Procurement’s Blind Spot
Why “Spend Visibility” Still Isn’t Solved
Let’s be honest. Procurement teams have been talking about “spend visibility” for over a decade, yet we’re still flying half-blind.
Michael Shields hit a nerve when he recently asked on LinkedIn: “Why is spend visibility still such a challenge in 2025?” The post unleashed a flood of agreement, frustration, and sharp commentary from across the procurement community. What followed was less about theory and more about the everyday, messy reality of managing spend across sprawling enterprises.
Here’s what we’ve learned - and what we need to stop getting wrong.
We Don’t Have a Spend Visibility Problem. We Have a Data Ownership Problem.
One of the most repeated points in the discussion was this: most procurement teams don’t own the systems or the data they need to be effective. Finance owns the ERP. IT controls the architecture. Business units run their own budgets. Procurement is left begging for scraps - or worse, pulling together Frankenstein dashboards from Excel and hope.
“You can't drive spend insights if you don’t even own the pipeline. We’re reactive by design, not proactive by intent.”
Until procurement is embedded at the start of planning and budgeting—not just at PO creation—spend visibility will stay partial and post-mortem.
Too Many Tools, Not Enough Truth
Another common frustration: companies are drowning in dashboards, but starving for insights. The tech stack is bloated, disconnected, and redundant. One person summed it up perfectly:
“We have Tableau, Coupa, Power BI, and some homegrown apps. Each says something slightly different. Nobody knows what to trust, so we just keep using Excel.”
This is not a tooling issue. It’s a governance issue. If your systems don’t speak the same language—or if procurement lacks the authority to standardize reporting across silos—then visibility is just a mirage.
Tail Spend: The Black Hole Nobody Wants to Touch
Tail spend came up again and again. Not because it’s new, but because it’s still out of control. One comment nailed the irony:
“We’re fighting to reduce $10K tail invoices while multimillion-dollar contracts go unaudited. It’s like focusing on litter in a landfill.”
Tail spend isn’t just messy—it’s unstructured, fragmented, and often intentionally kept that way. The harder truth is that tail spend often exists to bypass control, not because of oversight.
Vendors Keep Selling Visibility, But Not Accountability
Several procurement leaders called out tech vendors directly. Too many tools promise full visibility, but deliver static dashboards and generic alerts. What’s missing is accountability—who owns what, what needs action, and when.
“Spend visibility without action is just reporting. We need systems that drive workflows, not just KPIs.”
True visibility connects insight to impact. It should flag not just what was spent, but why it matters and what to do next.
What’s Missing? Commercial Context
You can’t understand spend without understanding contracts, obligations, and outcomes. Yet most dashboards stop at the invoice.
One commenter asked:
“Where’s the context? What did we actually buy? Was it delivered on time? Did it create value? We need spend analytics that include commercial health.”
This isn’t just a procurement issue. It’s an enterprise issue. If legal, finance, and operations don’t align on what good looks like, procurement will keep chasing numbers instead of impact.
What Needs to Change:
1. Procurement must stop asking for visibility. Start demanding integration.
If data isn’t flowing automatically from source to pay, you don’t have visibility. You have reporting fatigue.
2. Make spend visibility part of the planning cycle, not just the audit trail.
Procurement needs a seat at the table when budgets are set—not just when suppliers are picked.
3. Shift from dashboards to decisions.
Visibility isn’t the end goal. Action is. Build processes where insights trigger workflows—not just pretty graphs.
4. Stop obsessing over tools. Start fixing ownership.
No tech will solve this until someone owns the full data lifecycle—from budget to booking to benefit.
Final Word
This post didn’t just raise a question - it exposed an uncomfortable truth: we’ve overcomplicated a problem that’s fundamentally about structure, not software.
Until procurement leaders are empowered to own the data, shape the systems, and drive decisions, “spend visibility” will remain an empty buzzword.
And we’ve wasted enough time already.
What’s your take?
How do you tackle spend visibility in your organization? Share your experience on Chain.NET, the global community for supply chain and procurement leaders. Join discussions, access exclusive resources, and connect with peers who face the same challenges: www.chain.net