According to procurementmag.com, Amazon Business hosted a May 2026 webinar featuring Shannon McCaul, Director at Optis, and Mira Korhonen-low, Chief Procurement Officer at Forenom, to redefine strategic sourcing amid escalating regulatory, technological, and geopolitical pressures.
The end of cost-first procurement
Procurement functions are no longer judged solely on savings and compliance — a shift underscored by the experts’ combined 35 years of experience across procurement, supply chain, and category management. As Shannon McCaul states:
“Procurement was largely measured on savings and compliance. But today, businesses are being asked to influence outcomes, from supply continuity to innovation and ESG goals.” — Shannon McCaul, Director at Optis
Cost remains foundational, but it is now just one variable among several — including supplier resilience, financial health, geographic diversification, sustainability performance, and long-term innovation potential. The webinar highlights that European procurement teams face tightening deadlines: the CSRD and CSDDD compliance windows are closing fast, making ESG reporting a mandatory gate — not an aspiration — in supplier selection.
Supplier selection: A multidimensional standard
Modern supplier evaluation has moved beyond price and basic capability. High-performing procurement teams now deploy multidimensional scorecards assessing total cost of ownership, ESG credentials, operational resilience, stakeholder satisfaction, and track record under pressure. Mira Korhonen-low stresses the limits of data-driven screening:
“The pitch team is generally not the people who will actually interact with your business. You have to meet the people that do the work.” — Mira Korhonen-low, CPO at Forenom
This human-centered insight underscores why supplier vetting now requires on-site engagement, reference checks, and cross-functional alignment — especially for mission-critical categories.
AI as co-pilot, not decision-maker
AI tools now enable real-time risk monitoring, predictive analytics, and market intelligence — capabilities that previously required entire dedicated teams. Yet both speakers firmly reject AI as a replacement for human judgment. “Supply selection always has to be done by the human,” affirms Korhonen-low. AI supports scorecard development and performance benchmarking, but cannot assess cultural fit, relationship trajectory, or latent risks absent from historical data — all of which demand expert interpretation. This reflects broader industry adoption patterns: a 2025 Gartner survey found 68% of Fortune 500 procurement teams use AI for spend analytics, yet only 12% delegate final supplier awards to algorithmic outputs.
ESG: From nice-to-have to non-negotiable
For EU-based procurement leaders, ESG is no longer voluntary. The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) applies to all large EU companies and listed SMEs starting in 2024, while the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) mandates supply chain due diligence for firms with >500 employees and €150 million in global turnover. As Korhonen-low emphasizes:
“It’s not a sustainability team problem anymore. It’s a selection problem. Vendors must have the capability to report on that, it can’t be an aspiration.” — Mira Korhonen-low, CPO at Forenom
This aligns with recent enforcement trends: the European Commission opened 17 formal infringement proceedings against member states in Q1 2026 for delayed CSRD transposition.
Partnerships built to last
The webinar concludes with a call to replace transactional vendor relationships with investment-grade partnerships — characterized by regular business reviews, shared KPIs, performance transparency, and mutual respect. Shannon McCaul urges procurement leaders to “show up consistently and treat suppliers like a partner, not a vendor.” This philosophy echoes Amazon Business’s own platform design: its Supplier Performance Dashboard provides real-time visibility into delivery accuracy, invoice timeliness, and sustainability documentation status — features launched in Q3 2025 and now used by over 240,000 registered B2B suppliers globally. Such infrastructure enables the relational rigor demanded by modern strategic sourcing — turning compliance into collaboration.
Source: procurementmag.com
Compiled from international media by the SCI.AI editorial team.
