Top 5 Procurement Stories: Zip, Bain, Trustpilot & Coupa

Q&A: Anna Zhong, Zip Explores Contract Orchestration

In an era defined by volatility and constant change, procurement leaders gathered at Zip Forward to discuss the trends and events shaping the industry.

More than 300 procurement and finance leaders gathered to share insights, develop new visions and form strategies.

At the event, Procurement Magazine spoke to Anna Zhong, Principal Product Manager at Zip, about contract orchestration. 

"It's really exciting that we launched the product. The core pain points that we're solving for are reducing the bottleneck that is contract review for procurement and legal teams. We want to empower procurement teams to be able to do a lot of the contract review themselves for low-risk contracts, or have it automated with AI, and reduce the amount of work that legal teams need to do. So it's kind of helping both of those functions," says Anna.

Bain & Company: How AI is Changing Procurement in Finance

Procurement functions at financial institutions are evolving from back-office cost centres into AI-enabled strategic value drivers, according to new research from Bain & Company.

In its latest report, Procurement in Financial Services: A Tech-Powered Value Creator, Bain argues that rising investment in cloud, analytics, cybersecurity and generative AI is elevating procurement’s role within banks and insurers as organisations seek greater efficiency, resilience and competitive advantage.

The consultancy says procurement teams that remain focused primarily on tactical sourcing and contract management risk missing opportunities to reduce costs, optimise software spending and build stronger long-term technology partnerships.

According to the report, 80% of financial services firms expected to increase IT spending last year, with many organisations also developing internal agentic AI capabilities to reduce dependence on external technology providers.

Trustpilot's Mike Cartwright on Streamlining Procurement

The emergence of AI has reshaped the procurement industry, particularly as it faces greater demand in the age of volatility. Now, teams can see greater speeds and efficiency throughout manual processes, creating more opportunity to build operational resilience. 

At Zip Forward London, more than 300 procurement and finance leaders had the opportunity to learn more about the trends shaping procurement and how to best plan for the future. 

At the event, Procurement Magazine spoke to Mike Cartwright, Director of Source-to-Pay at Trustpilot, to hear about how procurement is being revolutionised by new technology. 

"The relationship between Trustpilot and Zip came about as we went through the transition stage of using many fragmented systems and processes. It wasn't the best environment for the teams and also the business to engage with procurement. We signed with Zip in October because it's best-in-class. It was clear through going to the RFPs and the whole setup with zip, talking through them for months that it was best-in-class and that's the reason why we signed with Zip," says Mike.

Coupa Acquires Tonkean: Accelerating AI Intake Systems

Coupa has announced its acquisition of industry-leading agentic intake and orchestration platform, Tonkean. 

With this acquisition, Coupa is now able to offer fully integrated agentic-as-a-service capabilities, adding agentic workflow automation and execution into its global network. 

“The acquisition of Tonkean is game-changing for Coupa and the market. For twenty years, we’ve built a global trade network that brings together buyers and sellers for the purpose of optimising trade and spend. To date, we’ve delivered more than US$300bn of value to that network and amassed a dataset of US$10trn,” says Leagh Turner, Coupa CEO.

How Amazon Supply Chain Services Will Transform Businesses

Hundreds of thousands of sellers have used Amazon as part of their logistics operations over the past few years. The company has moved, stored and delivered hundreds of millions of packages through its network of warehouses and facilities.

Amazon has now launched Amazon Supply Chain Services to businesses of all sizes and types. The service extends beyond existing sellers on its marketplace.

Smaller sellers will gain access to freight, distribution, fulfilment and parcel shipping capabilities through the offering. This could streamline logistics operations for companies around the world.

The service is designed to provide support for sellers globally and help transform their business operations.