African enterprises to employ digital procurement platforms for supply chain risks
African large enterprises have been urged to adopt digital procurement platforms to combat hidden spending leakages, supplier risk blind spots, and governance failures.
African large enterprises have been urged to adopt digital procurement platforms to combat hidden spending leakages, supplier risk blind spots, and governance failures.
This is as procurement experts push for deeper technology integration across supply chains at the Digital Procurement Africa Summit 2026, themed ‘Accelerating Procurement Transformation for Large Enterprises in the Digital Era’.
According to them, procurement software is evolving from a back-office efficiency tool into a core enterprise intelligence system capable of tracking supplier behavior, monitoring compliance, and identifying financial risk across complex vendor networks.
Gloopro was highlighted as the procurement technology used to manage tail spend which is the thousands of low-value purchases that often escape oversight inside large organisations.
Adenrele Thompson, indirect procurement manager for supply chain at Coca-Cola HBC, said many businesses historically treated small procurement transactions as too insignificant to monitor closely, creating major governance gaps over time.
“Most organisations approve tail spend without going in-depth because the value looks small,” Thompson said. “But today we have systems that can provide transparency, governance, and due diligence around those transactions.”
According to Thompson, procurement fragmentation that once seemed impossible to control can now be managed through digital tools that centralise approvals, vendor records, and spending data.
He compared the shift to how mobile apps transformed everyday consumer behavior, while stating that procurement digitisation is becoming inevitable for enterprises operating in fast-moving markets.
“If you are not digital, it is just a matter of time,” he said. “The consequences are inevitable.”
African enterprises procurement teams are investing in automation platforms, supplier management systems, and analytics tools to improve visibility into spending patterns and reduce operational inefficiencies.
However, experts warned that technology adoption alone will not solve procurement challenges unless executive leadership understands the strategic value of digital transformation.
Olumide Olusanya, founder and chief executive of Gloopro, a procurement technology company, said procurement leaders often struggle to convince boards and executives to modernise legacy procurement structures because many senior decision-makers built businesses before digital systems became central to operations.
“There is a huge responsibility on procurement leaders to communicate the value of automation at board level,” he said.
He argued that procurement transformation requires executives willing to push difficult technology changes internally despite resistance.
“Procurement platforms are becoming increasingly important for enterprise risk intelligence, particularly as companies expand supplier networks across multiple African markets.”
Raphael Ikonagbin, director for Large Corporates for Europe and Africa at Moody’s, said organisations are facing growing difficulty assessing supplier reliability because many Tier 2 and Tier 3 suppliers across Africa lack transparent financial disclosures or formal credit histories.
As a result, companies are beginning to rely on procurement platforms as alternative sources of intelligence.
“Procurement data is increasingly important, but often underutilised,” Ikonagbin said.
According to him, procurement systems are now generating valuable data on payment behavior, transaction histories, supplier performance, compliance records, and ownership structures which are information that can be used to build broader enterprise risk models.
He said procurement platforms are evolving beyond operational software into what Moody’s describes as network-based credit intelligence systems.
Rather than evaluating suppliers individually, companies are increasingly analysing interconnected supplier ecosystems to identify hidden financial, operational, or compliance risks that could disrupt supply chains.
“What we are seeing is a move away from siloed supplier analysis toward interconnected risk intelligence,” Ikonagbin said.
The shift is particularly significant for African businesses operating across multiple jurisdictions where supplier visibility remains limited and informal procurement practices remain common.
Chukwuma Nkwodinmah, procurement and supply chain management leader at Aradel Holdings Plc, warned that unmanaged tail spend can quietly create parallel procurement ecosystems outside official corporate controls.
According to him, employees often bypass formal procurement channels believing they are helping businesses move faster, but the result is growing compliance exposure, financial leakage, and weakened governance structures.
“Tail spend is no longer procurement leakage,” Nkwodinmah said. “It is governance failure.”
Experts at the summit noted that the next phase of procurement transformation in Africa will likely be driven by Artificial Intelligence, predictive analytics, and integrated supplier risk monitoring systems capable of detecting vulnerabilities before they disrupt operations.
