Procurement Maturity Assessment

Spend Visibility

Spend Visibility & Classification

Whether you can see what you spend, with whom, and on what, before anyone tries to change it.

Could you say what you spent with your twenty largest suppliers last year? No, pulling that together would take weeks Roughly, by adding up invoices from more than one system Yes, from finance data, though the categories need interpreting Yes, from a classified spend view that is refreshed periodically Yes, continuously, classified consistently and reviewed by category Not applicable to us

How is spend categorised? It isn't, we have cost centres, not categories Ad hoc groupings that differ between teams A category structure exists but is applied inconsistently A consistent taxonomy applied across most spend A consistent taxonomy, with someone accountable for the classification Not applicable to us

How much of your spend goes through agreed suppliers and agreed terms? We have no way of knowing We suspect a lot does not, but we cannot size it Most does, the tail is unmeasured We measure it and know roughly where the leakage is We measure it, target it, and it is reported upward Not applicable to us

When did you last look at your tail spend, meaning the many small suppliers? Never Someone looked at it once It gets mentioned, but no action follows Reviewed periodically, with consolidation actions taken Actively managed, with a defined approach to what gets consolidated Not applicable to us

Category Strategy

Category Strategy & Sourcing

Whether going to market is planned from a strategy, or triggered by a date nobody watched.

How many of your major spend categories have a written strategy? None One or two, written for a specific project Some of the largest, though not kept current All the largest, reviewed annually All material categories, reviewed, each with a named owner Not applicable to us

What usually triggers a sourcing exercise? A contract has lapsed, or a problem has forced it Someone notices a renewal coming Contract end dates, tracked on a schedule A schedule informed by market and category analysis A category strategy that decides when and how we go to market Not applicable to us

How do you decide which sourcing approach to use? There is one process and everything goes through it We shorten the process when time is tight We vary it informally by size of spend We match the approach to the category deliberately We match it deliberately, and can say where each approach does not fit Not applicable to us

How is the outcome of a sourcing exercise measured? It is not On whether it completed On the headline saving claimed at signature On savings tracked into the budget On value realised across the term, against the original case Not applicable to us

Supplier Mgmt

Supplier Management & Concentration

What you would do if the supplier you cannot replace stopped answering the phone.

If your largest supplier failed tomorrow, how long would replacing them take? We do not know We think it would be very difficult We have a rough view for some suppliers We have assessed it for the critical ones We have assessed it, documented it, and tested the assumptions Not applicable to us

How are your most important supplier relationships managed? Reactively, when something goes wrong By whoever raised the original purchase order By the budget holder, alongside their day job By named relationship owners, on a regular rhythm By named owners, with performance measures and a governance forum Not applicable to us

How is supplier performance tracked? It is not Anecdotally Against SLAs, where the contract happens to have them Against agreed measures, reviewed with the supplier Against measures tied to real commercial consequences Not applicable to us

How concentrated is your spend across suppliers? We have never looked We know it is concentrated, but not by how much We know the top suppliers by value We monitor concentration and flag it as a risk Concentration is reported as a risk, with defined thresholds Not applicable to us

Contracts

Contract Lifecycle & Renewals

Whether renewals are a decision you make or an event that happens to you.

Where are your contracts? Nobody could produce a complete list In several places: email, shared drives, someone's folder Mostly in one place, with known gaps In a single repository, largely complete In a repository with metadata, named owners and alerts Not applicable to us

What typically happens at renewal? We find out after it has already renewed We notice with a few weeks left We get a reminder and usually roll it over Renewals are planned with time to negotiate Renewals are planned, benchmarked and negotiated as a matter of course Not applicable to us

How many of your contracts auto-renew without anyone reviewing them? We have no idea Probably most of them Some, we catch the big ones Few, we track notice periods None that matter, and where it happens it is a deliberate choice Not applicable to us

Who reviews commercial terms before signature? Whoever is doing the buying The budget holder Legal, for the larger ones Legal and a commercial reviewer, above a threshold A defined review with commercial, legal and risk input, scaled to value Not applicable to us

Capability

Commercial Capability & Decision Rights

Who is allowed to commit the business, and whether they have done this before.

Who negotiates your significant commercial agreements? The person who needs the thing being bought A manager, as one part of a wider role Finance or legal, depending on who is available Someone with real commercial negotiation experience A named commercial owner, escalating to board level where warranted Not applicable to us

What procurement capability exists in-house? None Transactional purchasing only A small team focused on process and compliance A team with category and negotiation skills A senior commercial function with access to the board Not applicable to us

Who can commit the business to spend, and up to what value? It is not written down There is a policy, though people work around it There is a policy and it is broadly followed Delegated authority is defined, current, and enforced by the system Defined, enforced, and reviewed as the business changes shape Not applicable to us

How do commercial decisions get escalated? They do not, people decide and move on Ad hoc, depending on who notices By value threshold By value and risk, along a defined route By value and risk, into a forum that meets regularly and keeps a record Not applicable to us

Vendor Risk

Third-Party, Software & AI Vendor Risk

The category most procurement functions have not caught up to, signing the least-reviewed contracts.

Do you know what software and SaaS the business is paying for? No, purchases happen on cards and expenses Partially, IT knows about most of it We have a list, though it goes out of date We maintain an inventory with owners and renewal dates We maintain it, compare usage against licences, and act on the gap Not applicable to us

How are AI vendor contracts reviewed before signature? They are not treated differently from any other purchase IT looks at the technical fit Legal reviews the terms Commercial and data-protection review, together A defined review covering commercial terms, data rights, model training and exit Not applicable to us

How is third-party data and security risk handled? We rely on the supplier's assurances We ask for certifications when we remember We have a questionnaire for larger suppliers Risk-tiered due diligence, applied consistently Risk-tiered due diligence, re-assessed periodically, with remediation tracked Not applicable to us

What happens when a software vendor proposes a price increase? We pay it We push back informally We check what the contract actually permits We benchmark it and negotiate We negotiate from a prepared position, with alternatives credible enough to use Not applicable to us

Supply Chain

Supply Chain Resilience

Physical supply, logistics and continuity. Often genuinely not applicable, so untick it if so.

How well do you understand your supply chain beyond your direct suppliers? Not at all We know some of our suppliers' key dependencies We have mapped the second tier for critical items We map and monitor critical multi-tier dependencies We map, monitor and stress-test them Not applicable to us

What continuity arrangements exist for critical supply? None Informal, we would find a way Alternative sources identified for some items Qualified alternatives for critical items Qualified alternatives, tested, with defined switching triggers Not applicable to us

How is inventory and lead-time risk managed? Reactively Buffer stock, set by habit Buffers set by rule of thumb, reviewed occasionally Buffers set from lead-time and demand data Modelled, with the cost of holding balanced against the risk Not applicable to us

How is supply chain risk reported? It is not Only when something has already gone wrong Within operational reporting In a regular risk report, with named owners Upward, with defined tolerances and escalation Not applicable to us

About you

A few things that are not scored

None of this affects your result. It tells us how to read it, and it is the part that makes any follow-up conversation useful rather than generic. Skip anything you would rather not answer.

What prompted you to look at this now? A specific renewal or negotiation coming up A cost reduction target A transaction: acquisition, carve-out or funding round A supplier problem, or a supplier failure General review or benchmarking

How many people work on procurement or commercial contracts? Nobody dedicated to it Less than one full-time equivalent One to three Four to ten More than ten

Have you used external help for any of these in the last three years? Software or SaaS licence negotiation Category strategy Running a sourcing exercise Contract review or renegotiation Supply chain or logistics Procurement transformation None of these

How much of your spend is actually being managed?

Which areas do you want to assess?