Africa’s startup ecosystem has successfully scaled ventures in digital payments, lending, and logistics, drawing substantial global attention and billions in venture capital. Yet one vital area, procurement, is not just the technology behind it, but the intelligence needed to drive strategic decision-making. Because of this blind spot, firms are inadvertently limiting their next level of enterprise growth.
Spreadsheets, price lists, and vendors based on alphanumeric order characterise how most mid-level African firms source important items. The further one goes into energy, construction, or manufacturing, the more apparent this is.
Procurement, the one area that is critical to fostering the growth of an enterprise, is something largely unaddressed. This is also true, and we have built fintech, advanced logistics, and even integrated lending.
A system stuck in the past
Typically, emerging markets tell a single story: procurement divisions lag dangerously behind the pace of risk, the complexity of the global supply chain, and the rising international standards. What do all these lead to?
- Businesses are responding too late after third-quarter damages have been done due to spikes in diesel prices.
- Unsightly scandal eruptions as ESG-defying Tier-2 suppliers blithely misuse ESG policies without anyone noticing.
- Lack of visibility on alternatives when sourcing input from multiple countries suddenly makes their inputs inaccessible.
All these examples paint far more than ‘mild operational efficiency’. This reveals a firm’s edge in escaping competitors’ clutches.
Price, risk, and ESG: The strategic procurement trinity
By 2025, we expect procurement to have earned the right to be referred to as a ‘strategic nerve centre’ for organisations globally instead of a cost centre. However, much of Africa continues to view procurement, simply, as ‘admin work.’ These are the problems procurement teams in Africa today need to solve.
- Pricing is volatile for both local and global supply nodes.
- Supply chain ESG violations.
- Climate disruption, geopolitical risks, and regulatory shocks.
Accomplishing this doesn’t simply require ERP systems; it requires having machine learning, real-time data, and tier-level visibility.
Why intelligence > Digitisation
The digitisation of processes allows for tracking purchase orders, while intelligence enables forecasting potential disruptions. Digitisation also keeps track of price fluctuations, and intelligence brings attention to patterns in advance, along with modeling the risk.
During the 2022 energy crisis, many Nigerian businesses, particularly in manufacturing and logistics, were caught off guard by a sudden diesel price spike that pushed costs above ₦800 per liter in some regions.
The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), for instance, warned that SMEs were either shutting down or cutting production due to the high cost of diesel. These firms relied heavily on diesel for operations but had no procurement forecasting systems or market intelligence tools to anticipate the price shocks. Procurement teams, using only historic price lists and static vendor relationships, could neither respond quickly nor switch to alternatives like hybrid energy or volume-based contracting. The result? Massive operational disruption, increased costs, and layoffs.
Had these firms deployed AI-powered procurement intelligence platforms, they could have spotted early market signals hinting at the diesel surge, modeled risk scenarios to estimate exposure and plan options, and engaged backup suppliers or renegotiated key contracts. This crisis showed that the problem wasn’t access to procurement platforms; it was a lack of predictive, strategic insight in procurement.
I believe that Africa, in its next leap in supply chain sophistication, will not come from enhancing automation. It will stem from an AI-powered insight that gives reversal authority to procurement executives so they can act before a crisis occurs rather than during the crisis.
What we’re missing
New data-centric, bold, and value-driven procurement leaders are emerging in Africa, but they find themselves with inadequate machinery that was not designed for their realities. Standardised frameworks and global software targeting Fortune 500s do little to address the local context of emerging markets.
This reality calls for the creation of sub-Saharan platforms that synthesise insights from disconnected supplier levels, uncover ESG threats ahead of public awareness, and anticipate commodity price surges and provide rationale for them. It isn’t only about prospecting for lower-cost suppliers; it is now about prospecting with intelligence.
From pain to platform
For about a decade, procurement has been my reality. The gaps that I have witnessed firsthand range from diesel volatility, price volatility, supplier failures, and regulatory exposure. What I’ve also witnessed is the impact that data paired with domain expertise and machine learning has had. Being in reactive mode doesn’t have to be the norm. We can create the future, and it all begins with intelligence.
It’s time to stop digitising broken processes and start empowering procurement leaders with the foresight to act before disruption hits. The tools exist. The question is: who will lead Africa’s procurement intelligence revolution?
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Ikechukwu Torti is a doctoral researcher in procurement and supply chain strategy, with about a decade of experience across Africa’s industrial and digital sectors. He explores how AI, ESG, and risk intelligence can reshape global sourcing and resilience.
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