IT Procurement Best Practices 2026: A CFO’s Guide to Smarter Tech Investments

Modern IT procurement has become a strategic discipline for CFOs who need clearer visibility into software portfolios, tighter control over SaaS growth, and a smarter approach to long-term technology investments. According to Zylo’s 2025 SaaS Management Index, average SaaS spending rose 9.3% YoY, even though portfolios grew only 2.2%—a gap that underscores how quickly costs are outpacing tool growth. 

As budgets come under pressure heading into 2026, you need procurement practices that reduce waste, improve compliance, and ensure every dollar spent on technology delivers measurable value.

What Is IT Procurement?

IT procurement covers the full SaaS lifecycle of sourcing, evaluating, purchasing, and managing the technology your organization depends on. It has become far more complex in the SaaS era, especially as average SaaS portfolios now include 275 applications—a scale that makes visibility, governance, and cost control significantly harder without a structured procurement function. 

Importance of IT Procurement

Business need strong IT procurement practices to:

• Ensure visibility into software purchases and spending
• Support long-term financial planning
• Drive favorable renewal outcomes for the business

Visibility into what software is being purchased and how it’s used helps procurement understand whether a tool delivers enough value to justify its cost. It’s becoming more important as SaaS spending grows. In 2024 alone, organizations spent an average of $49M per company. The cost per employee also rose 21.9% to an average of $4,830. 

In addition, long-term financial planning becomes more effective with procurement’s involvement. Reliable data around renewals, usage, and total cost of ownership improves forecasting accuracy. Budgets are monitored more closely and unnecessary costs are more likely to be avoided.

The renewal is a pivotal moment for driving cost savings. With IT procurement, you can proactively manage each renewal, focused on those that have the highest savings potential. 

The Evolution of IT Procurement in the SaaS Era

Zylo data shows that the average organization has 247 renewals annually. With that scale, IT procurement has shifted from an occasional purchasing activity into a continuous operational discipline. 

Companies now manage constant renewals, decentralized buying, and widespread shadow IT. Procurement has also expanded beyond evaluating just one-time purchases. Teams are also assessing subscription models, consumption pricing, integration requirements, and ongoing vendor risk. 

To keep up, procurement teams must work closely with IT, finance, security and business stakeholders. This continuous cycle requires higher data transparency, better tooling, and cross-functional collaboration to keep spend aligned with business objectives.

How AI Is Transforming IT Procurement

The 2025 SaaS Management Index shows that average spending on AI-native apps grew 75.2%, highlighting the criticality of AI for everyday work. AI is reshaping procurement by helping organizations:

• Streamline core IT procurement processes
• Improve vendor evaluation and due diligence
• Strengthen forecasting, budgeting, and risk management

As SaaS portfolios expand and pricing grows more complex, AI helps teams keep up with scale and make data-backed decisions.

How AI Streamlines the IT Procurement Process

AI improves speed and accuracy in IT procurement by automating time-consuming tasks and enhancing decision-making with real-time data. It helps teams move faster while maintaining oversight by:

• Auto-populating intake forms using past purchase data
• Flagging missing documentation or incomplete requests
• Routing approvals based on predefined rules and thresholds
• Identifying opportunities to reuse existing licenses or tools

By reducing manual work and surfacing key insights earlier, AI enables IT, procurement, and finance teams to make more informed, consistent decisions—without slowing down the buying process.

Using AI To Improve SaaS Vendor Evaluation and Selection

AI simplifies vendor evaluation in fast-changing SaaS environments. It quickly reviews vendor documents, security questionnaires, and performance data to flag risks and gaps, such as:

• Missing or inconsistent security responses
• Unclear pricing tiers or contract terms
• Historical performance issues or SLA gaps

AI also compares similar tools by cost, adoption, and alignment to your standards. When combined with data from your current stack, AI reveals where a requested tool overlaps or adds unique value—leading to faster, smarter procurement decisions.

Leveraging AI for Forecasting, Budgeting, and Risk Management

Zylo data shows 66.5% of IT leaders experienced unexpected SaaS charges, often tied to usage- or AI-based pricing models. AI helps surface patterns and risks such as:

• Where spending is accelerating beyond expected levels
• Which vendors present concentration or contractual risk
• Which applications are strong candidates for consolidation, downgrade, or renegotiation

AI models are well-suited to analyzing historical spend, usage trends, and renewal patterns so you can forecast SaaS costs with greater accuracy. This matters, because unused licenses alone now represent $21M in estimated annual waste for the average enterprise. Organizations have a significant optimization opportunity when forecasting is proactive and data driven.

For CFOs, this leads to stronger alignment between procurement and financial planning. As a result, they can:

• Gain earlier visibility into budget risks
• Set more realistic spend caps for specific tool categories
• Model the financial impact of contract changes

Instead of reacting at the last minute during renewal cycles, you can make proactive, data-backed decisions that support long-term cost control.

18 IT Procurement Best Practices for 2026

IT procurement best practices are shifting toward continuous oversight, shared visibility across teams, and tighter control over SaaS growth. As you plan for 2026, you need processes that reduce waste, improve compliance, and support long-term technology strategy. These areas represent the core practices shaping modern procurement:

1. Aligning procurement with business and IT strategy
2. Developing a clear IT procurement policy
3. Involving stakeholders early
4. Defining technical requirements
5. Evaluating total cost of ownership
6. Vetting and prequalifying vendors
7. Prioritizing security and compliance
8. Standardizing procurement documentation
9. Promoting vendor transparency
10. Leveraging automation technologies
11. Integrating SaaS management tools into workflows
12. Conducting structured risk assessments
13. Negotiating contracts strategically
14. Monitoring vendor performance
15. Maintaining accurate asset and license records
16. Collaborating with Finance and IT for spend optimization
17. Continuously reviewing and improving procurement processes
18. Establish clear renewal governance

#1 Align Procurement with Business and IT Strategy

Anchor procurement decisions to your organization’s long-term goals. With SaaS accounting for over 60% of total software spend, treat every purchase as a strategic investment—not just a transaction.

To drive impact:

• Prioritize purchases that fuel growth or improve efficiency
• Eliminate overlap by mapping tools across departments
• Enforce architectural standards before approving new apps

Use strategic alignment to reduce tool sprawl, streamline decisions, and create consistency—even in decentralized environments. Stay connected to business and IT priorities to build a governed, cost-effective SaaS portfolio that strengthens productivity, reduces risk, and protects your budget.

#2 Develop a Clear IT Procurement Policy

Establish a written procurement policy to guide how teams request, review, and approve software. Define clear requirements for:

• Security and compliance checks
• Budget thresholds
• Renewal timelines
• Vendor standards

Set these expectations upfront to enforce governance, avoid overspend, and ensure consistent purchasing decisions.

Assign clear roles to streamline workflows. Specify who approves technical fit, negotiates contracts, and monitors usage. Clarify ownership to reduce confusion and enable a repeatable, efficient purchase process every time.

#3 Involve Stakeholders Early in the Process

With business units now driving 70% of SaaS spend, involve them early to maintain strategic control. Engage business leaders, IT, and security teams at the start of the procurement process.

Doing so eliminates last-minute blockers, accelerates approvals, and ensures every request meets technical, integration, and governance requirements.

Prioritize early collaboration to:

• Capture complete business and support needs
• Align solutions to architecture and compliance standards
• Build cross-functional buy-in from day one

When stakeholders help evaluate and select the right solution, they’re more likely to champion its success post-implementation.

#4 Define Technical Requirements Clearly

Set your procurement process up for success by clearly outlining requirements from the start. Strong inputs lead to well-matched solutions, smoother evaluations, and more predictable outcomes.

To guide accurate vendor comparisons and pricing transparency, define:

• Functional objectives
• Integration and data flow needs
• Performance benchmarks
• Security and compliance standards

Procurement consistently achieves stronger outcomes when requirements are specific. This clarity helps identify the right-fit solutions, align stakeholders, and streamline selection—all while ensuring pricing aligns with actual usage. Clear requirements reduce ambiguity and give you greater control throughout the procurement lifecycle.

#5 Evaluate the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)

Upfront pricing rarely reflects what SaaS tools cost over time. Your TCO analysis should account for elements such as:

• Subscription fees across tiers
• Implementation and onboarding
• Integration and support
• User adoption and training
• Renewal increases and overage charges

A full TCO perspective helps you prevent budget surprises and compare vendors on long-term value rather than sticker price.

#6 Vet and Prequalify Vendors

Establish a consistent vendor evaluation process to improve decision quality and accelerate selection. Use prequalification to validate key criteria, including:

• Financial stability
• Security and compliance practices
• Product roadmap transparency
• Customer support quality

Maintain a prequalified vendor list to enable teams to move quickly with trusted options. This approach streamlines reviews, supports smarter purchases, and encourages the use of approved tools—strengthening governance and reducing process delays.

#7 Prioritize Security and Compliance

Strengthen your SaaS strategy by integrating security reviews throughout the procurement process. Prioritize tools that meet enterprise standards by verifying:

• Data handling and storage practices
• Compliance with frameworks such as SOC 2 or ISO 27001
• Identity and access management capabilities
• Vendor incident response processes

Conducting a consistent security review ensures each tool aligns with your organization’s standards and regulatory requirements—well before contracts are signed. This approach builds trust, reduces risk, and reinforces a secure, scalable SaaS ecosystem.

#8 Standardize Procurement Documentation

Implement consistent documentation to guide every request from intake to approval. Standardizing forms and evaluation criteria eliminates ambiguity, accelerates decisions, and supports operational scale.

Use templates to capture complete information from the start, reducing time spent on back-and-forth and ensuring alignment. Include:

• Intake forms
• RFP templates
• Evaluation scorecards
• Contract checklists

This consistency strengthens transparency, supports clear vendor comparisons, and simplifies audits. Over time, standardized documentation helps teams reduce waste, avoid duplication, and build a more efficient, scalable SaaS procurement process.

#9 Promote Vendor Transparency

Promote transparency from the start of the procurement process to ensure stronger vendor evaluations and smarter contract decisions. Ask vendors to provide clear, structured documentation that helps your team assess value, anticipate costs, and identify potential risks early.

Prioritize requesting:

• Clear pricing tables and consumption thresholds
• Known product or feature limitations
• Security and compliance documentation
• Product roadmaps or upcoming changes

Reviewing these materials upfront enables you to compare vendors with confidence, negotiate favorable terms, and secure long-term value—without unexpected costs later in the lifecycle.

#10 Leverage Technology for Procurement Automation

Accelerate your SaaS procurement process by automating routine tasks that slow down intake, evaluation, and approvals. As decentralized buying increases, automation becomes essential for managing volume, enforcing consistency, and reducing delays.

Leverage automation to:

• Route and track intake requests
• Manage approval workflows
• Store vendor and contract documentation
• Monitor renewal timelines

Automate policy checks, verify intake completeness, and ensure documentation is in place to make it easier for stakeholders to follow the process. This consistency improves pipeline visibility across procurement, IT, and Finance—highlighting upcoming renewals, required actions, and potential risks.

Over time, automation strengthens governance, reduces cycle times, and equips your team to manage spend with greater speed and accuracy.

“Without digitalization, procurement can’t realize their potential.”

— Lance Younger

#11 Integrate SaaS Management Tools Into the Procurement Workflow

Embed a SaaS Management Platform (SMP) into your procurement workflow to gain real-time visibility into your software stack—beyond what traditional tools offer. SMPs provide operational insights that help you make faster, smarter, and more cost-effective decisions.

Use an SMP to:

• Flag duplicate or redundant tools before approvals
• Reassign existing licenses instead of buying new ones
• Bring real usage data into vendor negotiations
• Track renewals and act before deadlines pass

While Procure-to-Pay (P2P) systems manage transactions, SMPs reveal how software is used across your business. This gives you the full context behind every purchase.

Tap into insights like:

• License utilization trends
• Usage patterns by team
• Overlapping or underused applications
• Compliance gaps and risk indicators

With these capabilities in place, procurement teams can avoid waste, improve renewal outcomes, and base every decision on accurate, day-to-day usage data.

#12 Conduct Thorough Risk Assessments

Treat every software purchase as a strategic decision by evaluating risk upfront. Use structured assessments to review vendor reliability, data handling practices, downtime impact, and integration complexity.

Embed these assessments into your procurement policy to:

• Standardize how risk is evaluated across teams
• Ensure decisions reflect your organization’s risk tolerance
• Strengthen governance without slowing down approvals

By making risk reviews part of the process, you gain clarity, reduce uncertainty, and protect your organization as your SaaS footprint grows.

#13 Negotiate Contracts Strategically

Approach every SaaS renewal with a clear negotiation strategy powered by real data. Combine usage insights, market benchmarks, and renewal timing to secure terms that align with both budget goals and business needs.

Guide your negotiation strategy by analyzing:

• User adoption and utilization trends
• Redundant or overlapping tools
• Escalation clauses and contract terms
• Multi-year discount opportunities
• License flexibility for scaling up or down

When negotiations are informed by real-world usage and market context, you can confidently shape agreements that support long-term strategy, maximize value, and maintain cost control.

#14 Monitor Vendor Performance Continuously

Track vendor performance throughout the contract lifecycle, not just at renewal. Ongoing monitoring helps you validate service quality, assess roadmap progress, and surface potential risks early.

Focus on metrics such as:

• Uptime and system availability
• Security incident history
• Support response times
• Roadmap execution and feature delivery

Use this data to proactively decide whether to maintain, renegotiate, or replace a vendor before performance issues impact your business. Continuous evaluation strengthens vendor relationships, reduces surprises, and supports more strategic renewals.

#15 Maintain Accurate Asset and License Records

Maintain accurate, centralized records to stay in control of your SaaS environment. Knowing what tools you own, who’s using them, and which licenses can be reassigned allows you to optimize spend and reduce risk.

Prioritize centralized tracking to:

• Identify unused licenses for reclamation
• Prevent over-purchasing and shelfware
• Support audits with clean, accessible data
• Strengthen budgeting and forecast accuracy

Clear visibility becomes even more critical in organizations with distributed SaaS ownership. A centralized system of record equips you to manage usage, costs, and compliance with confidence.

#16 Collaborate with Finance and IT on Spend Optimization

Strengthen your role in SaaS governance by partnering closely with Finance and IT. Cross-functional collaboration enables smarter budget planning, tighter contract oversight, and better alignment with business strategy.

Take action by:

• Sharing dashboards that highlight usage trends and underutilized licenses
• Setting spend thresholds by tool category
• Forecasting SaaS spend ahead of upcoming renewals
• Spotting opportunities to consolidate overlapping tools

This partnership reinforces disciplined spending, aligns procurement with financial goals, and equips distributed teams to make smarter, data-driven decisions.

#17 Continuously Review and Improve the Procurement Process

Keep your procurement process aligned with business growth by regularly reviewing and refining your workflows. Revisit approval paths, documentation standards, and vendor lists to ensure they reflect current priorities and operating models.

Strengthen decision-making by:

• Gathering feedback from stakeholders to identify friction points
• Updating templates to improve clarity and speed
• Adjusting rules to support faster, more informed approvals

A proactive approach to optimization helps procurement scale with the business, eliminate bottlenecks, and maintain agility as needs evolve.

#18 Establish Clear Renewal Governance

Treat renewals with the same rigor as new purchases by implementing a structured renewal governance process. With renewals often representing the largest portion of software spend, a proactive approach protects your budget and strengthens negotiation outcomes.

Improve renewal outcomes by:

• Tracking auto-renewal dates well in advance
• Reviewing usage data to inform contract right-sizing
• Evaluating competitive alternatives before committing
• Aligning stakeholders early to avoid rushed decisions

With a consistent renewal process in place, you gain greater control, avoid last-minute approvals, and ensure every renewal supports your broader SaaS strategy.

Case Study: How Zylo Helps Procurement Drive Business Outcomes

Zylo helps IT procurement teams reduce waste, improve negotiations, and strengthen collaboration by grounding decisions in accurate, shared information. To understand how this plays out in real life, look at the following example.

Marigold Centralizes SaaS Management to Cut Costs and Streamline M&A

Marigold, a global martech company, struggled to manage $45M in SaaS spend across 270 apps—complicated by seven acquisitions in five years. The team lacked visibility, needed faster integration, and aimed to control spend. With Zylo, Marigold’s procurement team built a centralized SaaS system of record, sped up M&A tech consolidation, and partnered with Managed Services to optimize spend.

“Zylo allows us to control spending better through connections to our financials – we know all the spend going out the door.”

— Karen Hodson, Global Real Estate & Procurement Officer

Key Outcomes:

• Eliminated 166 unused applications to streamline the portfolio
• Integrated acquired SaaS stacks faster with side-by-side visibility
• Identified and consolidated redundant tools post-acquisition
• Improved cross-functional decision-making with accurate usage and spend data
• Saved over $775,000 through expert-led contract negotiations
• Freed internal resources to focus on strategic initiatives

Zylo helped Marigold shift from reactive cleanup to proactive, data-driven SaaS management at scale.

Partner with Zylo for Strategic SaaS Procurement

As organizations approach 2026 with rising software costs, strong IT procurement practices are essential for maintaining clarity, reducing waste, and improving decision quality. Zylo empowers teams with real-time visibility into applications, contracts, usage, and renewals—giving procurement, IT, and finance a unified source of truth.

With accurate data and consistent workflows, companies can transform SaaS Management from a recurring challenge into a strategic advantage. To see how Zylo can support your team’s procurement goals, request a demo and explore the platform firsthand.

Frequently Asked Questions about IT Procurement Best Practices