Supplier Risk Is No Longer a Procurement Side Issue

Supplier Network

Supplier risk has traditionally been treated as a secondary concern, addressed through periodic reviews or escalated only when issues arise. That approach is no longer sufficient. As supply networks become more complex and volatile, supplier risk is moving to the centre of procurement decision making.

For procurement leaders, managing supplier risk is now inseparable from delivering continuity, resilience, and value.

Why supplier risk has intensified

Global supply chains have been exposed to a sustained period of disruption. Geopolitical tension, regulatory change, climate events, and financial instability are affecting suppliers across regions and industries.

At the same time, supplier bases have become more concentrated. Consolidation, single source dependencies, and specialised capabilities mean that the impact of a supplier failure is often greater than in the past.

These dynamics have increased both the likelihood and the consequences of supplier risk events.

Why this matters for procurement leaders

Supplier risk directly affects service levels, cost stability, and organisational reputation. A failure at the supplier level can quickly escalate into operational disruption, customer impact, or regulatory scrutiny.

Procurement leaders are therefore being asked to:

  • Provide clearer visibility into supplier exposure

  • Anticipate risk rather than respond to it

  • Balance commercial objectives with continuity of supply

  • Work more closely with risk, legal, and operations teams

This has elevated supplier risk management from a tactical activity to a strategic priority.

How supplier risk shows up in practice

Supplier risk rarely presents itself as a single, isolated issue. Instead, it often emerges through a combination of warning signs, deteriorating performance, financial stress, capacity constraints, or compliance gaps.

Without consistent monitoring and clear escalation paths, these signals can be missed or addressed too late. In some cases, procurement teams only become aware of issues once disruption has already occurred.

This reactive model increases cost, limits options, and places additional pressure on procurement teams during critical moments.

Rethinking how supplier risk is managed

Effective supplier risk management requires a shift in mindset. Rather than treating risk as a periodic assessment, leading procurement teams embed risk considerations into everyday sourcing, contracting, and relationship management.

This includes:

  • Ongoing monitoring of critical suppliers

  • Clear segmentation based on risk and impact

  • Cross functional collaboration on mitigation plans

  • Regular review of assumptions and dependencies

Technology can support this process, but governance and accountability remain essential.

What procurement leaders should focus on next

  • Identify critical suppliers
    Prioritise risk management efforts where impact is highest.

  • Integrate risk into sourcing decisions
    Consider resilience and continuity alongside cost and performance.

  • Improve visibility and communication
    Ensure risk insights are shared with relevant stakeholders.

  • Develop mitigation strategies in advance
    Avoid relying solely on contingency plans created after issues arise.

  • Strengthen supplier relationships
    Open dialogue often surfaces risk earlier than formal reporting.

Looking ahead

Supplier risk is no longer a peripheral concern for procurement. As expectations around resilience and reliability continue to rise, procurement leaders who proactively manage supplier risk will be better positioned to protect performance and support long-term business objectives.

Why Procurement Cost Savings Are Getting Harder to Deliver

procurement cost savings and supplier pressure

For many procurement teams, cost savings targets remain as aggressive as ever. Yet delivering those savings has become increasingly difficult. Inflationary pressure, supplier consolidation, and ongoing volatility across global markets are limiting the levers procurement leaders have traditionally relied on.

As expectations remain high, procurement is being asked to find value in an environment where straightforward cost reduction is no longer easy or sustainable.

What is changing

Over recent years, procurement teams successfully captured savings through renegotiation, supplier rationalisation, and volume leverage. Many of those opportunities have now been exhausted. At the same time, suppliers are facing their own cost pressures, reducing their flexibility in negotiations.

Rising input costs, labour shortages, and regulatory requirements have tightened margins across supply markets. In many categories, price increases are being passed through rather than absorbed, leaving procurement with limited room to manoeuvre.

This shift has fundamentally changed the nature of savings conversations.

Why this matters for procurement leaders

Cost savings remain a core performance measure for procurement, but the tools available to deliver them are evolving. Procurement leaders are now required to balance financial objectives with continuity of supply, risk management, and supplier stability.

This creates tension between short-term savings and long-term value. Excessive pressure on suppliers can introduce risk, reduce innovation, or weaken critical relationships. As a result, procurement leaders must increasingly justify decisions that prioritise resilience or collaboration over immediate cost reduction.

Where procurement teams are finding value instead

As traditional savings become harder to realise, procurement teams are expanding their definition of value.

This includes:

  • Demand management and specification optimisation

  • Total cost of ownership analysis

  • Process efficiency and cycle time reduction

  • Improved contract compliance

  • Risk avoidance and continuity of supply

While these benefits may not always show up as headline savings, they deliver measurable impact across the business.

The role of data and insight

Data remains central to identifying opportunities, but expectations around analytics must be realistic. Many procurement teams are still working with fragmented or inconsistent data, limiting their ability to generate actionable insight.

Improving data quality, visibility, and integration can unlock new forms of value. However, technology alone is not a solution. Procurement expertise and commercial judgement remain critical in interpreting insights and translating them into outcomes.

What procurement leaders should focus on next

  • Reset expectations
    Align stakeholders on what sustainable value looks like in current market conditions.

  • Broaden the value conversation
    Move beyond price to include risk, resilience, and performance.

  • Strengthen supplier relationships
    Focus on collaboration rather than purely transactional engagement.

  • Invest in capability
    Develop commercial, analytical, and influencing skills across teams.

  • Communicate impact clearly
    Ensure non-financial value is articulated in terms that resonate with leadership.

Looking ahead

Procurement’s ability to deliver cost savings is not disappearing, but it is changing. Leaders who adapt their approach, redefine value, and engage stakeholders effectively will be better positioned to meet expectations in an increasingly constrained environment.

The One Capability Procurement Leaders Say They Need More Than Technology

strategic decision making in procurement leadership

Technology continues to dominate procurement transformation conversations, yet many leaders suggest that tools alone are not the primary barrier to progress. Across executive interviews and leadership discussions, a recurring theme emerges: success depends less on the sophistication of technology and more on an organisation’s ability to use it effectively.

While digital platforms, analytics, and automation play an important role, procurement leaders consistently point to one capability that determines whether transformation efforts succeed or stall.

The capability that keeps coming up

Across leadership conversations, the capability most frequently cited is decision making maturity. This refers not just to the ability to make decisions quickly, but to make them consistently, transparently, and with confidence across the organisation.

Procurement teams often have access to more data than ever before, yet struggle to translate insight into action. In many cases, technology highlights options, but uncertainty around ownership, authority, and accountability slows execution.

Decision making maturity encompasses how decisions are framed, who is empowered to make them, and how trade offs are evaluated when objectives conflict.

Why technology alone is not enough

Digital tools can surface insights, automate workflows, and improve visibility, but they cannot resolve ambiguity around priorities or risk tolerance. When procurement teams lack clarity on how decisions should be made, technology can even increase friction by presenting more information without direction.

Leaders often describe situations where analytics identify opportunities, yet teams hesitate to act due to unclear governance or fear of unintended consequences. In these environments, technology adoption progresses, but impact remains limited.

This gap explains why similar procurement platforms deliver dramatically different results across organisations.

What strong decision making looks like in practice

Procurement organisations with high decision making maturity share several characteristics.

They define decision rights clearly, ensuring that accountability sits at the appropriate level. They align procurement objectives with broader business priorities, reducing tension between cost, risk, and sustainability. They also establish decision frameworks that guide trade offs rather than relying on ad hoc judgement.

Importantly, these organisations treat data as an enabler rather than a substitute for leadership. Technology informs decisions, but human judgement remains central.

How procurement leaders can build this capability

Building decision making maturity requires deliberate effort.

  • Clarify decision ownership
    Define who owns which decisions and where escalation is required.

  • Align objectives across stakeholders
    Ensure procurement, finance, operations, and sustainability teams share a common understanding of priorities.

  • Standardise decision frameworks
    Use consistent criteria to evaluate options and manage trade offs.

  • Invest in capability development
    Develop commercial judgement, stakeholder engagement, and analytical confidence within teams.

  • Use technology to support, not replace, decisions
    Position digital tools as inputs into structured decision processes.

Why this capability matters now

As procurement takes on greater strategic responsibility, the cost of poor or delayed decisions increases. Volatile supply markets, regulatory pressure, and sustainability commitments demand faster and more confident responses.

Procurement leaders who focus solely on technology risk missing the organisational foundations required to turn insight into action. Those who prioritise decision making maturity alongside digital investment are better positioned to deliver lasting value.

Final thought

Technology will continue to evolve, but the ability to make effective decisions remains a defining capability for procurement leadership. By strengthening decision making maturity, organisations can ensure that technology investments translate into meaningful outcomes rather than isolated improvements.

Procurement Risk Is Shifting from Cost to Continuity

procurement risk and supply continuity

Procurement risk has traditionally been viewed through the lens of cost control and commercial exposure. Today, that focus is changing. As supply markets remain volatile and operating models become more interconnected, continuity of supply is emerging as a primary concern for procurement leaders.

Rather than asking where costs can be reduced, organisations are increasingly asking where disruption could stop operations altogether.

What is changing

Recent shifts across global supply markets are altering how procurement risk is perceived and managed. Economic uncertainty, geopolitical tension, climate related disruption, and supplier financial stress are combining to increase the likelihood and impact of disruption.

In many organisations, cost focused sourcing strategies have resulted in lean supplier networks with limited redundancy. While efficient in stable conditions, these models are proving fragile when unexpected events occur. As a result, procurement teams are being asked to reassess risk assumptions that were previously considered acceptable.

At the same time, boards and executive teams are demanding clearer visibility into supplier exposure. Procurement is now expected to provide early warning signals and contingency plans, rather than react once disruption has already occurred.

Why this matters for procurement leaders

A shift from cost focused risk to continuity focused risk changes the role procurement plays within the organisation. Leaders are no longer judged solely on savings delivered, but on their ability to protect operations and revenue.

This shift brings new challenges:

  • Balancing resilience with cost efficiency

  • Justifying investment in alternative suppliers or buffers

  • Aligning risk tolerance across finance, operations, and procurement

  • Translating complex risk data into actionable insight for executives

Procurement leaders must now operate with a broader risk lens that reflects both financial and operational priorities.

How continuity risk shows up in practice

Continuity risk often emerges in less obvious ways. A supplier may appear financially stable but rely on a single sub tier supplier. A category may deliver consistent savings but depend on constrained logistics routes. In other cases, compliance or sustainability requirements can introduce disruption if suppliers are unable to adapt quickly.

Without visibility beyond tier one suppliers, procurement teams may underestimate exposure until disruption materialises. This makes continuity risk harder to predict and more costly to resolve.

What procurement teams should do next

  • Map critical dependencies
    Identify suppliers and categories where disruption would have immediate operational impact.

  • Expand risk indicators
    Look beyond cost and financial metrics to include operational, geopolitical, and sustainability factors.

  • Strengthen cross functional collaboration
    Risk management should involve procurement, operations, finance, and sustainability teams.

  • Build flexibility into sourcing strategies
    Where possible, design sourcing models that allow for rapid adjustment when conditions change.

  • Communicate risk clearly to leadership
    Translate risk exposure into business impact to support informed decision making.

Looking ahead

As procurement continues to evolve, continuity will play a central role in how risk is defined and managed. Leaders who recognise this shift early and adapt their strategies accordingly will be better positioned to protect their organisations in an increasingly uncertain environment.

Why Procurement Teams Are Struggling to Turn AI Pilots into Real Value

AI pilots in procurement decision making

Artificial intelligence has become a common feature in procurement transformation roadmaps, yet many organisations are finding that early enthusiasm does not always translate into sustained value. While AI pilots often show promise in controlled environments, scaling them into everyday procurement decision making remains a challenge.

For procurement leaders, the issue is no longer access to technology, but the ability to move from experimentation to meaningful, repeatable outcomes.

What is happening

Across procurement functions, AI pilots are being launched to address specific challenges such as spend visibility, supplier risk identification, demand forecasting, and contract analysis. These initiatives frequently demonstrate technical capability during trial phases, but stall when organisations attempt broader adoption.

In many cases, pilots are treated as standalone projects rather than components of a wider operating model. Tools are tested in isolation, data is limited to narrow use cases, and ownership is unclear once the pilot phase ends. As a result, insights generated by AI are not embedded into day to day sourcing, supplier management, or governance processes.

There is also growing evidence that procurement teams underestimate the effort required to prepare data and align stakeholders before scaling AI solutions. Without consistent data foundations and cross functional buy in, even technically strong pilots struggle to deliver lasting impact.

Why this matters for procurement leaders

AI is often positioned as a lever for improving speed, accuracy, and resilience in procurement. When pilots fail to scale, confidence in technology initiatives can erode, making future investment harder to justify.

For procurement leaders, stalled AI pilots can result in:

  • Fragmented tool landscapes

  • Limited return on technology investment

  • Reduced trust in data driven recommendations

  • Fatigue among teams asked to adopt new systems without clear benefits

As procurement continues to take on a more strategic role, leaders must ensure that AI initiatives support decision making rather than add complexity.

Common reasons AI pilots fail to scale

Several recurring issues emerge when procurement teams reflect on unsuccessful AI deployments.

First, pilots are often designed around what technology can do rather than what decisions need to improve. Without a clear link to business outcomes, AI insights remain interesting but unused.

Second, data quality challenges are underestimated. Inconsistent supplier data, fragmented spend classifications, and disconnected systems limit the reliability of AI driven outputs.

Third, change management is frequently overlooked. Teams may not understand how AI recommendations are generated or how they should influence decisions, leading to resistance or passive adoption.

Finally, governance is unclear. Without defined ownership, accountability, and escalation paths, AI initiatives lose momentum once initial sponsorship fades.

What procurement teams should do next

  • Define decision focused use cases
    Start with the decisions that matter most and design AI initiatives to support them directly.

  • Invest in data readiness
    Clean, consistent data across systems is a prerequisite for scalable AI adoption.

  • Embed AI into workflows
    Insights must sit within existing procurement processes, not alongside them.

  • Build trust through transparency
    Ensure teams understand how AI recommendations are generated and when human judgement should override them.

  • Treat pilots as stepping stones, not endpoints
    Plan for scale from the outset, including ownership, governance, and integration.

Looking ahead

AI has the potential to significantly enhance procurement decision making, but only when it is treated as part of a broader transformation rather than a standalone innovation. Procurement leaders who focus on clarity of purpose, data foundations, and organisational readiness will be better positioned to move beyond pilots and realise tangible value.

Auckland Transport

Auckland Transport Logo

Solving Complexity with Clarity: Zoheb Shah on Procurement, Public Value, and the Future of Transport in Auckland

With a career spanning defence, telecommunications, and now public transport, Zoheb Shah has built a reputation as one of the region’s most forward-thinking procurement leaders. As Senior Manager, Procurement at Auckland Transport, his work sits at the intersection of commercial strategy, community outcomes, and operational excellence.

From leading award-winning procurement programmes, including the Bus Services Re-Tender, recognised as Public Procurement Project of the Year at the CIPS ANZ Excellence Award, to shaping technology partnerships, sustainability frameworks, and digital transformation initiatives, Zoheb brings a detective-like curiosity to every challenge.

In this feature, he reflects on his career journey, the critical role procurement plays in delivering reliable and sustainable transport, and the innovative mindset behind his upcoming book, The Procurement Detective.

Click below to access the digital version:

 

Auckland Transport Career Journey & Leadership: Can you share your career journey and what led you to your role as Senior Manager, Procurement at Auckland Transport? Which experiences have most shaped your approach to procurement leadership within public transport?

 

After working in the Justice sector, I unexpectedly found my way into procurement, a profession that felt part detective work, part strategist. My career has since spanned an energising mix of private and public sectors, including defence, telecommunications, and now transport. Each role strengthened my understanding of procurement as a strategic value driver rather than a compliance function.

In defence, I learned the importance of resilience, risk management, and tightly managed supplier partnerships across everything from catering services to critical systems. At Spark, I led one of Australasia’s most complex B2B relationships, balancing commercial outcomes with long-term partnership. At Vodafone, I supported a transformation that repositioned procurement as a digital-first enabler of business performance.

These experiences shape the lens I bring to Auckland Transport (AT), where public transport requires a balance of commercial acumen and community focus. At AT, I’ve had the privilege of leading award-winning procurement initiatives that modernised processes, embedded sustainability, and delivered meaningful impact for Aucklanders.

 

Procurement’s Role in Service Delivery: How does procurement contribute to delivering resilient, sustainable, and reliable transport services and projects at Auckland Transport?

 

Procurement underpins AT’s ability to deliver an effective, efficient, and safe land transport system for Auckland. Our role is to create the conditions for success by building strong supplier partnerships, ensuring transparency, and embedding resilience into every commercial arrangement. In complex service areas such as bus and ferry operations, this means bringing together commercial, operational, financial, and sustainability teams so that projects progress cohesively and deliver as one organisation.

Sustainability is a core priority, with low-emission fleets, greener infrastructure, and social outcomes integrated directly into our procurement frameworks. But procurement’s impact goes beyond process efficiency, it’s about scanning the market, anticipating risks, and providing strategic insight so the organisation can adapt early and confidently.

Ultimately, our focus is on public value. Reliability, safety, and service continuity are what Aucklanders experience every day, whether they are driving, walking, cycling, or using public transport. Procurement’s role is to safeguard that experience by ensuring our suppliers, contracts, and commercial strategies are aligned with AT’s mission to keep transport accessible, dependable, and trusted.

 

Recognition of Excellence: Congratulations on Auckland Transport’s Bus Services Re-Tender winning Public Procurement Project of the Year at the CIPS ANZ Excellence in Procurement Awards. Could you tell us more about the scale and impact of this project, and why the “whole-of-business movement” was so important to its success?

 

The Bus Services Re-Tender was one of Auckland Transport’s largest and most complex commercial undertakings, covering a multi-billion-dollar service portfolio. Winning Public Procurement Project of the Year at the CIPS ANZ Awards recognised not only the scale of the work but the way it was delivered. This was never a routine procurement exercise, it became a true whole-of-business movement involving finance, operations, commercial, sustainability, and procurement working as one integrated team. At its height, it felt less like a project and more like an ecosystem: dozens of interdependent workstreams, each critical to achieving the right outcome.

We developed evaluation criteria that balanced price, quality, sustainability, and social outcomes, rewarding operators that demonstrated proven reliability and a commitment to community value. Internally, we redesigned our processes to remove duplication, strengthen governance, and create clear evaluation templates that suppliers and evaluators could trust.

A project of this magnitude will always carry complexity. The goal is not to eliminate that complexity, but to harness it, to govern it, structure it, and turn it into transparent and defensible outcomes. This award reflects what is possible when collaboration, discipline, and purpose sit at the centre of public procurement, setting a new benchmark for the sector.

Balancing Value and Priorities: How does procurement balance cost management with the need to maintain quality and continuity across priority projects and services?

 

Balancing cost management with service continuity is one of the core challenges in public procurement. For us, it extends far beyond securing the lowest price, our focus is on maximising public value. Every dollar spent must ultimately contribute to outcomes Aucklanders experience daily: a transport system that is convenient, well-connected, accessible, and reliable.

To achieve this, we apply holistic evaluation methods that consider more than cost alone. A key mechanism is the Price Quality Methodology (PQM), which places a notional price on quality. This approach creates a quality premium, recognising that suppliers with stronger performance capabilities often deliver greater long-term value, particularly where reliability, sustainability, and social impact are critical.

At the same time, we understand that numbers alone cannot capture the full picture. That’s why we rely on experienced subject-matter experts across disciplines to interpret context, assess risk, and apply informed judgement. Procurement therefore becomes the balancing mechanism, safeguarding financial stewardship while ensuring the operational and community outcomes Auckland depends on remain uncompromised.

 

Digital Transformation & Transparency: How are you leveraging digital tools and procurement strategies to improve resilience, efficiency, and transparency for customers and stakeholders?

 

Digital tools only create value when they are orchestrated to serve customers and stakeholders. Procurement’s role is to ensure technology investments are not just “shiny objects” avoiding the shiny object syndrome, or a collection of disconnected systems creating the Frankenstein effect. In transport, digital transformation must translate into real public value: reliable disruption alerts, smoother journeys, clearer information, and greater trust in the network.

At Auckland Transport, we are continuing to build the orchestration required to fully connect our digital tools, platforms, and data flows. With AI, machine learning, and automation opening new possibilities, from predictive fleet maintenance to enhanced customer information systems, the priority is to ensure these technologies integrate seamlessly rather than operate in isolation. Procurement plays a critical role in scanning the market, filtering out noise, shaping commercial models, and securing supplier partnerships that add resilience rather than complexity.

A good example is our collaboration with Ansarada. Their secure data room platform has supported several of our major procurement programmes, including the Bus and Ferry RFPs, making evaluation more efficient, auditable, and collaborative. Combined with the rollout of a new contract management system, these digital partnerships are helping us create a more connected, transparent, and trusted procurement environment across AT.

Alongside this, I’ve been developing the C.O.R.E. Framework, designed to reimagine procurement’s role in digital transformation. C.O.R.E. stands for Collaboration, Orchestration, Resilience and Enablement, positioning procurement as the integrator of people, processes, and data. It acts as a control-tower lens, enabling organisations to make decisions that are coherent, future-focused, and genuinely value-creating.

 

Technology & Supplier Partnerships: From integrated ticketing systems to new digital platforms, how does procurement support the successful implementation of technology while managing supplier relationships and risks?

 

For organisations with traditionally cautious approaches to risk, procurement’s role is shifting from transactional buying to architecting connected, future-ready digital ecosystems. A foundational step is benchmarking global best practice. For example, I’ve been engaging with Dubai’s RTA to understand how their digital twin pilot, developed collaboratively with industry partners, accelerated innovation while reducing implementation risk. These insights are valuable as we consider targeted local pilots in Auckland.

Today, success isn’t just about mitigating supplier risk; it is about enabling co-innovation. Procurement must champion commercial frameworks that evolve beyond static SLAs, promoting data transparency and interoperability through open data platforms. This shift transforms supplier relationships from opaque, “black box” arrangements into transparent, accountable, and innovation-driven partnerships.

To progress safely and strategically, we use these partnerships to test and validate new technologies through controlled pilots, for example, developing a digital twin of a key transport corridor. These structured trials allow us to learn quickly, refine collaboratively, and prove value before scaling across the network.

This approach ensures that procurement not only manages risk but actively enables the innovation that will shape Auckland’s transport future.

 

Driving Sustainability Through Procurement: With growing demand for green and climate-resilient transport, how does procurement help embed environmental and sustainability outcomes in supplier selection, contracts, and performance frameworks?

 

Procurement is one of the strongest levers we have to deliver climate action, social impact, and community value. At Auckland Transport, sustainability is embedded into every major sourcing activity through our Sustainable Procurement Action Plan, which guides how procurement contributes to Auckland’s transition toward a regenerative, low-carbon economy.

In bus services, for example, contracts require operators to accelerate the shift toward low- and zero-emission fleets, directly supporting AT’s target of reducing emissions by 50% by 2031. We also embed waste-diversion KPIs, typically 65–75%, and require adherence to AT’s Supplier Code of Conduct and Sedex membership to uphold ethical, responsible business practices across supply chains.

Sustainability is also people-centred. Through the Kake Mai supplier diversity programme, we support Māori- and Pasifika-owned emerging suppliers by facilitating partnerships with head contractors on our Physical Works Supplier Panel. This creates genuine opportunities for capability building, participation, and long-term economic impact.

By setting clear criteria, deeply interrogating supplier responses, and monitoring delivery through the AT Sustainability Data Portal, procurement ensures that environmental and social outcomes are delivered alongside cost, quality, and reliability, strengthening Auckland’s transport system for the future.

Risk Management in Complex Environments: What role does procurement play in embedding risk management and resilience into Auckland’s transport projects and supplier partnerships?

Risk management sits at the heart of procurement’s contribution to infrastructure and service delivery at Auckland Transport, and it begins long before a contract is awarded. Early market engagement allows us to surface potential vulnerabilities, from supplier capacity constraints and market volatility to cost escalation and delivery risks, so mitigation strategies can be built into project design from the outset.

A core mechanism is our Value Risk Assessment (VRA), which evaluates projects on value, complexity, and risk, categorising them from low to very high. The VRA determines the level of governance required, including cross-functional sign-offs from procurement, finance, safety, and probity. This ensures that risks are formally identified, assessed, and endorsed before any sourcing activity begins.

We then carry these controls through the contracting phase by embedding clear performance measures, KPIs, and monitoring frameworks, while designing contracts with enough flexibility to adapt as conditions evolve. Procurement’s role is to make risk visible, governable, and actionable, strengthening resilience across supplier partnerships and giving AT the confidence to deliver essential transport outcomes for Aucklanders, even in complex or unpredictable environments.

 

Collaborative Partnerships: How does procurement at AT work with operators and industry partners to design contracts and partnerships that encourage accountability, innovation, and service quality?

Strong partnerships form the backbone of effective public transport delivery, and procurement’s role extends far beyond enforcing contract terms. At Auckland Transport, we focus on creating structured, value-driven relationships that incentivise accountability, foster innovation, and elevate service quality across the network.

Our aim is to position AT as a true ‘customer of choice’. To achieve this, we embed Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) practices aligned with the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) frameworks, strengthened through collaboration with State of Flux. Supplier segmentation enables us to identify our most strategic operators and partners, and for these priority suppliers, we are preparing to roll out Joint Business Plans (JBPs). These JBPs establish shared objectives, define governance mechanisms, and set clear metrics for performance, risk, and value creation.

Governance forums, performance scorecards, and ongoing dialogue ensure transparency and accountability for both AT and its partners. In specific contexts, open-book arrangements help deepen trust and reinforce joint responsibility for outcomes.

By balancing commercial discipline with collaboration, procurement acts as the connector between AT’s strategic objectives and supplier capability. The result is a partnership ecosystem designed to deliver reliable, safe, and sustainable services that Aucklanders can depend on every day.

 

Advice for Emerging Leaders: What advice would you give to professionals looking to build a career in public-sector procurement, especially in complex, multi-stakeholder environments like transport?

Public-sector procurement is both demanding and deeply meaningful, and my biggest encouragement is this: be relentlessly curious. Curiosity keeps you learning, about markets, suppliers, risk, technology, and the broader forces shaping public services. In a world where digital tools evolve at speed, professionals need to understand not just what a technology is, but how it strengthens the category they are procuring. Depth of understanding will always outperform trend-chasing.

Secondly, avoid narrowing your experience too early. The strongest procurement leaders are shaped by breadth just as much as depth. My own career has spanned defence, telecommunications, and transport, across both direct and indirect categories, and that diversity has been invaluable. In environments defined by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA), adaptability becomes one of your greatest assets.

Lastly, remember that public procurement is fundamentally purpose-driven. It’s not only about contracts and commercial outcomes, it’s about delivering value to communities. Lead with integrity, balance commercial discipline with empathy, and keep sight of the fact that procurement, when done well, improves lives. That sense of purpose is what will sustain you, guide your decisions, and shape you into a leader who lifts both the profession and the communities you serve.

 

The Procurement Detective: Thought Leadership in Practice: You’re also writing a book, The Procurement Detective. Can you tell us about the concept behind it, and how it reflects your approach to procurement leadership and problem-solving?

I’ve always been a writer at heart, poetry, short stories, even a feature-length film script at school. Writing was my way of finding rhythm and narrative in complexity. When I discovered procurement, I realised it had the same creative DNA: intrigue, evidence, patterns, puzzles. It never felt like a linear process to me, it felt like a mystery waiting to be solved.

One of my earliest mentors in the Defence Force had previously worked as a private investigator. His method of dissecting problems, following unconventional leads, and piecing together evidence sparked something in me, the ‘procurement detective’ mindset. From then on, I saw procurement through a noir lens: part investigation, part strategy, part storytelling.

The Procurement Detective brings those worlds together. It blends practical tools with narrative, using classic detective archetypes, Sherlock Holmes included, to make procurement engaging, human, and accessible. It isn’t a theoretical manual, but a practitioner’s guide written with curiosity, clarity, and a touch of intrigue.

My goal is simple: to bring procurement alive on the page, practical, memorable, and genuinely useful for anyone leading, learning, or transforming in this profession.

In Association with:

 
Ansarada Logo

Ansarada is a global provider of AI-powered virtual data rooms and deal management solutions, supporting organisations through critical transactions and projects. Trusted by leading enterprises, advisors, and governments, Ansarada helps teams manage mergers and acquisitions, capital raising, procurement, and strategic initiatives with confidence by combining secure technology, intelligent insights, and proven best-practice playbooks.

www.ansarada.com

Lite Civil Ltd Logo

At Lite Civil, we are proud to be a 100% Māori-owned company. Our roots are deeply embedded in our community, and our projects reflect our commitment to enhancing the infrastructure and sacred spaces of our people. From vital upgrades to marae to significant developments in Māori infrastructure, each venture is more than a construction project; it’s a step towards communal well-being and cultural preservation.

www.litecivil.co.nz/