Study methodology
Working with our research partner, Oxford Economics, the IBM Institute for Business Value surveyed 1,128 global procurement executives from 22 countries in North America,
Europe and Asia.
Collectively, these executives lead procurement operations in almost every industry, and the companies they serve all have annual revenue in excess of US$1 billion.
After collecting the data from our survey, we analyzed how responses from the world’s top-performing procurement organizations differed from those of the remainder of our
study population.
We defined leading procurement operations as those that believed they had mastered core procurement capabilities, those that said they enjoyed outsized strategic influence, and those that successfully leveraged multiple sources and emerging technologies to bring innovation to the companies they serve.
Overall, 168 respondents exhibited all of these attributes in concert. Their responses were examined in detail so that all procurement organizations could benefit from their collective wisdom.