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Hi {{first_name}} ,
I still remember very clearly how I worked closely with the EVP Operations for a year and a half on a project that grew increasingly complex
Main escalation: Customer project, automotive tier 1, commissioning difficulties (> 10 months SAT) in a linked production line consisting of various assembly cells for optronic modules, production ramp-up from 60,000 to 2.5 million units p.a. over 3 years. People were yelling at each other in meetings, the CEO was involved, and there was a fear of being sued by the client (for late delivery and breach of contract), which could have marked the beginning of bankruptcy.
Collaborating with the Operations team was very different from what I was used to in my work with other stakeholders.
I soon began to miss my sparring partners from the finance department.
Have you had a similar experience?
Where Procurement Wins or Loses Operating Trust | CPO Path #5, CW 17 2026
EXECUTIVE PREMISE
Operational trust is not created by procurement process quality alone. It is created when operations experiences procurement as useful to execution under real conditions: supply disruption, planning volatility, engineering change, escalation pressure, and supplier underperformance. Across recent procurement research, the role is moving beyond cost and control toward resilience, supplier partnership, and closer integration with business operations, which raises the standard by which operations judges the function. (McKinsey, 2025) (McKinsey, 2025b) (Kearney, 2019)
WHY THIS MATTERS
In manufacturing, project-driven, and delivery-sensitive environments, operations is often the internal function that tests whether procurement is merely well run or genuinely enterprise-relevant. That is partly because procurement’s broader mandate still runs into organisational friction: Deloitte’s 2025 Global CPO Survey found that siloed ways of working were the most-cited barrier to procurement value delivery, at 57%. (Deloitte, 2025) If the operating model remains siloed, procurement may look strong in reporting while remaining weak in day-to-day credibility with the function that lives closest to execution risk. (Deloitte, 2025)
THE REAL DYNAMIC
Many procurement functions assume operating trust should follow once suppliers are contracted, prices are negotiated, and governance is in place. In practice, operations applies a different test.
Operations does not mainly experience procurement through sourcing waves, category strategies, or contract coverage. It experiences procurement through consequence. Are supplier commitments reliable? Are risks escalated early enough? Are planning assumptions realistic? Does procurement understand what a delay, shortage, or late engineering change means on the ground? Does the function reduce friction when pressure rises, or add another coordination layer?
That difference explains why some procurement teams are respected institutionally but distrusted operationally.
Across recent McKinsey work, procurement is described as a source of resilience, sustainability, and innovation rather than only a vehicle for savings and process control. (McKinsey, 2025) McKinsey’s Procurement 5.0 perspective makes the shift even sharper: procurement is expected to move from tactical execution toward enterprise leadership, with supply resilience and reinvented supplier partnerships at the core of that model. (McKinsey, 2025b) Kearney’s operating-model work points in the same direction from a different angle: procurement’s strategic value was often lost when the function became detached from ongoing business connection, and future value depends more on alignment with business stakeholders and operations than on transactional separation. (Kearney, 2019)
The practical implication is straightforward. Operations rarely builds trust from procurement being commercially correct in the abstract. Trust grows when procurement is useful in the moments that matter most: when a supplier misses delivery, when lead times deteriorate, when production is exposed, when engineering changes late, when shortages need triage, or when supplier escalation needs commercial pressure and operational judgment at the same time.
This is also where strong leaders separate themselves from merely competent ones. Tactical procurement leaders tend to defend process, ownership, and supplier governance. Mature procurement leaders do that as well, but they also show they understand the failure modes operations is trying to avoid: line stoppage, unstable scheduling, missed customer commitments, cost from poor recovery, and hidden fragility in the supply base.
Harvard Business Review’s work on cross-functional leadership is relevant here because it shifts the focus from mandate to adjacent-function reality. Leaders become more effective across silos when they understand the priorities and constraints of neighbouring functions rather than operating only through their own vertical frame. (Harvard Business Review, 2024) Applied to procurement, that means operating trust is won when operations feels understood in practical terms, not when procurement simply argues its own logic more forcefully.
The mature frame is therefore not: “Why does operations not respect procurement enough?” It is: “Under pressure, does operations experience procurement as improving execution or complicating it?”
That is where operating trust is usually won or lost.
WHAT STRONG LEADERS DO DIFFERENTLY
They translate supplier issues into operational consequence. A supplier delay is not only a commercial event; it is a production, scheduling, service, or project-risk event.
They become dependable in escalation. Operating trust compounds when procurement is known for early warning, realistic updates, disciplined supplier pressure, and clear ownership.
They avoid hiding behind process. In execution-sensitive environments, process is necessary, but operations usually trusts judgment more than procedure when conditions deteriorate.
They stay close to business reality. Kearney’s operating-model view is explicit that procurement creates more value when it is aligned with product and business operations on an ongoing basis rather than disconnected by structure. (Kearney, 2019)
They define success more broadly than negotiated outcome. The stronger measure is whether procurement improves execution stability, not only sourcing discipline.
CPO PATH DIAGNOSTIC
Question | Fully true | Partly true | Not true |
|---|---|---|---|
Operations would describe procurement as useful to execution, not only to sourcing discipline. | ☐ | ☐ | ☐ |
I can explain supplier issues in terms of production, delivery, or project consequence. | ☐ | ☐ | ☐ |
Procurement is seen as reliable in escalations, especially under pressure. | ☐ | ☐ | ☐ |
I understand the main operating failure modes my internal stakeholders are trying to avoid. | ☐ | ☐ | ☐ |
Our credibility with operations improves because we reduce friction in execution. | ☐ | ☐ | ☐ |
ONE-LINE VERDICT
Procurement wins operating trust when the function becomes useful in execution, not only correct in governance.
Which path are you on?
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Talk soon,
Pascal
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SOURCES
Deloitte. (2025, August 19). Procurement at the Tipping Point: 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
Kearney. (2019). Stop the Operating Model Pendulum. Retrieved from https://www.kearney.com/documents/291362523/291367332/Stop%2Bthe%2BOperating%2BModel%2BPendulum.pdf/779116c8-a43d-20a6-12ee-f56ca833171e?t=1608446451000
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
McKinsey & Company. (2025, July 16). Procurement 5.0: Imperatives for the Next Decade. Retrieved from https://www.mckinsey.com/au/our-insights/australia-and-new-zealand-perspectives/procurement-5-imperatives-for-the-next-decade
Thank you for reading,
Pascal Hecker | Editor-In-Chief, CPO Path.