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The Modern Operating Model: Building a Lean, High-Value Procurement Team
Philip Ideson : June 7, 2026
“Don’t overvalue the top procurement spot, and don’t undervalue the tools and the budget required. It’s an ecosystem.” - Stephen Rauf, Global Head of Indirect Procurement, Zoetis
Most procurement leaders face the same challenge: expectations continue to rise while resources remain constrained. The mandate is to deliver more value, move faster, support growth, manage risk, enable transformation, and somehow do it all without significantly increasing headcount.
What I appreciate about this conversation with Stephen Rauf, Global Head of Indirect Procurement at Zoetis, is that he approached this challenge with a level of pragmatism that many procurement leaders will recognize. Rather than viewing transformation as a technology initiative or an organizational redesign exercise, Stephen sees it as the deliberate alignment of people, process, technology, and stakeholder relationships.
Over the past two years, Stephen has led the evolution of a lean global procurement organization responsible for approximately $2 billion in indirect spend. Along the way, he has developed a thoughtful perspective on operating models, AI adoption, stakeholder engagement, and how procurement can create value far beyond savings.
Lean Teams Require Different Thinking
"We manage that [$2 billion in spend] across a team of 15 procurement professionals globally. So I would suggest by any benchmark that we are lean and leveraged. We really have to focus our internal talent on the highest-value work."
Many procurement organizations continue to measure maturity by the size of the team or the amount of spend under management. Stephen challenges that assumption.
Managing roughly $2 billion in spend with a team of 15 requires an entirely different mindset. Every activity has to earn its place. Every resource decision matters. The result is a much sharper focus on demand shaping, stakeholder advisory work, complex negotiations, and the activities where procurement can create the greatest impact.
Stephen doesn't view lean staffing as a limitation. He views it as a forcing mechanism that drives clarity about where procurement should invest their time and attention.
Build vs. Buy Is a Leadership Discipline
"We tend to use a decision matrix where we look at value, criticality of a category, frequency, risk, speed to impact, to help us influence where to build or partner. My goal is to continue to build capabilities at a pace, not necessarily build an empire."
This reflects a reality many procurement leaders face today: the pressure to build internal expertise across every category and capability. In practice, that is rarely feasible. Nor is it necessarily desirable.
Stephen's approach suggests that strategic and recurring needs justify investment in internal capability. Specialized, episodic, or emerging requirements may be better addressed through external partners.
Stakeholder Ownership Changes Everything
"When we make a hire, it is our hire, not my hire."
One of the recurring themes throughout our conversation was the importance of involving stakeholders in decisions that affect them. Rather than designing procurement's future in isolation, Stephen actively brings business leaders into the process, and that includes talent decisions.
I have often found that procurement teams struggle to gain influence because they wait until after decisions have been made to seek stakeholder buy-in. Stephen flips that dynamic completely.
When stakeholders help shape the outcome, like in hiring, they naturally become invested in its success. That principle applies just as much to hiring, transformation initiatives, and technology adoption as it does to sourcing projects.
Procurement's Role Is Expanding Beyond Spend
"You have to sort of reframe the business case from bringing in experts to manage spend, to orchestrating demand, to accelerating decisions, to managing risk at scale."
For years, procurement's value proposition was largely tied to spend management and savings delivery. Those responsibilities remain important, but they don’t tell the full story.
Stephen's focus on demand orchestration, decision acceleration, and risk management reflects a broader evolution taking place across the profession. Procurement is increasingly becoming a connector across functions, helping organizations navigate complexity, allocate resources effectively, and make better decisions.
That evolution requires new skills, new operating models, and new ways of measuring success. It also creates an opportunity for procurement leaders to redefine how their organizations contribute to enterprise performance.
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