At ProcureCon MRO 2025, Michael Beauregard moderated a discussion with Hugo Sanchez, Madeline Oliviere, and Hunter Cabe on how Gen Z is changing procurement. The panel explored values-driven supplier relationships, technology adoption, mentorship, retention, and the risks and opportunities of AI in MRO and procurement.
At ProcureCon MRO 2025, Derek Richards and Marcela Vasquez of Gerdau North America explained how category management creates value across the full source-to-pay process. Their keynote emphasized stakeholder engagement, market insight, and a strategic mindset that helps procurement move beyond price and into long-term business impact.
At Procurecon MRO 2025, leaders from Hilti, Bausch + Lomb, and The J.M. Smucker Company shared practical strategies for hitting sustainability goals in facility services without losing sight of cost and operational realities. The discussion covered turning waste into value, embedding ESG into CapEx, leveraging suppliers, and building business cases that resonate with finance and the board. Attendees walked away with concrete actions to apply as soon as they return to their facilities.
This session recap from Procurecon MRO 2025 explores how procurement and operations leaders are moving beyond piece price to total cost of ownership (TCO) in MRO sourcing. Moderated by Amanda Prochaska, the panel featuring Julie Wuerth, Anna Geller, and Pierre Beaulieu unpacked stakeholder alignment, supplier collaboration, data, and change management. Read on for practical strategies to apply TCO thinking in your own organization.
In this Procurecon MRO 2025 session, supply chain leader Dmitriy Monakhov unpacked how to navigate relationships with sole and single-source suppliers in critical MRO categories. He explored how MRO classification shapes strategy, why perceived constraints must be challenged, and how trust, KPIs, and smart commercial levers can turn dependency into a strategic advantage.
At ProcureCon MRO 2025, Pierre Beaulieu, Anna Geller, Chen Lin, Maria Greaves-Cacevski, and moderator Peter Benson examined how tariffs and other regulatory shifts are reshaping MRO sourcing. The panel emphasized data quality, supplier transparency, contract protections, and cross-functional planning as the best defenses against uncertainty.
This Procurecon MRO 2025 session, "Taming The Tail: Strategies to Curb Wasteful Spend," brought together Amanda Prochaska, Julie Wuerth, Lena Bowland, and Brian Fuselier to unpack the realities of MRO tail spend. Panelists shared how to define and measure tail, where it hides in the business, and practical levers to curb leakage without disrupting operations.
This recap covers "Trimming the Fat: Best Practices For Minimizing Excess Inventory" from Procurecon MRO 2025, featuring Michael Koontz, Trey Closson, and David Spence. The panel unpacked why surplus MRO inventory persists, how culture and incentives drive hoarding, and what practical steps leaders can take to right-size stock without risking critical outages.
In this Procurecon MRO 2025 keynote recap, Verusen Founder & Chief Strategy Officer Paul Noble outlines why AI purpose-built for MRO is now a strategic imperative in a risk-driven world. He highlights new approaches to data trust, criticality, and tail spend that let procurement leaders move from reactive firefighting to proactive, enterprise-wide value creation.
Find out how you can enhance MRO procurement agility and risk management with data analytics, supplier diversification, and more.
Secure the future of your MRO procurement workforce with knowledge management and employee engagement strategies.
Learn how modern technology, data analytics, and AI are reshaping MRO procurement, enhancing efficiency, and driving cost savings.
Find out how to manage efficiency and mitigate inflation in MRO procurement with technology, strategic solutions, and internal communications.
Optimize MRO inventory management with advanced strategies, supplier collaboration, and predictive maintenance. Enhance efficiency and cut costs effectively.
The 2020 pandemic showed how vulnerable supply chains can be to external disruptions. Organizations that were prepared and able to adapt quickly saw the best outcomes. Still, for those without robust processes in place, costly gaps in their operations revealed themselves just as pressing customer demands increased.
MRO procurement is an essential part of business operations, but it can often be set aside during digital transformation efforts in favor of procurement functions deemed more critical. According to an article by engineering.com, 53% of manufacturers surveyed in a recent Gartner study haven't even been tested by a digital challenge yet, undermining their readiness for transformation.
In an inflationary market, maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) procurement has an opportunity to save businesses money while still maintaining a reliable supply of needed materials and services. But as the cost of operating in today’s inflationary economy continues to rise, companies everywhere are looking for ways to remain competitive and optimize performance without sacrificing quality or reliability. Procurement leaders looking for solutions must turn to effective MRO strategies that leverage resources more efficiently while improving cash flow management. With intelligent planning and well-informed decisions, businesses can maximize savings on their bottom line while retaining continuity across their organization's operations.
In the current era of disruption and accelerated innovation, MRO procurement leaders must make sure that their organization has an agile, streamlined way to optimize its suppliers. The highly competitive global economy means that organizations must effectively manage supplier relationships to maximize efficiency and access cost savings while also staying compliant with business regulations. Supplier optimization through collaboration is increasingly becoming a key factor in how companies gain a competitive edge — making it perpetually critical for successful operational continuity.
In manufacturing, sensors and smart equipment are revolutionizing maintenance processes by allowing for more proactive and efficient planning. MRO procurement leaders can use automation and Internet-of-Things (IoT) technology to monitor assets in real-time, identify maintenance trends, and automate the order of parts and services based on analytics. According to a Deloitte study cited by Forbes, more than 86% of manufacturers in the study "believe smart factory initiatives will be the main driver of manufacturing competitiveness in the next five years." However, only 51% were making or had made investments in IoT at the time of the study.
MRO procurement has been a manual process for years. But thanks to smart technologies like AI and machine learning, companies are realizing new levels of efficiency.
Check out our latest article to learn how you can use smart technologies to predict maintenance requirements and reduce manual processes.
The pandemic revealed significant issues in the MRO supply chain. Companies can no longer afford to stretch the lives of their machines while relying on lean maintenance teams.
Here’s why MRO procurement leaders must serve as a steward of the supply chain moving forward.
Data analytics is now a standard tool for companies that want to better manage their procurement functions. Here’s why capturing and analyzing the right data is now key to reducing maverick and tail spend in MRO procurement.
MRO procurement professionals need to draw more value from their most critical suppliers. This can be challenging if you don’t have the tools, processes, and resources in place to collaborate and make better deals with your supply partners. This article explores how procurement leaders can get the most out of their MRO supplier relationships through visibility, technology, and old-fashioned deal-making.
Accurate and usable master data is key to improving your MRO performance. Here’s how optimizing your master data can improve the MRO function with context-based insights, better efficiency, and more.
Organizations are implementing new technologies to accelerate their digital transformation. Over the past few years, we’ve witnessed profound changes to how companies sell, market, and deliver goods and services. While these changes impact other areas of the business, MRO procurement shouldn’t be an exception. Here’s how new technologies can accelerate MRO digital transformation.
Most organizations view maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) procurement as a cost center and difficult to manage. But new technologies are offering solutions. Procurement leaders have spent significant time and money pursuing the digital transformation of the direct procurement function. When applied to MRO procurement, digital technology has the potential to cut costs, improve contract compliance, and free up business capital. Here are just a few of the technologies procurement leaders are eyeballing in 2021.