From Category Management to Commercial Intelligence: The Evolution of Procurement

Category Management has produced stellar results in procurement by the outcome sought by your business, to requirements, to the best supplier and wrapped in a performance-based feedback loop. This approach takes time to build a Category Team, Category Objectives, key initiatives, measured outcomes and a governance cadence.

Today’s business environment is moving faster than ever. Profit-and-Loss (P&L) owners are responding to a constant stream of disruptions: new tariffs, shifting legislation, emerging competitors, volatile inflation, global events, and disruptive technologies.

These real-time shifts often fall outside the traditional Category Management cycle.

As a result, many Procurement Leaders are forced into reacting to the ask to “help process this order form” that is born out of an unforeseen business need.

This reality, more than I have ever seen, regulates procurement to the role of negotiating key legal terms, discount off list, inflation, and other key terms with no leverage and no market intelligence.

As a result, in order to truly empower your procurement teams, you must equip them with real, precise, and industry-specific market intelligence to help them do the job that they were hired to do. They need data-backed insights to negotiate with confidence, align with stakeholders, and deliver value that extends beyond basic cost savings.

That’s why Green Cabbage is essential. Our robust procurement intelligence platform supports dynamic business needs and ensures your team is a market maker rather than an order taker with a fact-based negotiation.

Green Cabbage offers market intelligence across key spend areas: Technology, Third Party Labor, Marketing, and Travel & Expense. Whether you're preparing for a renewal, gauging the pricing, or optimizing contract terms, our intelligence enables smarter, faster decisions that align with business goals.

Learn more at https://www.greencabbage.com

Written by Chad Johnson, RVP of Sales at Green Cabbage