Executive Overview

Over the last decade, CPOs have accelerated adoption of procurement technology across sourcing, contracts, supplier management, and procure-to-pay. While these investments improved visibility and automation, many organisations still struggle to turn sourcing outcomes into sustained enterprise spend control as inflation, supply volatility, and budget pressure rise.

In 2026, the real challenge is not generating savings in isolated events. It is controlling spend outcomes across everyday buying decisions, contract compliance, supplier performance, and invoice accuracy. When execution is fragmented across tools, teams, and channels, value leaks through maverick spend, price variance, contract bypass, exceptions, and delivery instability.

In this research-led CPO briefing, QKS Group analysts examine where procurement execution breaks after sourcing wins and what CPOs must change across strategy, operating model, and technology to move beyond savings into enterprise spend control. Drawing from SPARK Plus buyer intelligence, the session translates real-world CPO experiences into practical guidance for 2026.

What to Expect

This session provides a structured, insight-driven walkthrough of how procurement organizations operate today, where spend control breaks down, and what must change in 2026. Attendees will gain clarity on why strong sourcing outcomes do not automatically produce spend control, how execution gaps show up across intake, contracts, suppliers, and payables, and what a practical operating model for enterprise spend control looks like.

The discussion focuses on execution realities rather than future promises. It helps CPOs and procurement technology providers understand which capabilities matter most when inflation, compliance requirements, and stakeholder expectations are rising.

Agenda

From Sourcing Savings to Spend Control
- Why savings alone fails to hold through day-to-day buying and downstream execution.
- What “enterprise spend control” means for CPOs. compliance, cash, and cost discipline.
- Where value leaks most. maverick spend, price variance, and contract bypass.
Where Procurement Execution Still Breaks
- Intake and demand shaping gaps that allow off-process buying and spec drift
- Contract coverage and compliance breakdowns across tail and decentralized spend
- Invoice exceptions and supplier performance volatility that drive hidden cost.
Controls That Actually Sustain Spend Outcomes
- Controls that enforce behavior. guided buying, policy triggers, and exception prevention
- Data foundations. supplier master quality, catalog price accuracy, contract metadata completeness
- Practical AI impact. price and invoice anomaly detection, predictive exceptions, actioned risk signals.
Inflation Pressure and Price Discipline in 2026
- Managing indexed pricing, renewals, substitutions, and service rate cards with discipline
- Cost avoidance and should-cost variance control during volatility
- Supplier strategies that reduce cost volatility. reliability, lead-time stability, and mitigation closure.
Operating Model and Stakeholder Adoption
- Why democratized procurement makes intake and guided buying a strategic priority.
- Stakeholder experience as a multiplier. adoption, satisfaction, and early involvement in projects.
- Aligning procurement, finance, and business leaders on what “control” means and who owns which decisions.
Panel Discussion
From Sourcing Wins to Spend Control: Where Procurement Execution Still Breaks
- CPO perspectives on the most common execution breakpoints and what actually fixes them.
- What CPOs standardize vs what they allow to vary by business unit or category.
- The trade-offs between speed, control, and stakeholder experience in 2026.

Key Metrics CPOs Should Pay Attention to in 2026

This session highlights practical indicators CPOs should monitor as procurement shifts from savings to spend control:

Spend Control Coverage: Spend under management, contract coverage, and guided buying adoption.
Leakage Reduction: Maverick spend rate, price variance, and invoice exception rate.
Commercial Effectiveness: TCO reduction, cost avoidance, and should-cost accuracy variance.
Execution Efficiency: Touchless processing rate, first-pass match rate, and cycle times across requisition-to-PO and invoice-to-pay.
Supplier Reliability: OTIF, quality performance, and lead-time variability that drive total cost volatility.

Analyst Recommendations & Best Practices

QKS Group analysts will share practical guidance on:

Designing procurement architectures that enforce controls end to end, not just report outcomes
Aligning sourcing, contracts, supplier management, and P2P into a single execution model for spend control
Reducing leakage through policy enforcement, guided buying, and exception prevention, not only approvals
Building supplier performance and risk discipline that reduces cost volatility during inflation cycles
Establishing a measurable spend control scorecard that moves beyond savings as the headline metric.

Who Should Attend

This session is designed for senior leaders responsible for procurement strategy, execution, and technology decisions:

CPOs and Heads of Procurement
VP, Directors of Procurement and Category Leaders
Procurement Operations and Transformation Leaders
Source-to-Pay and Procure-to-Pay Program Owners
Finance leaders partnering on spend governance and compliance
Procurement Technology and Digital Procurement Leaders

Why Attend

Gain exclusive access to QKS Group’s SPARK Plus buyer intelligence and forward-looking procurement research. Leave with a clear understanding of how CPOs can move beyond savings and build enterprise spend control through execution-led strategy and technology decisions in 2026.