By Kate Jeter, Head of Global Field Marketing
Every four years, the world stops to watch athletes launch themselves off impossibly icy ramps, race down mountains at unbelievable speeds, and land jumps that defy physics. The Winter Olympics are a masterclass in precision, preparation, and performance under pressure.
If you work in procurement, this might sound strangely familiar.
Modern procurement is no longer about pushing forms through a process, or policing policy from the sidelines; it’s about orchestrating complex workflows, aligning stakeholders across the business, and balancing speed, risk, and experience, in real time.
In other words: it’s closer to an Olympic sport than a back-office function.
What happens when we look at procurement through a Winter Olympics lens? A lot, actually.
Figure skaters attempting a quad axel aren’t just doing “a slightly harder jump.” They are taking on a move that is exponentially more complex and unforgiving than a single, double, or even triple rotation. One mistimed takeoff, one wobble in the air, and the entire performance can fall apart.
Procurement orchestration sits in that same realm of complexity.
Traditional procurement systems were built for linear, predictable processes: repeat, approve, source, contract, pay. In reality, that is not how today’s enterprise organizations operate, where a single request might require the input of finance, legal, security, data privacy, IT, and the business sponsor, all in different systems, with different rules and expectations.
That’s a quad axel.
Orchestration brings those rotations together into a single, highly coordinated motion: routing routine requests dynamically based on risk, value, and category; connecting to the systems that matter; keeping stakeholders aligned without drowning them in emails and notifications. The complexity doesn’t disappear, but becomes manageable, repeatable, and beautiful to watch.
Luge might be the perfect metaphor for the world procurement operates in today. Tracks are fixed, but conditions are constantly changing. Athletes can’t see every twist and turn at once, and are reacting in milliseconds to a course that only reveals itself as they race through it.
Procurement teams are navigating a similar ride: supply chain disruptions, vendor instability, regulatory change, shifting budgets, and evolving business priorities. Leaders know the broad shape of the track, but not the exact conditions that will be faced tomorrow.
Orchestration gives you the visibility and responsiveness needed to stay on the sled.
With the right data and connected workflows, teams can see where requests are stuck, which suppliers are at risk, where spend is drifting off course, and where controls are too heavy or too light. Executives can move from reacting to individual bumps to reading the whole run and adjusting proactively.
Uncertainty doesn’t go away; but procurement is no longer riding blind.
There’s a moment at the top of the ski jump where athletes have done everything they can. The training, coaching, equipment, mental preparation; all of it comes down to a split second where they must commit to leaving solid ground.
Digital procurement leaders know this feeling well.
Moving from fragmented, manual processes into a fully orchestrated model is not a tiny optimization, but a strategic leap. It requires trusting automation to route work that previously sat in an inbox. It means allowing AI and rules to make decisions that previously required multiple approvals. It means integrating systems that have been comfortably siloed for years.
There is risk in this. But there is also risk in standing still.
Organizations that are landing cleanly on the hill are the ones whose leaders are willing to commit to change. They don’t jump blindly, but prepare the strategy, get the right partners, align stakeholders, and then take the leap. The alternative is watching others sail past them with speed and grace.
Few sports have transformed the Winter Olympics as much as snowboarding has. Bringing new audiences and styles, and a new expectation of what “performance” can look like. It didn’t just add new events; it reshaped the culture of the Games.
That’s the opportunity for procurement right now.
For years, procurement has carried a reputation as the gatekeeper: necessary, important, but often seen as slow, rigid, and difficult to work with. Orchestration offers a chance to rewrite that story.
When workflows are intuitive, when stakeholders can self-serve within smart guardrails, when approvals feel logical rather than mysterious, people’s perceptions begin to shift. Procurement stops being the team that says “no,” and becomes the team that makes good decisions simple.
In other words, procurement stops becoming the rulebook and becomes the halfpipe.
On the surface, the Winter Olympics can look like a collection of individual events, but every medal is the product of a system: coaches, sports scientists, data analysts, equipment designers, and a support network that makes peak performance achievable.
Procurement is the same. It’s never just the sourcing team. It’s finance, legal, IT, security, business leaders, and suppliers themselves.
Procurement orchestration is how you get that entire ecosystem working in sync. It’s the connective tissue that enables people and technology to operate as a high-performance team instead of a series of disconnected efforts.
As the world watches athletes chase gold on snow and ice, it’s worth asking: what would it look like for procurement functions to operate at that level? Not just once, but every quarter, every year?
The answer won’t come from doing the same jumps that have always been done. It will come from attempting your own ‘quad axel,’ designing your downhill course, and having the courage to take the ski jump when the time is right.
When you do, procurement stops becoming a back-office function and instead becomes a podium-worthy competitive advantage.
Let’s go for Gold!