Hundreds of CPOs and sourcing leaders are converging on San Diego for two days of vendor management, AI, and cost-optimization sessions. This page turns that agenda into a buyer's plan, and a 20-minute conversation before you fly.
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Gartner Procurement Conference pulls Chief Procurement Officers and heads of strategic sourcing, category management, and IT vendor management into one venue, alongside the analysts who write the research your board reads. That density is rare, and short.
Most attendees arrive mid-evaluation, not window-shopping. Vendor conversations at the show tend to be further along than a typical inbound demo request.
One-on-ones with Gartner analysts fill up fast and run in 30-minute blocks. Knowing your VMS questions before you sit down gets you a sharper answer.
Conversations that start in San Diego in September routinely become Q4 shortlists. A pre-built evaluation framework keeps that momentum from stalling in committee.
The conference groups sessions under five themes. Here's what to prioritize if vendor management, sourcing automation, or contract governance is on your 2026 roadmap, and the question worth asking in the room.
The Exhibit Showcase gives you a rare stretch of live demos back-to-back. Use it to compare on substance, not booth design.
"What's the real implementation timeline once we sign, not the marketing number?"
"Which ERPs do you connect to natively, and which need a middleware layer?"
"Walk me through your SOC 2 report and how vendor data is segregated."
"Who from your customer success team is US-based, and what's their procurement background?"
Reserve a 30-minute working session on-site, or a 20-minute virtual briefing before you fly, built around your current vendor stack and sourcing volume.
Yes. We're booking on-site working sessions in San Diego for the September 15 to 16 dates, alongside virtual pre-conference briefings for teams who want a head start before they land. Use the booking link above to grab a slot.
No. Conference attendance and vendor conversations at the Exhibit Showcase are open to any registered attendee, Gartner client or not. Our sessions work the same way, no Gartner subscription required.
Your current vendor count, rough annual spend under management, and the two or three workflows costing your team the most manual time, onboarding, RFP cycles, or contract renewals are common answers. That's enough for a useful 20-minute conversation.
Legacy enterprise suites like SAP Ariba or Coupa typically take six to twelve months to implement. Procurement VMS delivers the same core capabilities, vendor management, sourcing, spend visibility, and contract lifecycle management, live in 4 to 8 weeks, with a US-based customer success team.
Of course. Many procurement teams prefer to compare notes internally first. Book a post-conference briefing for late September or October and we'll tailor it around whatever you heard on the show floor.
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