The State of Procurement & Third Party Risk: From Market Trends to Real World Program Success

The Hackett Group’s 2026 Procurement Agenda reveals a landscape where cybersecurity threats, geopolitical volatility, and AI driven disruption have intensified pressures on procurement and third party risk teams. Workload is projected to increase by 8%, while staffing and budgets decline, widening capability and productivity gaps that demand modernization through AI, analytics, and operating model redesign. The research highlights AI enabled technology as the #1 transformational trend (80% importance), alongside priorities such as supply continuity, cost reduction, improved agility, and enhanced third party risk visibility.

In this webinar, Hackett Procurement experts Kate Denissova and Bertrand Maltaverne will unpack these high-level trends before turning to a real-world example from Trustmark’s Executive Director Enterprise Vendor Management, Jeffrey Johnson, who will share how the organization responds to these pressures by operationalizing strategy and technology. Attendees will see how Trustmark is building a best-in-class Third-Party Risk Management program on the ProcessUnity platform, strengthening supplier visibility, accelerating workflows, and aligning Procurement, IT, and TPRM to meet evolving enterprise demands.

Attendees Will Learn:

• The most transformational procurement trends: AI enabled technology, digital procurement, and operating model evolution.
• High-priority objectives to focus on for program success in 2026 (supply continuity, cost reduction, agility, analytics, TPRM visibility).
  
• Where organizations are investing most: data analytics, AI, SRM, category management, and TPRM.
• How Trustmark’s TPRM program is operationalizing these trends using ProcessUnity to modernize and scale vendor risk and procurement operations.