7 Ways CPOs Will Stop Contract Value Leakage in 2026

Procurement has never been more visible, or more accountable. After years of firefighting inflation and supply chain shocks, 2026 will be the year Chief Procurement Officers (CPOs) turn efficiency back into advantage.

The new mandate: close the leaks that quietly drain 9% of value from contracts every year. This persistent contract value leakage erodes margin long after the deal is signed.

These leaks don’t stem from poor negotiations, but from what happens after the ink dries: maverick spend, missed rebates, unclaimed volume discounts, and unmanaged renewals.

The good news? Operating models to fix this finally exist. Evolving technology, managed services, and the rise of GenAI are changing how work moves across teams, and leaders are shifting from chasing one-off savings to managing contract performance in real time.

Here are seven ways the best procurement leaders will stop value leakage, and how to put them into action.

1. Assign ownership for contract value realization.

Every contract carries an intent (e.g., savings, service levels, revenue protection), but too often, no one owns its performance after signature. The most effective procurement organizations will solve this by assigning explicit accountability for value realization.

Instead of scattering responsibility across sourcing, finance, and business units, a single function or role monitors whether negotiated value actually materializes, preventing contract value leakage. They track adherence to price terms, fulfillment of obligations, and recovery of rebates or credits.

According to World Commerce & Contracting, organizations that reframe contracts as financial instruments outperform peers by roughly 5.4% of contract value. The lesson is simple: negotiated savings mean little until someone is measured on realizing them.

2. Control spend at the source with guided demand management

Most leakage begins before procurement ever sees the request. Uncontrolled or poorly specified demand flows into the system as maverick spend – purchases made outside approved channels or contracts.

Hackett’s 2025 Key Issues study shows intake and orchestration and catalog and guided buying rising as focus areas, a signal that leaders are working to control demand before it becomes spend.

Leaders will increasingly address this by creating a single, policy-led “front door” for all sourcing and buying requests. Instead of dozens of ad hoc emails, business users follow a guided process that applies category rules, budget limits, and supplier policies from the start.

3. Treat commercial assurance as a continuous service

Procurement audits used to happen once a year, often too late to fix the problem. In 2026, leaders will look to embed “commercial assurance” as an ongoing service – a repeatable cadence that reviews pricing, volume tiers, SLAs, and rebates on a regular cadence, like monthly.

This discipline transforms post-award management from reactive to preventive. McKinsey finds that continuous reconciliation of contract terms is one of the most effective defenses against value leakage in contracts. In one case study, the approach identified ~4% of spend for recovery negotiations.

The difference between best-in-class and average performers is not what they negotiate. It’s how often they verify.

4. Run supplier performance and risk as one integrated rhythm

Suppliers rarely fail on performance alone; risk issues often surface first in delivery patterns or payment behavior. Progressive procurement organizations will increasingly integrate supplier performance management (SPM) with risk monitoring into a single, recurring review cycle.

With 76% of supply chain leaders facing more frequent disruptions, analytics‑driven reviews that pair performance with risk are becoming standard practice. Quarterly business reviews are being replaced by live scorecards that combine operational KPIs, financial signals, ESG compliance, and market risk alerts.

This rhythm creates trust with strategic suppliers and visibility for the C-suite, a combination that no dashboard alone can deliver. BCG calls this balancing act the “cost of resilience” mindset, where resilience is managed without ceding margin through an integrated operating model.

5. Make contract renewals a value-creation moment

Renewals are often administrative, yet they’re where much of the value is won or lost. Many evergreen contracts roll over at the same terms for years, compounding overpayment and risk exposure.

Best-in-class procurement teams will focus on turning renewals into structured negotiations. This starts 120 days out, reviews usage, service levels, and external benchmarks, and comes prepared with data and optionality.

The takeaway: treat renewals with the same rigor you bring to new deals.

6. Manage rebate entitlement like a financial asset

Rebate programs are meant to reward loyalty and volume, yet many organizations fail to track or collect what they’re owed. Complex proof-of-performance requirements, tier changes, and manual processes cause millions in procurement value leakage.

More than half of organizations still run rebate programs on spreadsheets and report low to moderate confidence in the data, making leakage likely without centralized stewardship. In 2026, procurement will increasingly treat rebate management as a service. This means dedicated ownership, reconciliations, and dashboards that show what’s earned, booked, and collected.

Rebates may not be glamorous, but they’re among the fastest ways to improve realized savings and fund transformation.

7. Focus on people and operating rhythm, not another platform

Technology is essential, but adoption drives the outcome. As workloads rise and budgets flatten, change management is becoming the differentiator between procurement teams that transform and those that tread water.

Hackett’s 2025 study highlights a ~9% efficiency gap as workloads outpace budgets, which is why leaders are redesigning operating models, not just buying software. Deloitte’s 2025 Global CPO Survey finds that organizations combining technology enablement with talent development materially outperform.

In 2026, the winners will be those who embed training, communication, and KPIs into everyday routines. Transformation doesn’t stick because of a toolset. It sticks because of cadence, ownership, and clarity. Disciplined operating rhythms help eliminate contract value leakage at scale.