Tech buying is drifting to the business functions. Procurement governance has not moved with it

Forbes Research reports that 59% of enterprise technology acquisitions are currently led by IT and 41% by business functions, and that respondents expect business functions to lead 53% of purchases within three years ^[1][2]. That is a 12 percentage point swing in who signs ^[2], landing on approval, renewal and integration processes that were designed around a single IT-led gate.

The script those processes serve is well known: identify a requirement, issue an RFP, evaluate vendors, negotiate a multiyear contract, deploy and move on ^[3]. Forbes argues that model is colliding with reality, because technology now changes faster than most procurement cycles, AI can alter the economics of a software category within months, cloud consumption turns a supposedly fixed expense into a variable one, and employees can find, test and adopt tools before IT knows they exist ^[4]. Note the direction of the pressure. Every one of those four forces weakens the control point, not the tooling.

If the expectation holds, IT's share of purchase leadership falls to 47% ^[3] from a position where it already leads by 18 points ^[1]. The interesting question is not whether marketing or finance can pick good software. It is who then owns the renewal calendar, the data-sharing terms and the overlap between two tools bought nine months apart by two departments that do not share a budget.

The evidence that this is already expensive is in the same article. Forbes cites a survey of CIOs finding that average employees use only about 40% of the features in the software applications they use at work ^[5], which means roughly 60% of the contracted feature surface is paid for and idle ^[4]. Forbes attributes the pattern partly to SaaS vendors expanding feature checklists to impress buyers, and says savvy buyers are shifting to measurable productivity, cost or KPI improvement as the test instead ^[6][7].

Integration is where fragmented buying gets structurally costly. Forbes cites a Gartner study finding that mature data and analytics capabilities led to up to 65% greater business outcomes, including revenue growth and cost optimization ^[8], and warns that inaccurate data is damaging for AI while disconnected systems reduce the effectiveness of the whole stack ^[9]. Rob Smith, founder and CEO of Lionfish Tech Advisors, says SaaS procurement and management platforms have over the last two years increased the number and variety of systems they integrate with, from messaging tools to project management suites and ERPs, which speeds intake-to-procure approvals and improves collaboration across the workflow ^[10]. That is vendors building the governance layer that buyers have not staffed.

Forbes also describes high-growth companies as more likely to buy incrementally, partner with startups, and involve senior executives early before delegating the final decision to the people closest to the work ^[11]. This is a described association, not a demonstrated cause, and the sample behind the Forbes Research figures is not given in the article.

Three things to watch. Whether the 53% figure is treated as a forecast or a plan, since it is respondents' expectation rather than observed behaviour ^[2]. Whether integration and data quality requirements get written into business-led purchases, given the outcome gap Gartner attributes to data maturity ^[8]. And whether the intake-to-procure workflow is owned internally or effectively outsourced to the procurement platforms that Smith says are extending their reach ^[10].