How Ramp’s 2025 Procurement Report can help you become a more strategic leader
There’s never been a better time to be in procurement.
The field is in hyper-growth: there’s more mindshare, available roles, technology, and opportunity to drive strategic value than ever before. Amid trade wars, supply chain disruptions, market volatility, and high interest rates, business leaders are craving efficiency. For procurement professionals, this is a moment to emerge from the back office and drive impact.
As the group responsible for buying the goods and services a company needs to stay in business, procurement teams are well-positioned to drive cost efficiency across the organization. Long considered a cost savings center, procurement is taking on a new identity as a strategic lever. The best procurement leaders are capitalizing on this moment, becoming voices of authority in high-level decisions. However, many continue to struggle with familiar challenges.
These procurement practitioners are often portrayed as the “bad cops” and face roadblocks because of it. They struggle to become more strategic because they lack the support and tools they need to pivot from their transactional roots. Without the tools they need for breakthrough improvements, they get bogged down in the same administrative work: chasing approvals and people through disparate systems and workflows.
In our procurement white paper, we surveyed business leaders to better understand the major challenges that procurement professionals face today. The results are telling and suggest procurement teams remain focused on day-to-day operations:
- 75% of respondents feel manual processes and inefficiencies are still a big problem.
- 63% see lack of visibility into company spend as a major issue.
- 52% report that employee purchasing volume has become unmanageable.
But the numbers also suggest that procurement pros are looking for a better way. They’re seeking out new efficiencies through technology—more than 90% of respondents say they find automation, insights, and fast implementation to be critical features. It’s a sign that change is imminent.
The Ramp 2025 State of Procurement report is designed to help you identify and capitalize on the technologies and tools available to you. It breaks down:
- Top pains that actually motivate business leaders to uplevel their process
- What decision-makers prioritize as they evaluate solutions
- How companies that have modernized procurement perform in key areas
My hope is that we seize this opportunity and redefine procurement together. That you feel empowered and equipped to help your organization build a competitive advantage.
Start redefining procurement today by uncovering the complete insights and actions in our State of Procurement report.
“I assumed I would have to choose between speed and control. What I found is that you can have both. A well-designed system takes friction out, for the finance function and for everyone else.”
Justin Webster
CFO, Denver Broncos
“A well-run district should not have to choose between getting work done at the school site and keeping control of the dollars behind it. We're not hiring more people to do more jobs, so we have to be smarter about the process. With Ramp, the purchase, the receipt, and the record stay together from the start. ”
Nick Brizeno
Director of Purchasing, San Marcos Unified School District
“AI is moving faster than the finance context around it. Prices change, models change, and the value is not always obvious from an invoice. We needed enough detail to know which bets deserved more investment — and which ones did not.”
Greg Cooley
Controller, AngelList
“Invoices, cards, tokens. The categories change but the principle doesn't: know where the money is going, remove the work around it, and make sure the spend is worth it.”
Maciej Mylik. Finance
ElevenLabs
“We weren’t trying to retrofit an old finance system. We had a blank canvas, and Ramp gave us the foundation to build a global finance function of the future.”
Justin Dourado
Director of Finance, Othership
“There's just no surprises anymore. No more waiting two months to find out how a job did. We know how it's doing as it's happening.”
Erich Kuss
Financial Systems Manager, Infinity Home Services
“More token spend isn’t proof that AI is working. Less isn’t proof that it isn’t. What matters is whether we’re buying the right level of intelligence for the work. Ramp lets us make that judgment in the same place we manage every other type of spend.”
Cody Nutt
Senior Director of Business Systems, Daxko
“Most banks treat the back office as a cost to keep down. We treat ours as a return to compound, which is why we run it on Ramp. Now we put our clients on Ramp, too.”
Patrick Gaughen
President & COO, Hingham Institution for Savings
