How long can Direct Materials teams hold the line with spreadsheets?

For years, Direct Materials professionals have defended complex procurement, costing, supplier collaboration, quality, and change management with Excel.

They survived generic SaaS tools.
They survived vendor portals.
They survived disconnected workflows.

But now the technology onslaught is different.

AI, automation, APIs, data platforms, and agentic systems are moving fast. And Direct Materials teams cannot continue defending the future with tools built for yesterday’s exceptions.

The real question is no longer whether Excel worked.

It did.

The question is: how long can it continue to hold?

Direct Materials needs its own system of record.
Because the next battle will be won with data, context, relationships, and intelligence — not spreadsheets.

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