Digital procurement to the rescue as Africa’s boardrooms battle fraud, waste

By Prince Osuagwu

In many African companies, procurement still happens through endless paperwork, scattered approvals, WhatsApp messages, and disconnected supplier networks. Billions are lost yearly to leakages, off-contract spending, delayed approvals, and opaque purchasing systems.

Now, one Nigerian technology company wants to change that narrative.

Gloopro, one of Africa’s emerging enterprise eProcurement and Procurement-as-a-Service (PaaS) providers, is bringing together some of the continent’s biggest corporate decision-makers for the Digital Procurement Africa (DPA) Summit 2026; a high-level gathering focused on how technology is reshaping procurement across Africa’s enterprise ecosystem.

The invite-only summit, scheduled for May 26, 2026, in Lagos, is expected to convene C-suite executives, procurement heads, policymakers, and supply chain leaders from across Africa for what organizers describe as a strategic conversation on the future of digital procurement.

But beyond the corporate buzzwords lies a deeper issue confronting African enterprises: procurement is no longer just a back-office function. It is increasingly becoming a boardroom priority tied directly to profitability, governance, operational efficiency, and digital transformation.

Globally, procurement technology has become one of the fastest-growing segments of enterprise software, with the digital procurement market projected to surpass $15 billion within the next few years as companies race to automate purchasing, supplier management, compliance, and spending oversight.

Across Africa, the urgency is even greater. Large enterprises continue to grapple with fraud, fragmented procurement systems, manual approvals, and the mismatch between sophisticated global ERP platforms and the informal supplier ecosystems that dominate many African economies.

Industry estimates suggest companies can lose between 5 and 15 per cent of annual procurement spend to leakages, maverick buying, duplicate payments, and weak supplier visibility, a major concern at a time when businesses are under pressure to cut costs and improve transparency.

Against that backdrop, the DPA Summit 2026 is arriving with the theme: “Accelerating Procurement Transformation for Large Enterprises in the Digital Era.”

According to organizers, the summit is designed less as a traditional conference and more as an executive strategy room where procurement leaders can openly discuss what is actually working, and what is failing in Africa’s digital transformation journey.

“Africa’s procurement ecosystem is entering a defining moment, and digital transformation is at the centre of it,” said Dr. Olumide “D.O” Olusanya, CEO of Gloopro.

“The DPA Summit 2026 is a call to the leaders shaping procurement across public and private sectors to come together, share what is genuinely working on the ground, and commit to the practical shifts our continent now requires,” he added.

Among the issues expected to dominate discussions are the hidden costs of manual procurement systems, enterprise revenue leakage, automation of approval workflows, supplier digitisation, and the use of procurement technology to improve governance and oversight.

Other sessions will examine how automation is helping executives reclaim lost productivity while enabling procurement teams to move from administrative gatekeepers to strategic value creators.

Analysts say the conversation is timely particularly as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and data analytics reshape enterprise operations globally.

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