Art of Procurement

"AI makes the answers cheaper, so the good questions and good judgment really become the coin of the realm." - Mason Morgan, Managing Director, Managing Director at CrossCountry Consulting focusing on AI and innovation in S2P
Procurement technology has come a long way, but simply adding new technology to existing processes doesn't guarantee better results. As AI becomes a bigger part of the procurement operating model, leaders have to think differently about where technology can create value, which processes are worth preserving and not handing over to AI, and how their teams need to evolve alongside it.
In this episode of ProcureTech Insider, Philip Ideson speaks with Mason Morgan, Managing Director at CrossCountry Consulting focusing on AI and innovation in S2P and a judge for the 2027 ProcureTech100, about what separates procurement organizations that realize value from technology from those that struggle to get there. They explore why technology investments need to be considered as part of the broader operating model, how AI is changing the skills procurement needs, and what leaders should prioritize as they plan their next wave of transformation.
In this episode, Mason covers how to:
-Treat technology investments as operating model changes rather than standalone implementations
-Focus AI initiatives on measurable business outcomes and build credibility through early wins
-Recognize when an existing process should be redesigned instead of automated
-Develop the business acumen and judgment procurement professionals will need in an AI-enabled environment
-Create better buying experiences that make the right path the easiest path for stakeholders
-Use technology to extend procurement's influence without requiring procurement to own every step of the process
Links:
Mason Morgan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mason-morgan-94055a7/ 
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"You don't need an advanced platform to begin. You just need consistent definitions, discipline, to look at the data, and a willingness to move beyond the on-time delivery average to make really good decisions going forward."
Traditional supplier scorecards can tell procurement whether a supplier delivered on time, but they may not reveal whether that supplier's commitments are becoming less reliable over time.
In this episode, Philip Ideson is joined by Shayan Farshid, a procurement and operations professional, to discuss the Supplier Stability Index, an open-source framework Shayan developed to help procurement teams get a more complete view of supplier performance.
Shayan explains how looking beyond traditional on-time delivery metrics can reveal things like commitment drift, unresolved delivery exposure, quality issues, and other signals that may put production schedules at risk. He also shares why he made the framework open source, particularly for small and midsize manufacturers that may not have access to sophisticated supplier risk technology.

In this episode, Shayan discusses how to:
-Identify supplier risks that traditional scorecards may miss
-Measure supplier stability using data teams already have
-Prioritize supplier issues based on exposure and criticality
-Turn supplier data into more proactive supplier conversations
-Build stronger data foundations before applying AI
-Start measuring supplier stability without an advanced technology platform
 
Links:
Shayan Farshid on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sfarshid/ 
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Subscribe to Art of Procurement on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ArtofProcurement

Dear Diary…
"I believe we are in the midst of a revolution — and I think in a revolution, we as a vendor also
want to invest a lot in educating the community on what's really changing and how it's
changing."
This episode kicks off a new Art of Procurement podcast series, produced in partnership with
Zycus. I sit down with the person who made the series possible to talk about why it exists and
where agentic AI is really heading.
Aatish Dedhia is the Founder and CEO of Zycus, a company that entered procurement in the
early 2000s and has lived through every wave of its digitization since.
He traces procurement's last 20 years from digitization to machine learning to generative AI,
then makes a bold claim: this is a once-in-a-few-centuries change, closer to the Industrial
Revolution than to mobile or cloud.
In this episode of The Agentic Procurement Diaries podcast, Philip Ideson and Aatish discuss:
- Why a point agent is not agentic, and why agent sprawl is causing companies to miss the real
ROI of AI
- The three layers of guardrails that keep agents in check: the system of record, the agentic policy
layer, and the human in the loop
- What procurement leaders overestimate and underestimate, starting with the truth that you
cannot put AI on a broken process
- The three segments Zycus sees today: AI hungry, AI curious, and AI resistant
 
Links:
Aatish takes this conversation further at PLAN 2026 on November 18
Zycus on LinkedIn
AOP Provider Directory | Zycus
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"It's all about building that momentum, creating the value, testing the hypothesis, and then continuing to challenge us to take it to that next level." Darshan Deshmukh, President at ProcureAbility
AI adoption in procurement is accelerating, but experimentation alone does not equal transformation. With organizations launching pilots, testing new platforms, and exploring agentic capabilities, procurement leaders need to keep a clear connection between the technology they adopt and the business outcomes they are trying to create.
In this episode, Kelly Barner is joined by Darshan Deshmukh, President at ProcureAbility, for a CPO-level discussion about moving from AI experimentation to meaningful procurement transformation.
Darshan shares what he is seeing across procurement organizations as AI maturity increases, including why so many teams remain focused on efficiency and productivity and what separates those efforts from more intentional transformation. He and Kelly also discuss the importance of starting with a business problem rather than a technology or use case, as well as the evolving role of agentic AI, data quality, human judgment, and organizational culture.
Listen to this episode, to hear Darshan discuss how to:
-Move beyond isolated AI pilots, and toward intentional transformation
-Start AI initiatives with the business problem and desired outcome
-Use AI to identify risk signals and accelerate decision-making
-Build trust through stronger data, transparency, and measurable results
-Expand procurement's contribution beyond cost and risk
-Create a culture where experimentation and learning can happen without fear of failure
Links:
Darshan Deshmukh on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darshan-deshmukh/ 
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"The earlier you can catch risk, the cheaper it is to solve." - Matthew Spencer, Founder of FlockScore
Procurement teams have access to plenty of information when evaluating a new supplier, from certifications and financials to technical capabilities. What they often lack is visibility into a more practical question: How does this supplier actually perform?
In this episode of Art of Procurement's Startup of the Week, we talk with Matthew Spencer, Co-Founder and CEO of FlockScore, a platform building a collective intelligence layer for supplier decisions by bringing together anonymized, real-world supplier performance data.
Matthew shares the experience that led him to start FlockScore, why he believes external supplier performance data can help procurement make faster and more confident decisions, and how the platform is designed to complement the supplier data companies already have.
Listen to this episode to hear:
-Why internal supplier scorecards only provide part of the performance picture
-How peer performance data can help procurement evaluate new and alternative suppliers
-Why supply chain volatility is increasing the need for faster supplier qualification
-How FlockScore combines anonymized peer data with AI-generated supplier signals
-How earlier visibility into issues such as supplier capacity can help teams respond before disruption reaches their own operations
Links:
Matthew Spencer on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewjspencer1?originalSubdomain=be 
Visit FlockScore's Profile in the AOP Provider Directory: https://artofprocurement.com/provider-directory/flockscore 
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