By Jeff Groves
We need to talk.
Last Friday afternoon, I was sitting in my office, sunshine streaming through the windows, already mentally unpacking my weekend plans. You know that feeling — computer half-shut down, maybe sneaking a peek at the weather forecast, wondering if you remembered to move the laundry to the dryer that morning.
Then my phone rang.
“Jeff,” the voice said, and I knew immediately something was wrong. It was Kathy, source-to-pay leader for one of our most important clients, executive sponsor for a major implementation we had underway, and honestly? A friend. The kind of colleague who makes even the craziest projects feel manageable because she just gets things done.
“I tendered my resignation. I’m done at the end of this month.”
Friends, my heart dropped faster than my wifi connection during a critical Zoom call.
The Story Every Procurement Leader Knows (But Nobody Talks About)
Here’s the thing about Kathy, she’s exactly the kind of leader every organization claims they want. Smart as can be, engaging as all get-out, and blessed with that rare ability to make complex procurement processes actually work. She’s the person you call when vendor relationships are going off the rails. The one who somehow finds cost savings in budgets that have been picked cleaner than a Thanksgiving turkey.
But Kathy was drowning, and not in the way you might think.
“I was promised two additional resources over a year ago,” she explained, her voice carrying that particular exhaustion I’ve heard too many times. “My team is overworked, and it’s hit a breaking point. I have to take a stand…for myself and for my people.”
Now here’s where it gets interesting (and by interesting, I mean heartbreaking). Kathy had tried to leave before our project started. The CFO had sweet-talked her into staying with promises of filling those two open positions “real soon.”
Spoiler alert: They never did.
The Double-Edged Sword of Being “The One Who Gets It Done”
You know what Kathy’s team motto might as well have been? “Do more with less.” Sound familiar?
According to Deloitte’s 2023 Global Chief Procurement Officer Survey, this isn’t just Kathy’s story, it’s your story:
- 43% of procurement leaders report that supply chain risk has increased significantly compared to just two years ago
- 79% of procurement organizations are impacted by supply shortages
- 89% are struggling with inflationary pressures
But those statistics don’t capture what I call the “Kathy Factor”, the human cost of being the person everyone depends on to make miracles happen with resources thinner than gas station coffee.
The Hidden Epidemic Nobody’s Measuring
Here’s what the spreadsheets don’t show:
- The stress that follows you home like an uninvited passenger in your back seat
- Those strategic initiatives you’re passionate about but never have time to pursue
- The innovative ideas that die in your brain because you’re too busy fighting today’s fires to plant tomorrow’s gardens
A buyer with twelve years of experience told me recently, “I feel like a hamster on a wheel. I’m running faster and faster, but I’m not getting anywhere. And I’m scared I’m going to burn out completely.”
The American Heart Association’s research on workplace stress has linked chronic workplace stress to increased risk of heart disease and stroke. Let that sink in for a minute. What we’re experiencing isn’t just job dissatisfaction; it’s killing us. And for what? So we can manually process another PO? Review another contract for the same standard terms? Generate another report that looks mysteriously similar to last month’s?
The Plot Twist: This Didn’t Have to Happen
What if I told you that 51% of the time procurement professionals spend working could be automated or augmented with AI? That’s not my opinion, that’s from a 2023 Harvard Business Review study on knowledge workers showing they spend an average of 41% of their time on automatable tasks, with procurement professionals at 51%.
More than half. Let that marinate for a moment.
What if Kathy’s team had an AI partner handling the routine spend analysis that ate up 15 hours of their week? What if contract reviews for standard terms took minutes instead of hours? What if supplier performance reports generated themselves, leaving humans to do what humans do best: build relationships, solve complex problems, and drive strategic value?
McKinsey’s 2023 procurement research found that 86% of procurement leaders observed capability gaps during recent disruptions. But here’s the kicker, the gap isn’t in our people. The gap is in how we’re using our people. We’re asking thoroughbreds to pull plows when they should be winning races.
The Great Misunderstanding
Now, I know what some of you are thinking. “Great, Jeff, another tech bro telling me AI is going to solve everything while making my job obsolete.”
Hold that thought. That’s not where this is headed.
A landmark 2023 study from MIT Sloan Management Review found that generative AI increased highly skilled knowledge workers’ productivity by nearly 40%. But here’s the beautiful part, it didn’t replace anyone. It amplified everyone’s capabilities. The research showed that AI-assisted workers completed tasks with higher quality while experiencing less burnout.
PwC’s 2025 AI Jobs Barometer (hot off the presses, folks) shows wages rising twice as fast in AI-exposed industries compared to non-AI industries. Revenue growth in those same industries? Nearly quadrupled since 2022.
AI isn’t the enemy. The enemy is asking brilliant procurement minds to spend their days on tasks a well-trained AI could handle in minutes.
The Question That Changes Everything
At the end of my conversation with Kathy, I asked her, “Is there anything they can do to convince you to stay?”
“No,” she said with the finality of a judge’s gavel.
But what if we asked a different question? What if, instead of “How can we do more with less?” we asked, “Who can help us do more with what we have?”
What if we stopped treating AI as another tool to implement (Lord knows we don’t need another system to learn) and started thinking of it as a team member who never calls in sick, never complains about routine tasks, and excels at exactly the things that drain our human teams?
Your Move, Chief
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: Kathy’s story isn’t unique. It’s playing out in organizations across the country. Your best people, the ones who “get things done” no matter what, are the ones most at risk. They’re carrying the weight of outdated processes and unrealistic expectations on shoulders that are starting to buckle.
The question isn’t whether AI could have saved Kathy’s career at that company. (Spoiler: It could have.) The question is whether you’re going to let it save the Kathys on your team.
Because somewhere in your organization right now, there might be a brilliant procurement leader staring at their resignation letter, wondering if this is the week they finally hit send. They’re not leaving because they can’t do the work. They’re leaving because they’re overwhelmed by work that doesn’t utilize their best abilities.
And that, my friends, is a tragedy we can prevent.
But only if we’re brave enough to admit that “do more with less” isn’t a strategy, it’s a death sentence for talent.
Next time, we’ll dive into the daily reality of procurement life and ask the question nobody wants to answer: When was the last time you had space to think? Trust me, the answer might surprise you (and your CEO).
What about you? How many talented procurement professionals have you seen walk away because they were drowning in tasks that didn’t leverage their brilliance? Share your story below. Let’s get real about what we’re losing when we lose our best people.
#ProcurementTransformation #AIPartnership #FutureOfWork #SupplyChainInnovation #HumanCentricAI
Sources:
- Deloitte 2023 Global Chief Procurement Officer Survey
- American Heart Association research on workplace stress and cardiovascular disease
- Harvard Business Review 2023 study: “How Knowledge Workers Spend Their Time”
- McKinsey 2023: “Procurement’s Digital Transformation: How to Capture Real Value”
- MIT Sloan Management Review 2023: “How Generative AI Can Augment Human Creativity”
- PwC 2025 AI Jobs Barometer Report
