864: Benchmarking Procurement: Lessons from $1.4 Trillion in Spend W/ Sammeli Sammalkorpi

"Don't speak about category savings because that's procurement lingo. We need to speak about gross margin expansion at the end-product level." - Sammeli Sammalkorpi, Co-Founder and CEO, Sievo Spend analytics has moved well beyond spreadsheets, but most organizations are still guessing about what 'good' performance looks like.  When Sievo analyzed $1.4 trillion of procurement spend, the findings were both confirming and, in some places, eye-opening. With the business landscape changing rapidly, adaptation backed by data is more important than ever. In this Art of Procurement podcast episode, Philip Ideson and Kelly Barner are joined by Sammeli Sammalkorpi, Co-Founder and CEO of Sievo. Sammeli details Sievo's approach to benchmarking, the surprising patterns in the data, and where CPOs may be missing untapped value. He also shares practical ways to reframe procurement's business impact, anchoring spend to revenue, and challenging old assumptions about control. The conversation covers fresh ways to benchmark your team's performance, build actionable industry comparisons, and rethink what matters in spend analytics. In this episode, Sammeli discusses: Why even the most mature organizations still miss large opportunities How to identify the hidden business impact of spend spikes and payment terms The importance of comparing industry benchmarks to spot real, actionable gaps Rethinking "control" in procurement: Is a PO always required? How clean data unlocks speed and better decisions Links: Sammeli Sammalkorpi on LinkedIn State of Spend Report 2025 Subscribe to the AOP Newsletter Subscribe to Art of Procurement on YouTube