Procurement is the process of identifying what an organisation needs, sourcing suppliers, negotiating terms, and managing the resulting contracts and relationships through their full lifecycle. It spans sourcing, purchasing, contracting, and supplier management as one coordinated function rather than separate, disconnected tasks.

What are the most common bottlenecks in the procurement process?

The seven most consistent bottlenecks in procurement are manual and repetitive workflows, poor spend visibility, weak contract lifecycle management, slow supplier qualification, reactive risk monitoring, fragmented data quality, and a talent gap between transactional skills and strategic AI-driven work. Most growing companies are dealing with at least four of these simultaneously.

How do procurement bottlenecks affect growing companies specifically?

Bottlenecks in procurement scale faster than the team does. A process that worked with two people and twenty suppliers doesn’t work with ten people and two hundred suppliers — the coordination burden grows non-linearly, while headcount and budget typically grow much more slowly, if at all.

What procurement services help fix these bottlenecks fastest?

The procurement services with the fastest measurable impact are the ones that integrate with existing ERP systems rather than replacing them, start with a single high-friction workflow, and produce a verifiable ROI within 60–90 days. Broad platform migrations typically take too long to show value before internal momentum stalls.

Can agentic AI fix procurement bottlenecks without replacing our ERP?

Yes. Agentic AI is designed to sit on top of existing systems — SAP, Oracle, Microsoft — and take over the coordination work: drafting, routing, scoring, monitoring. It does not require migrating data to a new platform or replacing the system of record your team already trusts.

How long does it take to see results from fixing a procurement bottleneck?

A focused pilot on one high-impact workflow — invoice audit is a common starting point — typically produces a measurable result within 60–90 days. Broader transformation across the full procurement function takes longer, but the first proof point doesn’t have to.

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Denis Rasulev

Business Development Executive, Digicode Europe (Procure AI)

12 articles

Denis Rasulev is a Business Development Executive at Digicode Europe, where he drives enterprise adoption of Procure AI, an agentic procurement automation platform, across CEE and EMEA markets. With over 30 years of B2B technology sales experience at companies including Xerox, Cisco, Samsung, Oracle, and SAP, he has built a career on translating complex enterprise solutions into clear business value for C-suite buyers. He also hosts the “AI in Procurement” podcast, exploring how agentic AI is reshaping sourcing and supply chain decisions, and runs Anovatra, a boutique consulting practice covering sales, channels, digital marketing, and AI strategy. Denis is known for pairing deep procurement domain knowledge with a hands-on, technically fluent approach to AI-driven go-to-market work.

About the Author

Experience: Over three decades in enterprise B2B technology sales, with a recent focus on procurement automation and agentic AI
Key competencies: C-suite engagement (CEO, CFO, COO, CPO), enterprise sales cycles, go-to-market strategy, channel partnerships, pipeline development, sales process design
Industries: IT, Manufacturing, Telco, Retail
Technologies: Procure AI platform, agentic AI and LLM-driven automation, CRM and sales-ops tools
Certificates/awards: Data Science Diploma from John Hopkins University