“Your contracts are your source of truth. You should have a tool that can go through the contracts and help you understand the impact and make an assessment, all in one place.”
- Toby Laforest, Senior Director PMM - Market Insights and Solutions at Ironclad
Procurement leaders today face a difficult balance. They’re being asked to deliver more value with fewer resources while responding to regulatory change, market volatility, and the business’s growing demand for partnership.
The question is no longer whether to digitize. It is how to design systems, processes, and relationships that are both scalable and flexible enough to keep pace with constant change.
In this episode, I had the chance to explore that balance with Clare Cassano, Head of Procurement Strategy & Execution at Invesco, and Toby Laforest, Senior Director of Market Insights and Solutions at Ironclad.
Their perspectives on transformation, orchestration, and AI reflect a modern vision of procurement, one that’s accessible, intelligent, and deeply connected to the business.
Here are some of the most insightful moments from our discussion and what stood out to me as I reflected on them.
A Seat at the Table Means Proactive Partnership
“We had some really highly skilled people in the team, but I just don’t think we were leveraging that skill in the best possible way. We were a very reactive rather than proactive team... So we knew we had to change our operating model.” – Clare
What resonates with me here is Clare’s clarity of purpose. Many procurement teams I meet are full of capable people who’ve been conditioned to react rather than lead. Shifting from a service mentality to true business partnership requires not just tools, but a mandate. They need ‘permission’ to engage early, ask strategic questions, and help shape outcomes. Technology alone doesn’t create that; it starts with empowerment.
Contracts as a Strategic Asset
“The contracts that your company has can be a guiding light to say, okay, what is the impact of this change here?... Your contracts are your source of truth.” – Toby
This idea from Toby really captures how digital procurement has evolved. Contracts are no longer just documents; they are data sets that reveal the organization’s actual position in real time. When external conditions shift, having searchable, structured visibility into contracts lets procurement lead rather than scramble. It turns what was once a static archive into a live decision-making tool.
Turning Data into Agility
“I can save an AI prompt... and run that prompt for every single document that I have in my repository. Instead of sending someone to read or extract data, AI will go out and in a very structured way answer that question on every single contract.” – Toby
This is one of the most powerful demonstrations of how AI is already transforming procurement. Toby’s point isn’t for procurement to adopt automation for its own sake; he’s emphasizing speed to insight. The ability to query thousands of contracts instantly, in context, redefines how procurement can respond to disruption. It’s proactive risk management powered by data, not paperwork.
Integration and Orchestration
“There’s a false premise that when you do an end-to-end suite, all of those modules within that suite are also fully connected... Agility and the freedom to make changes when your process needs them have to be a priority.” – Toby
I think this observation will ring true for many. The assumption that big suites guarantee integration has let too many organizations down. Toby’s perspective reframes digital maturity not as a one-time system implementation, but as an ongoing ability to adapt and choose tools that talk to each other, evolve with the business, and don’t lock procurement into rigid processes.
The Invisible User Experience
“In the future, 90% of Ironclad users may never know that they’ve logged into Ironclad. We’re very okay with a bunch of people not knowing that their contract is powered by Ironclad, as long as it gets the job done.” – Toby
This line from Toby perfectly describes what a modern digital experience should feel like. Procurement technology succeeds when it fades into the background and when users simply get what they need without friction. True accessibility means simplifying complexity, not exposing it, and the orchestration layer is what makes that possible.
Looking Forward: The Agentic AI Horizon
“There’s so much noise to cut through to actually find that set of agents and then find which are the useful ones... I’m really interested in the practical application of those agents and how they work together across multiple solutions.” – Clare
The rise of agentic AI promises automation that is more contextual and connected than anything we have had before, but success will depend on clarity of purpose. The goal isn’t to add more tools; it is to orchestrate intelligent collaboration between them.
Procurement’s digital future won’t be defined by a single platform or tool, but by how we connect people, processes, and intelligence to enable better decisions. Conversations like this remind me that technology is the “how,” not the “why.” The real transformation happens when procurement leads with partnership, powered – but not overshadowed – by digital capability.
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