Nearly 74% of respondents to Euna Solutions’ 2026 State of Public Procurement report identify rising costs of goods and services as a top external challenge. Meanwhile, half are prioritizing streamlined and automated processes, yet 46% still manage procurement primarily through spreadsheets, email, or paper.
“Public procurement is one of the quiet engines of government,” says Tom Amburgey, CEO of Euna Solutions. “Residents may never see the work behind it, but they feel the results in the quality and reliability of public services. The opportunity ahead is to give procurement professionals the support and technology they need to spend less time navigating workarounds and more time creating value for their communities. With the right foundation, agencies can move into the next era of procurement with confidence, using innovation to strengthen public service and public trust.”
Key takeaways:
· Rising costs remain the leading external challenge. 74% of respondents cited rising costs of goods and services as a challenge, followed by budget reductions or flat funding at 55% and economic uncertainty at 48%.
· Compliance demands and unplanned requests are straining internal capacity. Ensuring compliance ranked as the top internal challenge at 46%. Urgent or unplanned procurement requests and managing budgets were each cited by 42%.
· Supplier performance management remains largely reactive. 59% of respondents either do not formally assess suppliers or conduct reviews only when problems arise. Just 5% perform quarterly assessments.
· Procurement’s strategic influence remains uneven. Half of respondents said procurement is viewed as a value driver within their organization. The other half disagreed or were unsure, despite procurement’s responsibility for organizational spending, compliance risk, and supplier relationships.
· Interest in AI is growing faster than organizational readiness. Thirty-nine percent of respondents want or are open to incorporating AI into procurement workflows, but 41% are not confident that their organizations are prepared to adopt it responsibly. Only 17% expressed very or extremely high confidence in their readiness.
· Streamlining and automating processes ranked as the leading procurement priority for the next 12-18 months, selected by 50% of respondents. The same objective also topped the survey in 2024 and 2025. Implementing cost-reduction strategies ranked second in 2026 at 40%.
· Automation’s three-year position as the top priority indicates that agencies recognize the need to modernize but continue to face implementation barriers. Budget constraints remain the leading obstacle to adopting procurement software, cited by 31% of respondents. Resistance to change and the perception that existing tools are “good enough” were each cited by 15%.
