Is Your SRM Program Just Useless Theater?

We often talk about onboarding suppliers. We rarely talk about “divorcing” them.

In this week’s episode of Proc & Roll, hosts Conrad Smith, Natasha Gurevich, and Zachary Bachir dive deep into the stagnant world of Supplier Relationship Management (SRM).

Why has SRM progressed so little in the last 20 years? Why do most Supplier Relationship programs fail to deliver real value? And what can procurement leaders learn from the messy, strategic split between Amazon and UPS?

Here are four key takeaways from the episode:

1. The Amazon & UPS “Divorce”

The episode kicks off with a hot topic: UPS is pulling back from its partnership with Amazon. Despite Amazon being UPS’s largest customer, it is also its least profitable one.

This highlights a critical lesson for procurement: Relationships are not static.

As Zachary Bachir points out, we rarely talk about the moment when a long-term partnership no longer fits. Just because a supplier was strategic 10 years ago doesn’t mean they are today . Whether it’s a shift in profitability or a change in capabilities (like Amazon building its own logistics fleet), procurement leaders need the courage to recognize when it’s time to separate.

2. Why Most QBRs Are “Useless Theater.”

If you hold Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs) just to check a box, you are wasting everyone’s time.

Natasha Gurevich calls this “useless theater.”

The hard truth is that procurement cannot own SRM alone. If Marketing, IT, or Supply Chain aren’t driving the agenda, the program will fail. Procurement’s role is to create the framework, but the business stakeholders must own the relationship. As Natasha puts it: “If you do not have a buy-in from other parts of the organization… It’s becoming useless theater.”

3. Direct vs. Indirect: A Tale of Two Maturities

Why is it that manufacturing companies often have incredible supplier relationships, while indirect procurement teams struggle?

Zach argues that we often look for SRM in the wrong places. In direct procurement (like silicon wafers at Intel), there are entire teams dedicated to managing critical suppliers because the risk of failure is existential.

Indirect procurement teams, however, often treat suppliers like utilities. To fix this, we need to stop viewing suppliers as vendors to be managed and start viewing them as partners who can solve business problems.

4. You Don’t Have to Be a “Data God”

One of the biggest barriers to starting an SRM program is the sheer volume of data. How do you segment 20,000 suppliers?

Natasha offers a refreshing leadership lesson: You don’t need to be the expert.

“I’m not a data person,” she admits. Her strategy? Hire a “Data God” on your team who can translate the numbers into solutions.

Conrad Smith adds practical advice for those overwhelmed by the numbers: Start small. Don’t try to launch a program for 20 suppliers at once. Pick one or two critical partners, prove the value, and build from there.

Watch now or read the transcript below.

Transcript: Proc-N-Roll | Is Your SRM Program Just Useless Theater?

Conrad Smith: Hey everybody, welcome to Proc and Roll, your guide to practical procurement. We’re super excited to be back together. The three Musketeers are here. We’ve got Zach from London, Natasha’s in San Mateo in California. Today you catch me over in Hawaii. We are bringing you the best, the latest, the greatest, and super excited to be back with you. Top of everybody’s mind today. Zach, what’s on your mind? What have you been working on?

Zachary Bachir: I think AI is heating up, right? 2026 feels like the year AI needs to deliver value… I’ve been busy… helping clients come up with the propositions, but also come up with the use cases and implement pilots… really focused on building out agents.

Conrad Smith: Wouldn’t that be amazing? 2026 is the year AI gets practical instead of just, you know, fun and games.

Natasha Gurevich: Do you guys remember we were talking in one of our episodes in 2025 that one of our predictions was that all CPOs will have to rethink about their tech stack?

Conrad Smith: I’ve been on the road this year. I think I’ve visited maybe a dozen or a few more than that clients this year… It’s really been awesome to get out on the road and see people.

Natasha Gurevich: UPS and Amazon are wrapping up or significantly reducing their partnership. While Amazon is UPS’s largest customer, is the less profitable one.

Natasha Gurevich: It triggered my memories of when two other giants, Amex and Costco, ended 16 year relationship… And here it’s another example when two massive companies… created very successful structure… And yet now they’re changing direction.

Zachary Bachir: It’s actually not so interesting is we always talk about SRM. I think that’s our topic today, right? But we never talk about relationships at all… If you’ve got 10 years long term relationship… things change. …We never talk about that moment when… you gotta divorce your partners.

Natasha Gurevich: For our viewers and listeners, we had an amazing episode with Lucien Alziari a couple of weeks ago. Do listen in. He’s CHRO… We were talking about commercial impact of layoffs and if they really make sense.

Conrad Smith: I miss being with you and Lucien, but I went back and listened to it and Natasha, it was amazing. The leadership insights that he brought to the table…

Natasha Gurevich: Let’s talk about today’s topic. …Every organization depends on third parties. …I’d like to kick off with us just sharing perspectives, like in your professional tenure, do you see that the role of the suppliers and expectations that enterprises put on third parties, if that had changed?

Conrad Smith: I have sensed in most organizations a desire to shift from cost savings to value. And I don’t know how you get to value conversations without really getting into the relationship. …I think everyone’s still talking about managing suppliers in strategic ways. I think, however, most people are still just treating them like utilities.

Zachary Bachir: I just haven’t seen personally a great supplier relationship management program that was leading edge… That’s not to say they don’t exist. It’s just to say that I think they’re a bit rare to find a really well-managed SRM function.

Natasha Gurevich: But procurement shouldn’t do it by itself, right? Because I think that there’s a confusion often exists in enterprises that supplier relationship management is procurement business. …It should be an enterprise interest… Marketing should be very interested in evaluating performance of their agencies.

Natasha Gurevich: Why do you think it’s one of the areas that progressed very little in the last, let’s say 20 years?

Zachary Bachir: It comes down to relationships are about people. …You need the cultural fit. …I think that’s when strategy really… starts to come in because you’ve got such a broad area. It’s not just a QBR meeting.

Conrad Smith: How much is this like people management? …Why are people not investing in the strategic relationship and development items with their people and with their suppliers to move it forward?

Natasha Gurevich: I see it slightly differently because with talented employees, I subscribe to philosophies that hire the smartest and step away and let them do the job. With suppliers… navigating across especially large enterprises is extremely complex. …There is a need to help them navigate through the enterprise.

Conrad Smith: If we bring him into our team… and we don’t set clear expectations… I just kind of, “Okay, Zach… go make money for me…” …Whether they’re really great suppliers or really crappy suppliers, they’re unlikely to do exceptional work without those things being in place.

Natasha Gurevich: As much as I love you, I disagree with you yet again, because I think that if I come to suppliers with all my clear expectations… then I am cutting opportunity for them to show their creativity. …I would like to not with all suppliers, but this is where I think supplier segmentation is very important. That those critical suppliers for your business, you sit down with them and you brainstorm on what the solution is.

Zachary Bachir: That is a classic case in point. Every time I look at a procurement segmentation… they’re tier one because they’re high risk. …But that doesn’t necessarily mean that’s where the innovation is going to come from. …You need to have multiple strategies… You have your compliance and risk stuff… And you have your innovation and new ideas. Those can be very small suppliers.

Natasha Gurevich: But then it’s becoming what I call useless theater. Because if you do not have a buy-in from other parts of organization, then you have to continue educating why this is important. …It shouldn’t be done by procurement. Procurement can help with framing how to do it in a fair way.

Conrad Smith: I think the key is where do we strategically think that we’re going to invest in the stakeholder relationship… Avoid wasting a whole bunch of time trying to win a battle that you’re not winning. …Go where you can add the most value and go learn how to do this really well.

Natasha Gurevich: If an organization contemplating transitioning… what are the practical steps we can offering them?

Conrad Smith: I said start simple… You’re going to be tempted to say, we can do this with 20 suppliers. You can’t. You shouldn’t. …Find a stakeholder that you have or can build a really good relationship with. Figure out what matters the most to their business.

Natasha Gurevich: If I’m a procurement manager… I’m looking at my supplier composition… and I see 20,000… That can be overwhelming. …How do we dissect it in digestible bites?

Conrad Smith: If you’re a person that just like runs the other direction anytime a spreadsheet opens, go find someone on your team… find a partner somewhere that loves data.

Natasha Gurevich: I’m not a data person. …That’s why when there were two of us, just me and Riley, because Riley is a data God. …I see the numbers… he translates it into solution.

Conrad Smith: My nomination for person of the year this year… is data.

Zachary Bachir: I think my advice would be if you’re doing segmentation, it’s not a science. …Don’t make science out of it. …Spend is definitely one. Another good one that I see a lot of people miss is like, how important are you to them? You should score that… Score your cultural fit as well.

This transcript has been edited for clarity while maintaining all substantive content