Shaz Khan is the CEO and co-founder of Vroozi, a digital procure-to-pay platform.
Organizations must move beyond seeing procurement as merely a cost center. Through discussions with chief procurement officers and financial leaders across sectors, three key elements consistently surface as essential for driving sustainable business growth: control, consolidation and compliance. While every company charts its own path, these “Three C’s” offer a powerful blueprint for unlocking significant business value—particularly when paired with speed and agility.
Here’s how organizations can harness the Three C’s to achieve meaningful results:
Control
The days of scattered corporate credit cards and decentralized purchasing are numbered and with good reason. In today’s business environment, many companies continue to operate without structure—handing out corporate credit cards with $2,000 limits and instructing employees to “purchase whatever you need” with minimal oversight. This approach, while appearing convenient, introduces substantial risks and inefficiencies that modern organizations can no longer sustain.
Leading organizations are rolling out unified procurement streams that ensure visibility and control while preserving speed. We are witnessing companies reduce order processing times from 20 minutes in legacy systems to mere seconds using agile, intelligent workflows and platforms. This advancement isn’t solely about speed—it’s about building a procurement environment that balances efficiency with oversight.
Organizations that establish proper controls gain real-time visibility into spending patterns, can better manage supplier relationships, and can make data-driven decisions about their procurement strategies. This becomes especially vital during times of economic uncertainty, when every dollar spent needs to be carefully tracked and justified.
Consolidation
Procurement leaders should think beyond supplier consolidation to streamlining entire procurement processes. When organizations unify their procurement workflows through a single platform, the efficiency gains are remarkable. This represents a clear evolution from fragmented, departmental purchasing to a cohesive, organization-wide approach to spend management.
Based on our observations, average processing costs for purchase orders typically range from $80 to $250, while invoice processing averages around $15 per invoice. Through modern procurement solutions, we’re seeing organizations reduce these costs to under $15 per purchase order and under $3 per invoice. These savings aren’t just about the bottom line—they represent the elimination of redundant processes, reduced error rates and freed-up staff time that can be redirected to more strategic activities.
A consolidated procurement approach enables better supplier relationship management, stronger negotiating positions and more effective risk management. Organizations can leverage their total spend with suppliers to secure better terms, while maintaining the flexibility to work with specialized vendors when needed.
Compliance
The right procurement solution converts compliance from a burden into a business advantage. Modern systems can enforce policies automatically while actually making purchases faster and easier for end users. This shift in compliance from roadblock to enabler marks a crucial advancement in procurement practices.
We’ve seen organizations achieve complete adoption—one educational institution now manages 100% of their non-payroll spend through a single compliant system, handling everything from French textbooks to camera equipment efficiently and in accordance with policy. This level of compliance doesn’t come at the expense of efficiency; rather, it’s built into the fabric of the procurement process.
The automation of compliance checks creates a procurement environment where following the rules becomes the path of least resistance. Modern procurement systems can automatically flag potential issues, maintain audit trails and ensure that purchases align with organizational policies and regulatory requirements.
The Real Impact
When organizations master these Three C’s, the results are substantial. We’re seeing customers achieve up to 10% in cost savings based on their total addressable indirect spend—savings that flow directly to the bottom line and can be reinvested in growth.
These savings represent just the beginning. Organizations that excel at the Three C’s often see:
• Strengthened supplier relationships leading to better terms and innovation opportunities
• Reduced risk through better visibility and control of spending
• Improved employee satisfaction through faster, more intuitive purchasing processes
• Better decision-making capabilities through comprehensive spend analytics
• Increased agility in responding to market changes and opportunities
Looking Ahead
Organizations that thrive will be those that use procurement as a strategic driver of business value. The Three C’s—control, consolidation and compliance—combined with speed and agility, provide a framework for that success. For CPOs, whose bonuses often tie directly to demonstrated cost savings, this framework offers a clear path to value creation.
The tools and technology exist today to make this vision a reality. Smart organizations are already capturing millions in savings and creating competitive advantages through modernized procurement, while simultaneously improving their operational resilience and supplier relationships. The question isn’t whether to upgrade procurement practices, but how quickly your organization will begin to capture the value waiting to be unlocked.
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