Te Finance & Business Guide - brought to you by APL Media • Wednesday 22 October 2025


Technology, Software & Marketing • 19 ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE


Is procurement the new competitive advantage?


Procurement is where three priorities meet: protecting the bottom line, moving fast and managing risk


Money isn’t free. Many boards want tighter control and the number of tools and specialist services used by businesses has exploded — especially with the advent of AI. Early adopters of the right software may unlock a first-mover competitive advantage. All of these processes flow through procurement, which can help deliver a serious strategic advantage. According to Omnea,


procurement, especially indirect, isn’t treated like a value driver in many organisations — it’s treated like an administrative function. Requests bounce between emails and forms, approvals vanish into email chains and suppliers struggle to onboard through spreadsheets and portals. Forrester research shows 86% of B2B purchases stall before completion — a symptom of clogged approvals and unclear ownership. After purchase? The same research indicates 81% of buyers express dissatisfaction with their chosen providers. The result can be slow decisions, missed savings and higher risk — exactly what CFOs don’t have time for. Omnea believes that the root cause


isn’t the people, it’s the way the work moves. Too many disconnected tools, no single front door, policies and approvals living in inboxes and data


scattered so no one has a clear view. Buyers can’t see what’s happening, approvers don’t get the right context and finance lacks the visibility to steer spend. Fix the flow and procurement can become a strategic engine instead of back-office busywork.


WHAT NEEDS TO CHANGE? For CFOs and procurement leaders, the first step is straightforward, says Omnea: fix the front door so every request flows through a truly consumer-grade experience. Picture an employee opening Slack or Teams and typing, “I need a new analytics tool for the marketing team.” The platform asks a few simple questions in chat: what’s the job to be done, how many seats, rough budget, any sensitive data involved and the deadline. It then checks what you already own, suggests existing tools or preferred suppliers to avoid sprawl, and asks quick follow-ups to complete the picture. If a renewal opportunity or a better-value option exists, it offers that path too — right there in the conversation. Once the basics are captured, the


request is automatically routed to the right people. The employee’s manager and finance receive a short, plain-English summary with the cost, rationale, suggested supplier and any risk or policy flags. They can approve or ask a question in one click, without trawling through email


Fix the flow and procurement can become a strategic engine


chains. Legal and security reviews are kicked off in the background, sized to the risk and everyone can see status at a glance. The requester gets clear updates (“with your manager”, “with finance”, “contracting”), while procurement has a single view of progress, bottlenecks and outcomes. Establishing this one front door — and the orchestration behind it — creates a single source of truth for requests, suppliers, contracts, approvals and results, so renewals and negotiations are data-led rather than last-minute scrambles. That’s how procurement can stop playing traffic cop and start compounding strategic value. Omnea calls it intake and


orchestration. It’s AI-native and works over the stack you already own, with policy-as-code, a UX- focused supplier portal and deep two-way integrations for key tools. That conviction is shared by tier-one investors: Omnea has just raised $50m in Series B funding led by Insight Partners and Khosla Ventures. It translates into faster cycles, clearer visibility and higher savings — without the pain of implementing another monolith.


For further information


To learn more about procurement transformation, visit: omnea.co


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