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In many companies, procurement does not become more influential because it reports better on procurement. It becomes more influential when finance starts to treat the function as useful to business control, capital discipline, and risk-adjusted decision-making. Across recent procurement research, the role is moving beyond sourcing execution toward resilience, value creation, and earlier involvement in shaping commercial and operational choices. (McKinsey, 2025) (McKinsey, 2023)

Finance is not always the right first ally. In businesses dominated by ramp-up pressure, plant stability, engineering change, or customer delivery risk, operations, engineering, or program leadership may be the more natural first validating partner. But where the organisation is clearly being managed through margin pressure, cost programs, CapEx scrutiny, cash discipline, restructuring logic, or tighter planning assumptions, finance is often the strongest first amplifier because the company is already listening through a financial filter. (McKinsey, 2025) (Harvard Business Review, 2024)

That matters because procurement’s internal relevance is still often constrained by siloed execution. Deloitte’s 2025 Global Chief Procurement Officer Survey found that siloed ways of working were the most-cited barrier to procurement value delivery, identified by 57% of respondents. (Deloitte, 2025) In that setting, a trusted finance relationship can do more than improve reporting. It can change how procurement is interpreted across the organisation.

The issue is usually not that procurement lacks substance. It is that the function often presents its contribution in a format that remains too close to its own operating logic.

From a procurement perspective, the work may be solid: stronger negotiations, cleaner sourcing waves, supplier consolidation, better contract coverage, improved governance. From a finance perspective, those are not yet outcomes. They become relevant when they affect budget realism, margin quality, forecast confidence, capital allocation, or downside exposure.

This is where many strong leaders misread the problem. They assume finance will support procurement once the savings are large enough or the business case is obvious enough. In practice, finance tends to respond more strongly when procurement improves the quality of management information and the reliability of financial decisions.

Recent McKinsey work supports the broader backdrop. Procurement is increasingly described as a source of resilience, innovation, and earlier value creation rather than a function defined primarily by cost takeout. (McKinsey, 2025) McKinsey’s 2023 supply-chain perspective also places procurement more directly inside enterprise value creation, with implications extending beyond traditional buying activity. (McKinsey, 2023) The stronger interpretation is that procurement gains influence when it helps finance see the external spend base not only as a cost field, but as a source of business risk, planning uncertainty, and strategic optionality. (McKinsey, 2025) (McKinsey, 2023)

Harvard Business Review’s work on cross-functional leadership is relevant here because it shifts the focus from mandate to operating reality. Leaders become more effective across silos when they understand the priorities and constraints of adjacent functions rather than communicating only through their own vertical perspective. (Harvard Business Review, 2024) Applied to procurement, that means finance alignment is not about “getting CFO support.” It is about making procurement useful to the way the company governs money, choices, and trade-offs.

That usually starts with a change in what procurement brings to the table. Finance rarely needs more procurement enthusiasm. It needs clearer visibility into cost assumptions, supplier-related risks, timing effects, capital implications, and the difference between nominal savings and economically meaningful value. Once procurement begins to improve those areas, the relationship changes. The function is no longer seen only as a commercial negotiator. It starts to look like a more serious management instrument.

That distinction also matters upward. A CEO is more likely to engage with procurement when finance already treats the function as credible in the language of control and consequence. In that sense, finance does not merely validate procurement. It helps translate procurement into enterprise legitimacy.

They assess first whether finance is the right first ally in the current business context. Margin, cash, capex, and restructuring environments tend to make finance a stronger amplifier; execution- or launch-driven environments may point elsewhere. (McKinsey, 2025) (Harvard Business Review, 2024)

They present procurement through finance-relevant consequences. The discussion moves from sourcing activity to margin quality, forecast realism, investment discipline, exposure, and timing.

They stop relying on weak savings language. Finance tends to distinguish quickly between procurement claims and financially usable evidence.

They involve finance earlier, before decisions harden. The value is usually greater when procurement helps improve assumptions, business cases, and supplier-related risk visibility before capital or commercial commitments are fixed.

They make procurement repeatable in finance terms. The strongest position is reached when finance can explain procurement’s value upward without procurement needing to narrate it itself.

Procurement becomes more influential when finance stops seeing it as a sourcing function and starts seeing it as part of decision quality.

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Deloitte. (2025, August 19). Deloitte’s 2025 Chief Procurement Officer Survey Reveals the Pressure and Promise of Technology Disruption. Retrieved from https://www.deloitte.com/us/en/about/press-room/2025-chief-procurement-officer-survey.html

Harvard Business Review. (2024, January 16). Become a Better Cross-Functional Leader. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/tip/2024/01/become-a-better-cross-functional-leader

McKinsey & Company. (2023, September 27). A New Era for Procurement: Value Creation Across the Supply Chain. Retrieved from https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/operations/our-insights/a-new-era-for-procurement-value-creation-across-the-supply-chain

McKinsey & Company. (2025, February 25). Procurement 2025: Reimagining the Function for Success. Retrieved from https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/operations/our-insights/procurement-2025-reimagining-the-function-for-success

Thank you for reading,

Pascal Hecker | Editor-In-Chief, CPO Path.