond time saved, like preventing quote expiration  
- Deploy AI automation with speed and flexibilit
 
Links:
Nick Gospodinov on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-gospodinov/ 
Visit the Mandel AI Profile in the AOP Provider Directory: https://artofprocurement.com/provider-directory/mandelai 
Subscribe to the AOP Newsletter: https://resources.artofprocurement.com/art-of-procurement-podcast-subscribe 
Subscribe to Art of Procurement on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ArtofProcurement

Procurement teams are under steady pressure to do more with less, and AI has made boards impatient for faster, smarter answers. Most teams can't build every capability they need in-house, so the CPOs pulling ahead are redesigning their operating models around the right external partners. Getting that right depends on removing friction from the process and building trust with stakeholders and suppliers alike.
In this episode, I'm joined by Hiten Parmar, Chief Procurement Officer at Beazley, and Prerna Dhawan, Chief Product Officer at Beroe, for a candid look at how their partnership actually works. Hiten explains how he decides what to build and what to bring in, and why he looks for partners who iterate and learn rather than chase perfection. Prerna shares the moment she chose not to charge a customer more, and why that decision protected a relationship that has since grown from market intelligence into risk.
We also talk about the shift from too little data to too much, why provenance is now scarce, and the one question Prerna wishes procurement teams would ask their suppliers. 
In this episode, Hiten and Prerna cover how to:
- Test every capability against your core business, then find who is best in the world to deliver it.
- Judge partners on cultural fit, trust, and willingness to iterate, not only on price.
- Pair a partner's decision-grade data with your own context on supplier criticality and exposure.
- Ask suppliers where you rank on their priority list, not just how risky they are to you.
- Push your team to speak in business terms and bring supplier ideas to stakeholders.
Links:
Hiten Parmar on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hiten-parmar-033b421?originalSubdomain=uk 
Prerna Dhawan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prerna-dhawan31/?isSelfProfile=false Join AOP and Beroe at ProcureTEX in Amsterdam, November 3rd: https://hubs.li/Q04lR_Xg0

Dear Diary… "I was watching a lot of smart people, day in and day out, looking across documents, opening folders."
Most procurement teams pick AI use cases by asking what the technology can do. Liza Tsimbal started somewhere else. On a random Tuesday, an OEM technical issue had a room full of smart people hunting through old drawings, contracts, and email chains for one piece of information. Her conclusion: information you cannot retrieve fast enough might as well not exist.
Liza is the Director of Supply Chain Management at TransAlta, one of Canada's biggest power generators. She leads a team of roughly 30 people across buying and strategic sourcing that supports more than 90 generating facilities in Canada, the United States, and Australia.
In this episode of The Agentic Procurement Diaries podcast, Philip Ideson and Liza discuss:
- Why TransAlta chose requisition-to-purchase-order automation and contract and PO leakage as its first agentic pilots, based on four criteria: high volume, rules-based, disliked by the team, and reversible
- Liza's test for taking the human out of the loop, and the decisions she won't hand to an agent, such as new material obligations or anything with a safety implication
- How she avoids AI FOMO by tying every use case to a measurable business outcome
- The risk of automating procurement's apprenticeship, and why the ability to define what good looks like becomes the scarce skill
Links:
Liza Tsimbal on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liza-tsimbal-mba-59433242/ 
Zycus on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/zycus/ 
AOP Provider Directory | Zycus: https://artofprocurement.com/provider-directory/zycusinc 
Subscribe to the AOP Newsletter: https://resources.artofprocurement.com/art-of-procurement-podcast-subscribe 
Subscribe to Art of Procurement on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ArtofProcurement

"If you're not thinking about what you inherit through your procurement decisions, then you're not truly serious about managing your climate impacts." - Nicole Darnall, Professor, Arlene R. & Robert P. Kogod Eminent Scholar Chair in Sustainability, American University - Kogod School of Business
Companies have spent years setting sustainability goals, developing policies, and asking suppliers for more information, but there can still be a significant gap between those commitments and the decisions procurement teams make every day.
In this episode, Philip Ideson is joined by Nicole Darnall, Professor and Kogod Eminent Scholar Chair in Sustainability at American University, to explore procurement's role in turning sustainability commitments into measurable action. Nicole has spent more than two decades studying sustainability, including the last decade focused specifically on procurement.
Nicole explains why so much of an organization's environmental and social impact sits beyond its own walls and how purchasing decisions can influence those outcomes. She and Philip discuss the disconnect between sustainability policies and implementation, the growing burden of supplier surveys, and why procurement needs better ways to determine which sustainability information actually matters.
They also explore how procurement teams can identify the purchasing categories where they can have the greatest impact and how sustainability considerations are beginning to intersect with AI and data center sourcing decisions.
In this episode, Nicole discusses how to:
-Close the gap between sustainability policies and procurement decisions
-Identify the spend categories with the greatest environmental or social impact
-Ask suppliers more meaningful sustainability questions
-Incorporate sustainability criteria into the RFP process
-Look beyond purchase price when evaluating true cost
-Use AI to support sustainability decisions throughout the procurement cycle
-Consider environmental, community, reputational, and operational risks when sourcing AI and data services
Links:
Nicole Darnall on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicole-darnall-4a905541/ 
Learn more about the Sustainable Procurement Research Initiative: https://kogod.american.edu/spri 
Subscribe to the AOP Newsletter: https://resources.artofprocurement.com/art-of-procurement-podcast-subscribe 
Subscribe to Art of Procurement on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ArtofProcurement