How CFOs Drive Capital Efficiency in 2025

In 2025, the mandate to CFOs is clear. Their mission is to fuel growth, but execute with discipline. Investors want profits, not promises, and boards demand resilience, as well as runway. The “growth at any cost” era is long gone. Today, CFOs are under pressure to extend runway and improve profitability. It’s all about capital efficiency: and that means sweating every dollar, every vendor, every line item. 

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In this new reality, waste isn’t just frowned upon – it’s a liability. And while most eyes are on topline tactics, there’s one often-overlooked lever with outsized potential: procurement. Not the creaky, post-decision process of the past. But structured, visible, intake-to-pay procurement for today. Built for control, speed, and growth. Because when you can see what’s being bought, by whom, and why – before the money moves – you’re not just reacting. You’re steering. You’re stretching cash, improving margins, and cutting waste (without killing momentum).

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Procurement has become a growth lever. And in this article, we’ll look at how forward-thinking CFOs are using it.

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How CFOs can help grow the business smarter

Let’s zoom out for a moment. Interest rates are still high. Investors are tightening the screws. Profitability has replaced growth as the golden child. These days, the mandate is clear: grow – but do it without setting fire to your cash. CFOs are on the frontline of this shift: expected to extend runway, unlock working capital, and trim operational fat, all without putting the brakes on momentum. It’s a tall order. But it’s not impossible – if you know where to look.

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Indirect spend (in the shape of software, vendors, services, tooling) is one of the biggest, least controlled levers in any organization’s cost base. It’s where money leaks, decisions drift, and commitments get made, before finance even has a chance to blink. But it’s also where you can move the needle quickly. Because, unlike headcount or core infrastructure, indirect spend is flexible. It’s discretionary. And with the right structures in place, it’s controllable. Which means it’s not just a cost to manage – it’s an opportunity to drive capital efficiency and unlock smarter, leaner growth.

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Why indirect spend is still wildly under-managed

Here’s the thing: for all the pressure on CFOs to drive efficiency, one of the biggest areas of spend still flies under the radar. Indirect spend. We’re talking software subscriptions, external services, tooling, agency retainers, cloud contracts – a long tail of costs that add up fast and slip through faster. In a 2024 survey, nearly one-third of procurement leaders said inflation was the top external pressure on indirect spend, while 25 % predicted technology and automation as their biggest future lever (see below).

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Why does it matter? Because this is where capital efficiency quietly unravels. Most companies still manage indirect spend with fingers crossed and some duct tape. Processes are scattered across departments. Finance often gets involved too late – after the contract’s signed and the budget’s blown. Teams buy what they need (or think they need), when they need it, and hope someone else is keeping track. (Spoiler: no one is.) So you get shadow spend. Duplicate vendors. Surprise renewals. A graveyard of unused tools with auto-renew turned on. And above all, a total lack of visibility into what’s being bought, by whom, and why.

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It’s not just messy. It’s expensive. And in a world where capital discipline is non-negotiable, that lack of control is costing you more than you think.

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How forward-thinking CFOs are reframing procurement

Instead of playing procurement police or chasing savings after the fact, smart CFOs are building systems that align spend with strategy from the start.

• ‍Creating structured intake processes – clear, scalable ways for teams to request what they need, routed through the right people, with the right context. No more last-minute Slack messages or rogue renewals buried in someone’s inbox.‍
• Using procurement as a lever – not to block spending, but to improve unit economics, cut waste, and steer capital where it’ll actually deliver a return.‍
• Asking better questions - this isn’t about saying “no” more often. It’s about interrogating the numbers with a clear eye. Why this vendor? Why now? What’s the business case?

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Because when procurement is structured and spend is intentional, you start to see real gains. Better cash conversion cycles. Tighter alignment between cost and value. Those “how did we miss that?” moments are fewer and further apart.

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Three ways CFOs can use procurement to drive capital efficiency

Turning procurement into a lever for capital-efficient growth means starting with structure, visibility, and control that’s baked in from the beginning.

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Here’s where the real impact lies:

1. Structured intake = Control spend before you commit. The biggest wins come before money leaves the business. By routing every purchase request through a central, intelligent intake system, you get a single view of who’s asking for what – and why. This isn’t about slowing teams down. It’s about filtering out low-value, low-priority spend before it gets a PO. Challenge spending assumptions and get the chance to say no to the nice-to-haves that sneak in under the radar.
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2. ‍Get contract visibility = Prevent renewal waste. Smart CFOs treat contracts like assets: track them, assess them, and optimize them. They know that the auto-renewal graveyard is real – and expensive. Without a live, mapped view of all contracts, expiry dates, and terms, you’re constantly reacting (or worse, you’re not reacting at all). Cut your redundant tools, consolidate vendors and use data to drive decisions, not last-minute panic.
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3. Capital discipline at scale = Embed controls. Instead of chasing people down after the fact, embed finance logic up front. Policies don’t work if they only live in a slide deck – bake them into the intake flow. Automatically route spend by budget, department, and priority. That way, renewals and vendor requests get prioritized based on ROI – not who shouts the loudest. That results in leaner budgets, smarter allocation and capital discipline (minus the daily drama).

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The tech behind the transformation

None of this works at scale without the right tools. Manual processes can only take you so far – and spreadsheets don’t enforce policy. That’s where modern intake orchestration platforms come in. The global spend analytics market is projected to grow 17.9 % (CAGR) through 2027, signaling huge investment in visibility and control tools. One global retailer slashed indirect spend by 11%, unlocking over $500 million in savings through smart data-led strategies and a digital procurement platform.

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They’re not just procurement systems – they’re purpose-built control layers that give finance real-time visibility and control over every spend request, contract, and vendor interaction. No more flying blind.

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Here’s what the best bring to the table:

• Policy automation
  Finance rules baked in from the start where every request is automatically routed based on spend thresholds, budget ownership, vendor risk and more.
• Budget-aware approvals
  No more “approved but unfunded” spend. Instead, approvers see live budget impact before they hit yes so they have context for the decision, rather than guesswork.
• AI-powered vendor recommendations
  Why source from scratch when you already have a preferred vendor – or five others doing the same thing? Intelligent AI-powered routing connects buyers to the best-fit supplier, saving time and money.

It’s procurement with guardrails, enabling growth (but with discipline). And it gives CFOs the control they need, without creating a bottleneck.

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Smarter growth starts with smarter spend

In today’s economy, capital efficiency is the new growth metric. It’s not just about cutting costs – it’s about controlling how capital flows through the business and making sure every dollar is pulling its weight. 

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CFOs who treat procurement as a strategic lever, not just a cost center, gain an edge. They extend the runway without stalling momentum. They drive profitability without gutting capability. They build businesses that scale without the bloat.

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By bringing structure to intake, visibility to contracts, and intelligence to approvals, you can turn procurement into a system of control, not chaos. It’s not about saying “no” more often. It’s about spending with intent. Allocating with discipline. And unlocking growth that’s both smart and sustainable. In 2025, the most successful companies aren’t the ones that spend the most. They’re the ones who spend the smartest.