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The Weekly Pull #008: Procurement Hot Takes of The Week

Why procurement clings to control, leverage, and hero stories that don’t exist — and what happens when the illusions crack.

Author

Ana Zvijinschi
August 25, 2025

Howdy nerds,

When I started Procure Nerds, I had a plan. I would steadily grow this nerdy community.

With consistency and willpower, engagement will come, because surely people care about gettin better.

I imagined a nice, predictable line trending up, giving me the freedom to talk about the most interesting corners of procurement.

Well, reality laughed. Even the best thought-out plan doesn’t translate into reality.

I checked multiple dellusional boxes:

  • The illusion of control - that if I worked hard enough, I would control the outcome.

  • The illusion of always finding a solution - that every obstacle has leverage if you just push harder.

  • The illusion of always beging able to help - that procurement wisdom alone would drive traction.

Truth is, same illusions that run through procurement creep into how we build, write and show up.

We retell our stories as victories, but the real lessons are in the failures, the experiements that flopped, the projects that burned out before we even touched them.

In hindsight, it’s easy to re-engineer the narrative. Call it resilience if you want. I call them illusions. Hard lessons dressed up as wins.

But procurement isn’t about maintaining these illusions. Neither is about building my nerdy community. It’s about naming them, surviving them, learning from them.

And still moving forward.

As you’ve probably guessed by now, this week’s theme is the power of illusion in procurement.

Let’s dive in.

What I’ve Been Nerding Out On

  1. F1 and the Illusion of Savings

    Once, I was told to “negotiate harder” on a Formula 1 sponsorship.

    Hotels, catering, transport — the usual suspects. Except every rate was locked into the sponsorship deal.

    There was no next door, no wiggle room. Not all spend is negotiable, and pretending it is just sets procurement up to fail.

    👉 Check out my full post on this for the breakdown.

  2. Monopolies and the Illusion of Leverage
    I’ve written plenty about “finding leverage” with monopoly suppliers.

    But looking back, I fell into the same trap — believing there’s always something you can do.

    Sometimes there isn’t. Sometimes it’s just damage control: show the true cost, push for crumbs like non-price concessions, and survive.

    If you don’t try, the answer is always no.

    But let’s not kid ourselves: the squeeze is real, and often you’re just keeping the bleeding down.

    👉 Check out my recent trap post on this.

  3. Firefighting and the Illusion of Control

    Then there are the projects that land in your lap late, contractless, already burning. You pull every lever and still get blamed for the delay.

    We love to say “procurement adds value” and “stakeholders should partner with us.” The truth? They already have the technical knowledge. Some even learned tricks from us. T

    The bigger problem is too many procurement folks don’t step up — and that’s why the function keeps disappointing. Illusion of control? It’s not just about the projects. It’s about us.

For once, let’s keep it real — at least with ourselves.

This is a damn hard job. Interesting, yes. But we have more failures than victories, and we rewrite history to make the balance look better than it is.

Maybe it’s time we start celebrating the failures too. Because that’s where the real lessons sit.

That’s how we raise the bar. That’s how we evolve.

This week’s signals aren’t about flashy savings claims or “procurement hero” stories.

They’re about the false sense of control, leverage, and transparency that collapse under pressure.

Signals This Week - What just Happened (Illusion edition):

#1 – NATO’s Corruption Sting — The Illusion of Transparency

A massive bribery probe erupted involving NATO procurement staff in Luxembourg. Officials are accused of leaking bidding info to defense contractors in exchange for kickbacks. Raids spanned Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, and the U.S.

Lesson:

Defense contracts can’t survive on “trust.”

If you don’t have full audit trails and trace-every-step systems, you don’t have transparency — you have an illusion of it.

#2 – Australian Navy’s Ignored Warnings — The Illusion of Governance

The Australian Defence Department ignored bribery red flags in a $700M Navy contract. Whistleblowers were sidelined, ships were delayed and defective, and a procurement official conveniently landed a vendor job mid-process.

Lesson:

Governance only works if it bites. Ignoring whistleblowers and conflicts of interest turns “oversight” into window dressing.

The illusion of governance is worse than no governance at all.

#3 – Ukraine’s Vanishing Arms Deals — The Illusion of Control in Crisis

Source: FT

Ukraine prepaid $770M for weapons via brokers; much never arrived, some were faulty, and one middleman pocketed €17M for nothing. Years later, legal battles drag on.

Lesson:

In crises, shortcuts feel like control — but they breed chaos.

If you don’t lock delivery proof and payment gates, you’re not managing suppliers, you’re gambling on them.

The Bottom Line:

What It Means to You

Procurement isn’t failing because we’re lazy or clueless.

It’s failing because we cling to illusions: that controls always work, that governance always protects, that shortcuts will save time.

For once, let’s keep it real: this job is brutal, we lose more than we win, and the biggest illusion is pretending otherwise.

Stay nerdy.

P.S.: There’s no Weekly Special coming this Thursday - I’ll be sipping Margaritas from the beach thinking about next week’s edition.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT…

State of Procurement 2025 - Mid-Year Review

Personal take on what’s shaping Procurement in 2025

My weekly procurement lessons

This week - the never ending blame game and how i FAILED one of my projects

Until next time,

Zvi