SAP: How Procurement Can Shape Sustainable Workforce Agility

Global businesses faced renewed uncertainty in 2025, with shifting labour markets and mounting pressure on finance leaders to deliver both cost discipline and long-term value. Procurement teams, working closely with CFOs, were increasingly tasked with balancing agility and efficiency while also supporting responsible growth through a challenging period in December.

Etosha Thurman, Chief Marketing Officer for Finance and Spend Management at SAP, shares how leading organisations are using digital procurement and workforce management technologies to strengthen resilience, align spending with sustainability goals and maintain productivity through disruption.

She highlights the rising importance of total talent management, deeper collaboration between finance, HR and procurement and the innovations shaping adaptive and future-ready workforce strategies in 2026 and beyond.

How did procurement teams balance cost control with the need for agility in hiring contingent and seasonal workers during a volatile 2025 holiday season?

During the 2025 holiday season, which was marked by cautious hiring, tighter labour availability and uncertain demand signals, the most effective procurement teams found the balance between cost discipline and securing the right skills.

Leading organisations leaned into technology to gain real-time visibility into rates, supplier performance and workforce demand, allowing them to make faster, more informed decisions. 

By standardising processes and enforcing policy through digital platforms, teams maintained spend control while giving them the flexibility to scale or redeploy external talent as conditions evolved. This combination enabled procurement to respond with speed and confidence, even amid peak-season labour pressures.

What role did digital procurement and workforce management technologies play in enabling organisations to scale their external workforce efficiently?

Digital procurement and workforce management technologies were central to helping organisations flex their external workforce under seasonal pressures.

Our research with Economist Impact underscored the rise of holistic talent supply chain management – a model that brings HR, finance and procurement together to forecast talent needs, close skills gaps and treat the workforce as a dynamic ecosystem, not a static headcount. 

More organisations are embracing "total talent management" to integrate people, platforms and partners while aligning culture and communication across internal and external talent pools.

Contingent Workforce Management Systems serve as the central platform enabling this integration, breaking down silos and embedding digital tools for real-time visibility across the entire contingent workforce.

This is essential to managing a skills-based workforce that can adapt quickly to business needs – while ensuring external workers feel valued and connected to enterprise goals 

This visibility shortens hiring cycles, improves coordination with suppliers and reduces operational friction. Leaders can scale contingent labour with confidence while maintaining governance and compliance across regions and worker types.

Etosha, you highlight the importance of robust training and onboarding – how did leading organisations ensure consistent quality and productivity among short-term hires?

High-performing organisations recognise that productivity for temporary workers is often determined in the first days on the job.

These organisations standardised onboarding processes, delivered role-specific digital training and made expectations clear from day one, regardless of contract length. 

By embedding onboarding workflows directly into workforce management systems, organisations ensured consistency at scale.

Our customers have seen up to 75% reduction in on-boarding cycle time which has helped accelerate ramp-up time, reduce errors and support stronger, more reliable performance even as hiring volumes surged during peak periods.

How can embedding workforce planning into sourcing strategies help organisations prepare for future disruptions in labour availability?

Embedding workforce planning into sourcing strategies enables procurement teams to anticipate change rather than simply react to it. 

When labour forecasts are aligned with sourcing and supplier strategies, organisations can model various demand scenarios, identify emerging skills gaps early and diversify their talent sources proactively.

This forward-thinking approach strengthens organisational agility, reduces reliance on last-minute hiring and improves both cost control and risk management. Over time, it positions procurement as a strategic partner that plays a central role in building a resilient workforce capable of adapting to fluctuating demand cycles.

Looking ahead to 2026, what lessons from the 2025 holiday hiring season should procurement leaders carry forward to maintain resilience amid ongoing economic uncertainty?

Although 2025 was a slower holiday hiring year, it underscored the need for organisations to be more strategic, not complacent. As past seasons have shown, holiday demand remains inherently unpredictable and softer early signals do not eliminate the possibility of sudden shifts in consumer behavior or labour needs. 

Procurement leaders learned that resilience depends on preparedness and visibility, not forecasts alone.

Organisations that treat external talent as a strategic capability, rather than a transactional cost are best positioned to respond quickly to change and seize new opportunities.

Additionally, organisations must rethink how they engage talent, integrate technology and foster collaboration across procurement, HR and finance to unlock the full potential of their external workforce. 

As we move into 2026, investing in technology that connects procurement, finance and external workforce management will give organisations the intelligence and flexibility to scale rapidly, manage risk proactively and respond confidently, even when market signals conflict.