The move towards centralised procurement is being driven by sourcing, rather that sustainability imperatives.

That’s the view of Richard Nixon, partner at KPMG Advisory, who believes that the increasing number of high profile firms consolidating their global sourcing operations is linked with a growing need for companies to maintain a tight reign on their spend.

And although this could, in turn, enable firms to gain greater visibility into their supply chains from a sustainability perspective, it’s far from the major consideration.

Earlier this month Walmart announced plans to dramatically consolidate its global supply base, in an effort to cut out the middle-man and deliver a considerable boost to the company’s bottom line.

And Nixon believes that the ongoing economic uncertainty will dictate that others will follow its lead.

“You can see some strategic change programmes where companies are saying that they’re going to consolidate their back office a lot more,” says Nixon.

“They’re saying that they’re going to run ERP programmes and are going to have shared services for HR, finance, IT and procurement. Naturally, as a result of that, you get a centralization.”

However, despite an acknowledgement that sustainability is a growing strategic driver, Adeeb Dhallai, advisory partner in procurement, KMPG, argues that most companies are still failing to fully integrate it into their decision-making processes.

“Although organisations are obviously taking sustainability very seriously I feel that there is still a little bit of lip service being paid to sustainability on the ground,” says Dhallai.

“There are more and more people looking at their category management and supply management processes and are changing them to reflect a qualification around whether a sourcing strategy fits in around a sustainability checklist – adding sustainability to areas such as quality, cost and innovation.”

He does, though, claim that, for the majority of businesses, far more needs to be done.

“It’s still a journey that is just starting for most companies,” he says.