Phone: (312) 646-0476 // Email: ssprincipalconsultant@gmail.com
Procurement Principal Consultants
Procurement that performs. AI that accelerates.
What We Do
THE PROBLEM WE WALK INTO
Fragmented and uncontrolled spend
Duplicate suppliers and weak contracts
No visibility into costs, commitments, or risk
Decentralized purchasing with proper governance
Procurement viewed as administrative, not strategic
Immediate pressure on margin, cash flow, and compliance
WHAT WE DELIVER
Stabilize
Visibility into financial commitments
Rapid assessment of spend, suppliers, and contracts
Immediate controls to stop cost leakage and risk exposure
Transform
Supplier consolidation and contracts renegotiation
Cost reduction tied directly to EBITDA improvement
Standardized sourcing and procurement processes
Build
Centralized procurement operating model
Governance, policies, and approval frameworks
Category strategies across all indirect services
Respectable procurement function that is seen as strategic advisors
Core Procurement Services
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You Can’t Fix What You Can’t See
Most organizations have no idea how much they’re actually spending or what they’re committed to. Contracts are scattered, suppliers are duplicated, and no one can tell you where the leakage is. Before you can improve procurement, you need to know exactly what you’re working with. That’s where we start.
What We Deliver
A fast, no-nonsense assessment that gives you a clear picture of where money is going, where it’s leaking, and what to do about it. We deliver in days, not months. Our assessment isn’t just a report. It’s a judgment call on what matters most for your business right now.
Rapid spend assessment across all Indirect Services categories
Contract inventory review with specific leakage and risk identification
Supplier rationalization opportunity assessment with consolidation targets
Procurement process and policy gap analysis against best practice
Stakeholder interviews across Finance, IT, HR, Legal, and Marketing
Prioritized findings with a clear action roadmap and estimated savings impact
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Your Spend Is Managed, Yet It’s Still Costing You More Than It Should
You’ve got procurement up and running, but contracts are misaligned, sourcing is reactive, and your team is spending more time firefighting than driving value. Without structured category strategies and disciplined supplier management, savings opportunities keep slipping through the cracks. This engagement closes those gaps and builds the foundation for long-term control.
What We Deliver
We don’t just run sourcing events , we build the muscle your team needs to sustain results independently. Every deliverable is tied to a business outcome, not a procurement checkbox.
Category strategy development for key Indirect Services spend areas
Sourcing execution across priority categories with negotiated savings
Contract standardization and commercial term alignment
Supplier management framework implementation with performance metrics
Procurement policy and intake model design for consistent governance
Measurable EBITDA-linked savings tied directly to executed initiatives
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Procurement Is Holding Your Business Back and Everyone Knows It
When procurement is broken at the operating model level, incremental fixes don’t work. You need a fundamental reset: the right structure, the right people, the right processes, and the right technology, built to last. This engagement is for organizations ready to stop patching and start building a procurement function that earns its seat at the leadership table.
What We Deliver
We own the transformation end-to-end and build your team’s capability alongside it, so the results don’t walk out the door when we do. The goal is a procurement function that operates without us.
End-to-end procurement operating model design and implementation
Organizational design and in-house capability build across all procurement roles
Full category ownership across Indirect Services through transition
Technology enablement and analytics integration for real-time decision support
Third-party risk management framework integrated into sourcing and supplier management
Managed transition from consultant-led to in-house procurement with knowledge transfer
AI-Powered Procurement Services
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Your Data Has the Answers. You Just Can’t Access Those Answers Fast Enough.
Traditional spend analysis takes weeks, gets stale before it’s finished, and still misses the anomalies buried deep in the data. By the time you have a report, the window to act has closed. Meanwhile, cost leakage continues, supplier risks go unnoticed, and leadership is making decisions without the full picture.
What We Deliver
We use AI-powered tools to do in days what used to take weeks. Yet the value isn’t the speed. It’s the depth of insight we can reach, and the judgment we apply in interpreting what the data means for your specific business context.
• Rapid spend cube development and AI-driven data cleansing and categorization
• Anomaly detection across supplier, category, and transaction data
• Savings opportunity identification with prioritized, business-case-ready output
• Maverick spend analysis and compliance gap identification
• Supplier consolidation targets with estimated negotiating leverage
• Executive-ready dashboards and reporting built for decision-making, not data review
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Everyone Is Talking About AI in Procurement. Almost No One Knows Where to Start.
The AI vendor landscape is loud, the promises are large, and the risk of investing in the wrong place is real. Procurement leaders are being asked to have a point of view on AI without the time, data, or independent expertise to form one. Without a grounded strategy, you end up chasing tools instead of outcomes — and spending budget on technology that doesn’t stick.
What We Deliver
We give you an honest, vendor-neutral assessment of where AI will actually move the needle in your procurement function — not a generic framework, and not a pitch deck. Our recommendations reflect your specific data maturity, team capability, and business priorities.
• AI readiness assessment across people, process, data, and technology
• Use case prioritization based on value, feasibility, and organizational readiness
• Independent buy vs. build vs. configure recommendations
• Vendor landscape review with objective evaluation criteria
• Phased AI roadmap linked to measurable procurement outcomes
• Executive-ready business case for AI investment with ROI framework
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The Wrong Platform Will Cost You Years, Not Just Dollars.
Procurement technology vendors are sophisticated sellers. They know how to show you what you want to see in a demo and downplay what will actually cause you pain at go-live. Internal teams rarely have the market depth to see through it, and by the time implementation problems surface, the contract is signed and the budget is spent.
What We Deliver
We provide independent, vendor-neutral support across the full selection process, from requirements definition through contract. We work across the leading procurement technology landscape, including Coupa, Jaggaer, Ivalua, Zip, SAP Ariba, and others, and we do not have any vendor relationships that influence our recommendations. We guide you through the full selection process with procurement-side expertise. We know the platforms, the real-world implementation risks, and the questions vendors don’t want you to ask.
• Requirements definition and prioritization grounded in your actual workflows
• Vendor landscape review across leading platforms (Ariba, Coupa, Jaggaer, Ivalua, Zip, and others)
• RFP development, scoring framework, and structured evaluation process
• Demo facilitation with targeted, scenario-based questions that reveal real capability
• Objective final recommendation with documented rationale
• Contract and commercial term review to protect your implementation timeline and budget
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Your Team Has the Tools. They Just Don’t Know How to Use Them Well Enough to Matter.
Implementing AI-powered procurement tools is the easy part. The hard part is getting a team of buyers, category managers, and stakeholders to actually change how they work. Most adoption programs teach people to click buttons. That’s not enough. Without genuine workflow change and judgment about when and how to use AI, the technology sits underused and the results never materialize.
What We Deliver
We design adoption programs built around how your team actually works, not around a vendor’s training script. The goal is confident, independent users who apply AI with judgment — not dependence on a tool they don’t fully understand.
• Change readiness and capability assessment by role and function
• Role-specific training design for buyers, category managers, and procurement leadership
• Hands-on workflow coaching with real scenarios from your spend environment
• AI prompt engineering guidance tailored to procurement tasks and decisions
• Adoption metrics framework to track behavior change, not just system logins
• Reinforcement planning to sustain capability beyond go-live
Technology & Tools
The right technology accelerates procurement. The wrong choice sets it back by years.
We bring deep hands-on experience with enterprise procurement and ERP platforms, combined with our vendor-neutral perspective to help clients make technology decisions they won’t regret. We do not have any vendor relationships, no referral arrangements, and no preferred outcomes.
Our commitment is to finding the right fit for your organization.
Procurement & ERP Platforms
We have direct, hands-on experience with the platforms procurement teams and finance functions rely on most. That operational depth is what separates credible advisory from theoretical guidance.
• SAP Ariba — Sourcing execution and Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM)
• Oracle — Procurement and financial operations
• Microsoft Dynamics — Procurement and operational workflows
• Workday — Procurement and supplier management
• SAP Fieldglass — Contingent workforce and services procurement
• Concur — Travel, expense, and invoicing modules, with integration with procurement
• SAP Proprietary / Custom Builds — Custom procurement workflow design and configuration
Vendor-Neutral Platform Selection
Selecting a procurement platform is one of the highest-stakes technology decisions an organization makes. The wrong choice — or the right choice configured poorly — can set a procurement function back by years.
We work across the leading procurement technology landscape and guide clients through the full selection process with one priority: the right fit for your organization, not the most prominent vendor.
Platforms We Evaluate
• Coupa
• Jaggaer
• Ivalua
• Zip
• SAP Ariba
• Oracle Procurement Cloud
• Workday Strategic Sourcing
• and others based on your specific requirements
What We Bring to the Selection Process
• Requirements definition grounded in how your procurement team actually works — not vendor-shaped templates
• RFP development and structured scoring that surfaces real capability, not demo polish
• Facilitated vendor demonstrations with targeted questions vendors don’t typically prepare for
• Objective evaluation and final recommendation with documented rationale
• Commercial term and contract review to protect your implementation budget and timeline
• No vendor referral fees, no preferred outcomes — our only obligation is to your decision
How We Use AI to Deliver Better Work, Faster
We actively use AI-powered tools across our engagements, not as a novelty, but as a genuine accelerator. That means faster spend analysis, sharper research, and more polished deliverables without inflated timelines or cost.
Where our clients benefit from AI in practice:
• Spend data analysis and pattern recognition at a scale and speed that manual review cannot match
• Supplier and market research accelerated to hours instead of days
• Contract and document review for risk flags, commercial term gaps, and inconsistencies
• Deliverable development and executive communication drafted to a high standard from day one
• Scenario modeling and decision support that sharpens strategic recommendations
We apply AI with judgment, not automation. Every insight is reviewed, interpreted, and validated through our procurement expertise before it reaches a client.
Want to talk through your technology landscape?
Whether you’re evaluating a platform, trying to get more from the one you have, or exploring where AI fits in your work, we’re happy to start with a conversation.
Selected Procurement Transformation Experience
Our CEO has served as a trusted advisor to executive teams navigating procurement transformation.
Selected engagements are featured below.
Regional banking system
Context: No existing procurement function. Fully decentralized sourcing across business units.
Mandate: Create centralized procurement department and establish enterprise wide sourcing discipline.
Execution: Designed and implemented procurement operating model across all indirect categories. Developed policies, governance, and category strategies. Consolidated spend from business units into centralized function. Built and trained internal procurement team. Led enterprise wide stakeholder training and adoption.
Impact: Established fully functional procurement department from zero. Increased spend visibility and enterprise control. Improved supplier performance and contract quality. Enabled organization wide adoption of procurement practices.
Government banking system
Context: Decentralized IT purchasing across business units. Procurement lacked enforcement authority within IT spend.
Mandate: Strengthen procurement governance over IT sourcing activities. Align purchases to policies to meet regulatory and audit standards. Improve compliance, reduce risk exposure, and increase transparency.
Execution: Recommended IT procurement policies to align with regulatory expectations, audit requirements, and enterprise risk standards. Standardized end to end processes for IT purchasing, including intake, sourcing, contracting, and approvals.
Impact: Strengthened regulatory compliance posture and reduced audit and operational risk. Increased enterprise visibility into IT contracts, spend, and supplier commitments. Reduced procurement cycle times through standardized workflows and clearer decision pathways. Improved cross functional alignment, enabling consistent application of procurement policies and controls.
Global semiconductor manufacturer
Context: Enterprise restructuring and reshoring initiative with creation of a new standalone entity.
Mandate: Separate supplier ecosystem from parent company and rebuild procurement capability for a 10,000 employee organization.
Execution: Led full supplier separation and contract renegotiation. Ran RFPs for relocation and corporate credit card programs. Rebuilt HR category sourcing for a lean operating model. Established independent procurement structure.
Impact: Completed full carve out procurement transition in less than five months. Delivered approximately $4M in savings and more than $15M in cost avoidance. Transitioned critical services with no operational disruption. Improved supplier value, flexibility, and employee benefits.
Higher education institution
Context: Decentralized IT and telecommunications spend with high value contract at risk of auto renewal.
Mandate: Renegotiate enterprise telecommunications contract and centralize IT sourcing.
Execution: Led renegotiation of enterprise wide telecom agreement. Centralized IT and telecommunications under procurement. Implemented streamlined sourcing and contracting processes. Established stakeholder engagement and category strategy cadence.
Impact: Delivered more than $2M in savings with improved service levels. Prevented unfavorable contract renewal. Increased control and efficiency across IT procurement..
Private equity firm
Context: High volume of international travel with employees using personal credit cards and submitting reimbursements, resulting in limited visibility, weak controls, and inconsistent processes impacting cash flow and financial reporting.
Mandate: Implement Concur to centralize travel, expense, and invoice management. Standardize processes and align stakeholders across the organization. Improve visibility into spend and support finance transformation objectives.
Execution: Assessed current state travel and expense usage. Designed standardized processes for travel, expense, and related IT purchasing activities. Led implementation of Concur, including system configuration and rollout. Developed and executed training initiatives to drive adoption.
Impact: Centralized travel, expense, and invoice management. Improved visibility and control over enterprise spend. Reduced financial and compliance risk associated with decentralized expense activity. Increased efficiency and reduced cycle times for expense processing.
Global appliance controls manufacturer
Context: Spin off from a global supplier and former parent company, requiring full stand up of procurement without access to complete legacy data.
Mandate: Build centralized procurement function, recreate supplier base, and implement systems across global manufacturing operations.
Execution: Built procurement function across all indirect services categories. Reconstructed supplier and contract landscape without complete historical data. Led RFP, contract negotiation, and implementation of SAP Ariba. Designed and deployed MRO procurement program.
Impact: Established fully operational procurement function in new corporate entity. Enabled enterprise wide procurement visibility and control. Improved supplier structure and operational efficiency across global sites.
Global consumer insurance corporation
Context: Transition from incumbent advertising agency to new supplier with high risk of disruption.
Mandate: Manage statement of work closeout and protect enterprise value during supplier transition.
Execution: Stabilized resistant supplier relationship and drove collaboration. Renegotiated and closed out multiple statements of work. Established governance for supplier transition and knowledge transfer.
Impact: Delivered approximately $5M in value through contract renegotiation. Ensured continuity of services with minimal disruption. Reduced risk associated with supplier exit..
Hardware and consumer products company
Context: High volume IT spend managed directly within the IT function with limited procurement involvement, resulting in lack of visibility, inconsistent decision making, and weak financial controls.
Mandate: Centralize IT spend under procurement governance. Standardize procurement and expense processes across the organization. Improve financial visibility and alignment with finance leadership.
Execution: Assessed current state IT, travel, and expense processes to identify control gaps and inefficiencies. Designed standardized processes for IT purchasing, travel, and expense management. Created contract and spend visibility roadmap to support ongoing governance and oversight.
Impact: Centralized IT spend under procurement, increasing visibility and control. Improved financial governance and reduced compliance risk. Reduced cycle times for expense processing and approval workflows. Renegotiated contracts with critical suppliers, adding cost controls and data protection terms.
Global investment and banking corporation
Context: Acquisition of a competitor investment firm, requiring full procurement integration, supplier consolidation, and system alignment.
Mandate: Eliminate duplicate suppliers and contracts, capture cost synergies, and drive adoption of SAP Ariba across newly integrated teams.
Execution: Identified and consolidated overlapping suppliers across both organizations. Renegotiated critical sole source contracts in proprietary financial technology. Built onboarding and training structure for new team members.
Impact: Delivered approximately $40M in cost avoidance from a single supplier negotiation. Achieved $14M in savings across portfolio. Reduced supplier duplication and improved contract visibility. Accelerated SAP Ariba adoption and improved operational consistency.
Meet the CEO
Executive Profile
Suzanne Sellers is one of the few procurement advisors who specializes exclusively in the most difficult engagements, organizations where procurement is fragmented, uncontrolled, or has failed entirely.
With more than 20 years of experience in indirect services procurement and sourcing, she is engaged by executive teams and boards during periods of crisis, post-acquisition integration, and organizational decline, when the cost and risk exposure of a broken procurement function can no longer be deferred. Her mandate in these situations is consistent: diagnose rapidly, implement structure, and deliver measurable financial and operational results, faster than a traditional consulting approach allows.
Suzanne does not manage steady-state procurement. She rebuilds it. Her work converts unstructured, high-risk functions into disciplined, repeatable operating models that organizations can sustain independently, and that hold up under financial scrutiny. Her expertise spans procurement strategy, operating model design, cost transformation, and enterprise risk, with a track record of EBITDA-linked outcomes across complex, time-sensitive environments.
Suzanne founded Procurement Principal Consultants on a simple premise: that organizations in procurement distress deserve a senior advisor, not a project team.
Education
Suzanne holds three graduate degrees spanning business, public policy, and applied ethics — a combination that informs both the analytical rigor and the leadership judgment she brings to every engagement.
Master of Business Administration
DePaul University — Chicago, Illinois
Master of Public Policy
The University of Chicago — Chicago, Illinois
Master of Arts in Theological Studies
Trinity International University — Deerfield, Illinois
Professional Certifications
Institute for Supply Management (ISM)
Certified Professional in Supply Management (CPSM)
Held since 2011
Certified Professional in Supplier Diversity (CPSD)
Held since 2011
Certified CPSM Instructor
Credentialed since 2021
Suzanne is one of a limited number of ISM-authorized instructors certified to train and examine procurement professionals for CPSM certification.
Work with Suzanne
If your organization is facing a procurement challenge that demands more than a standard engagement, we’re happy to start with a conversation.
Contact Us
Suzanne Sellers, CEO and Principal Consultant, Procurement Principal Consultants
Phone: (312) 646-0476
Email: ssprincipalconsultant@gmail.com
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