Survey: 79% of chief procurement officers cite cost reduction as main priority

Mackenzie Bean (Twitter) - Tuesday, February 21st, 2017

A majority of chief procurement officers will primarily focus on cost reduction goals in 2017, according to a new report from Deloitte.

To compile the report, Deloitte polled 480 procurement leaders from 38 countries on key themes and challenges in procurement.

Here are six survey findings.

1. Most CPOs (79 percent) cited cost reduction as their main priority, followed by

Managing risks (57 percent), introducing new products or services and market development (52 percent) and increasing cash flow (48 percent).

2. Fifty-eight percent of organizations achieved a higher savings performance in 2017 compared to last year.

3. Seventy-five percent of respondents said they have executive support for procurement.

4. Sixty percent of CPOs did not believe their teams had the skills to deliver their procurement strategy.

5. In 2016, 29 percent of organizations spent less than 1 percent of their budget on new talent development and procurement training.

6. Sixty-five percent of respondents cited analytics as the technology that will have the largest impact on procurement in the next two years.