For many founders, the enterprise procurement process for startups can feel like a black box. You have a strong product, customer interest, and maybe even an internal champion, but then the deal slows down once legal, security, sourcing, and risk teams get involved. That shift can be frustrating if you don’t understand what enterprise buyers are actually evaluating.
That was the focus of the 2025 Venture Atlanta Procurement Palooza panel, where procurement and enterprise leaders from Southern Company, Fiserv, The Home Depot, and Inspire Brands unpacked how large organizations vet new vendors.
Their message? Procurement is not there to kill deals. It’s there to validate value, reduce risk, and make sure a startup can scale inside a complex organization.
For startups selling to enterprises, that distinction matters. The better you understand enterprise sales procurement, enterprise vendor onboarding, and the internal trust-building required to move forward, the better your odds of getting approved.
Key Takeaways From the Procurement Panel
The Venture Atlanta Procurement Palooza panel helped founders understand how the procurement process for startups actually works, and how they can show proven value to leaders.
Here are the key takeaways:
- Procurement starts with a real business need.
- A business sponsor or internal champion is essential.
- Trust and credibility can offset limited resources.
- A pilot helps founders prove value in the real world.
- Security, privacy, and risk review are part of modern enterprise selling.
- Buyers want a scale plan, not just a great demo.
- Supplier diversity can create meaningful opportunities, but vendors still need to compete on value.
- The best founders study the customer’s business before they pitch.
- Procurement should be engaged early, not avoided.
- Technology alone does not win deals. Business understanding does.
For founders building in the Southeast, this is exactly why Venture Atlanta matters. These are the kinds of conversations that help startups move from pitch mode to enterprise readiness.
What Is the Enterprise Procurement Process?
The enterprise procurement process is the internal system large organizations use to evaluate, approve, contract with, and onboard outside vendors. For startups, that usually begins once an enterprise buyer decides your product or service could solve a real business problem.
In practice, the procurement process for startups often includes:
- A defined business need.
- An internal champion or business sponsor.
- Stakeholder review across legal, finance, operations, product, or information security.
- A vendor risk assessment.
- Contract review and legal redlines procurement.
- Review of insurance, compliance, and data protection documents.
- Enterprise vendor onboarding.
- Sometimes, a pilot before a larger rollout.
The panel pointed out that procurement is rarely a one-person decision. At large companies, procurement leaders often act as the quarterback, guiding startups through multiple internal teams while also helping internal stakeholders understand the vendor’s value.
When Do Startups Encounter Procurement?
Startups typically encounter procurement after a company sees a real use case for the product. Sometimes that starts with outbound founder outreach. Other times, it begins when someone inside the business identifies a need and starts looking for solutions.
Neeraj Gulati, Director of Business Excellence at Southern Company, explained that every supplier relationship starts with a business need. That need may come from an internal team, or it may be surfaced when a startup introduces a solution that maps closely to a company priority.
Either way, the lesson for founders is that if there is no clear use case, there is no deal.
That is why founders need more than a great demo. In startup enterprise readiness, you need to connect your offering to an actual operational, commercial, or customer problem.
Why Procurement Exists (Risk, Trust, and Scale)
It’s easy for founders to feel like the procurement process for startups exists to slow things down. However, the panel pushed back on that idea. The panelists explained that procurement exists because large companies have real exposure across customer experience, data security, compliance, and operational continuity.
When an enterprise brings in a new vendor, the stakes are high. A startup may touch customer data, operational workflows, store systems, or critical infrastructure. That is why procurement teams look closely at risk and compliance, data protection, and long-term viability.
The panelists repeatedly came back to these three themes:
- Risk: Enterprises need confidence that a startup can protect data, meet obligations, and operate responsibly. That is where a data processing agreement (DPA) and a formal vendor risk assessment often come in.
- Trust: Founders do not need to look like a Fortune 500 company on day one. But they do need to show credibility, transparency, and a plan.
- Scale: A startup might succeed in one store, one region, or one workflow. Enterprise buyers need confidence that the solution can work across dozens, hundreds, or thousands of locations.
In other words, procurement is not just reviewing whether your product works. It is evaluating whether your company is ready to work at enterprise speed and enterprise scale, while you, as a founder, can maintain resilience.
What’s Involved in Enterprise Procurement?
The procurement lifecycle varies by company, but startups selling into large organizations should expect a combination of commercial, legal, security, and operational review.
Common pieces of the procurement process for startups include:
Business Sponsor Alignment: A startup usually needs an internal champion who can explain why the solution matters. Without that support, it is hard to move forward.
Pilot or Proof of Value: The panel strongly emphasized the importance of the pilot program enterprise model. A pilot lets an enterprise test the solution in a lower-risk environment before committing to a broader rollout.
Security and Compliance Review: This often includes a security questionnaire, privacy review, and review of security frameworks like SOC 2 and ISO 27001. For startups handling sensitive systems or data, these standards can play a major role in approval.
Vendor Risk Assessment: Large companies may use internal or third-party tools to assess financial stability, operational resilience, and data security posture. That vendor risk assessment helps buyers understand whether the startup can support the relationship over time.
Contract Review: This is where contract negotiation (MSA/SOW), legal redlines procurement, indemnity terms, insurance requirements, and the DPA often show up.
Onboarding and Rollout: Once approved, the startup still needs to complete enterprise vendor onboarding, integrate into the buyer’s systems, and prepare for broader deployment.
That may sound heavy, but the panel members reassured the audience that if the value is there, many companies will work with startups to navigate the process.
How Startups Can Increase Their Chances of Approval
The best advice from the panel was not “look bigger than you are.” It was “show buyers how you think.”
Across all members of the panel, the best piece of advice to founders is to show buyers exactly how you think.
“We're most impressed with people who understand our business… people who come to us well studied, well read, prepared. Those are the people that we want to talk to because they're making it easy for us to say yes.”
— Geri Williams, Staff Counsel, Strategic and Enterprise Contracts at The Home Depot
Here is how founders should bring their product to procurement leaders.
1. Start with the Business Problem
Do not lead with technology alone. Several panelists said startups often spend too much time explaining the product and not enough time explaining the business issue they solve.
If you are selling to enterprise customers, the conversation should start with the buyer’s challenge, not your feature list.
2. Build Trust Early
Trust came up again and again. If a founder can show honesty, preparedness, and follow-through, enterprise teams are often more flexible about limited resources.
That means being upfront about what is built today, what is outsourced, what is planned, and how you will support growth.
3. Have a Plan to Scale
One of the strongest takeaways was this:
“You don't have to be ready on Monday, but on Friday, when it's time to go, we need to be confident that you can scale as quickly as we want to go to market.”
— Geri Williams, Staff Counsel for Strategic and Enterprise Contracts, The Home Depot
That means thinking through:
- Which partners or third parties will help you scale?
- How will you support expansion across regions or locations?
- What operational gaps still need to be filled?
- How does your roadmap support larger deployments?
4. Use Pilots to Prove Value
For startups, a pilot is often the fastest way to move a relationship forward by turning a pitch into evidence. A pilot also gives procurement teams something concrete to bring back to internal stakeholders.
5. Be Persistent, Not Annoying
Jonathan Townsley, Vice President of Global Sourcing at Fiserv, put it plainly: monthly check-ins are useful, but daily pings with nothing new are not.
If you follow up, bring something helpful like a case study, a product update, a relevant insight, or a sharper version of your value proposition.
Common Myths About the Procurement Process for Startups
The panelist hit on a couple of myths that founders have heard regarding the procurement process.
Myth 1: Founders Should Go Around Procurement
This was one of the clearest warnings from the session. In top-tier organizations, procurement is an influential stakeholder. If you try to bypass procurement and go straight to a CFO, operations leader, or executive buyer, you’ll actually hurt your cause.
Myth 2: Procurement Only Cares About Price
Cost matters, but it is not the whole story. The panelists said innovation, novelty, efficiency, customer experience, and speed to value all matter.
Myth 3: A Good Product Is Enough
Of course, a strong product matters, but enterprise buyers also want evidence that you understand their business, can protect their data, and can support deployment at scale.
Types of Organizations With Formal Procurement Teams
Not every buyer has the same level of rigor, but formal procurement teams are especially common in:
- Public companies
- Fortune 500 enterprises
- Financial services organizations
- Energy and utility companies
- Large retailers
- Multi-location operators
- Highly regulated businesses
- Companies with complex technology, compliance, or data environments
For founders, that means the sourcing process will often become more formal as deal size, risk exposure, and organizational complexity increase.
Why Procurement Matters for Startup Exits and Acquisitions
Procurement doesn’t just affect today’s pipeline. It can also shape long-term company value.
When a startup consistently passes enterprise procurement reviews, it proves maturity. It suggests the company can handle compliance expectations, operate with larger customers, and build durable revenue relationships.
That kind of validation matters to strategic acquirers, private equity firms, and growth-stage investors.
Strong enterprise relationships can also show that the startup has moved beyond a one-off sale into repeatable enterprise partnerships. For buyers evaluating acquisitions, that kind of readiness can make the business more attractive.
Watch the Full Session on the Procurement Process for Startups
Interested in hearing the full conversation? You can watch the full Procurement Palooza session here.
Expand to See Transcript
Transcript
Below is the full transcript of the session.
Welcome to this morning’s procurement panel. My name is Nick Harvellis. I’m on the founding team at Every, one of the sponsors of this event. It’s been really nice meeting so many awesome founders and investors, and I’m grateful and honored to be here.
For those of you who don’t know much about Every, we’re a Y Combinator 2023 company and an all-in-one back office solution for founders. Our goal is to take care of the entire back office so founders can focus on building their business, finding product-market fit, and growing from there. We offer free Delaware C-Corp incorporation, along with banking, treasury, payroll, HR, bookkeeping, and taxes. We’ll be set up right outside the Innovation Center, so if anyone wants to come say hi, we’d love to meet you. Without further ado, I’d love to introduce your moderator for today, Richard Hesse, who leads commercial sourcing at Inspire Brands.
Well, that was quite a promotion in that introduction. I’m not the head of Inspire Brands—I lead commercial sourcing for Inspire Brands. Welcome to Procurement Palooza. I’ve been in this industry a long time, and those are two words I can assure you have not been said in the same sentence before. I think my panel would agree. The VA team really hit the nail on the head with this opportunity to bring procurement leaders to the forefront of innovation by connecting them directly with startups and founders and bringing those valuable insights together. With that, I’ll leave it to the rest of the panel, starting with Jerry, to introduce themselves and then we’ll get started.
Good afternoon, everyone. I’m Jerry Williams, staff counsel for Home Depot. I’ve worked with the procurement function for the last 14 years, bringing new vendors on board and partnering with many of our largest and most strategic suppliers. I’m very happy to be here today.
Morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. I’m Jonathan Townsley, Vice President of Sourcing at Fiserv. For me, it’s a new industry. Much like procurement may be new to many of you, I’ve worked for more than 20 years across a variety of industries—from manufacturing to hospitality to now fintech. I’m excited to share some insights with you and learn from you as well.
Good morning, everyone. Great weather for this conference. My name is Nero Galati and I work for Southern Company. I have a very fancy title—Director of Business Excellence—but under the hood I lead all of our supplier relationships across Southern Company, including hardware and software resellers and integrators. I also lead innovation and emerging technology—looking at how new technologies impact our business across power delivery, transmission, customer service, and management systems. In addition, I oversee an area called risk and compliance, which focuses on emerging risks like AI, regulatory programs, and how we balance supplier risk with our broader compliance initiatives. I’m very excited to be here and look forward to interacting with our panelists and all of you.
The goal today is really to demystify enterprise-level procurement for the startup community. To start with that, I’d love for each of you to walk through your process. How do you vet suppliers? At a high level, what does that process look like from end to end?
I’ll start from my perspective. At Fiserv, it takes a lot of coordination, and that starts with procurement. Whenever I’m engaged with a new supplier or a new opportunity to do business with a company, I have to take that supplier through multiple layers of our organization—from legal to finance to product management and operations.
It’s up to me to navigate those waters and make sure that our potential partner understands all the elements of the company they’ll interact with. I have to act as the shepherd to make sure that I’m putting that company’s best foot forward and that my internal stakeholders understand the value they’re bringing. If I don’t do a good job with that, the relationship really can’t go anywhere.
To add to that, every relationship starts with a business need. There’s always a business need that drives engagement with a partner who has a solution to a problem or an opportunity. For us, there are typically two ways suppliers come in. First, the business identifies a need and finds potential partners who can fulfill that opportunity. Second, we receive outreach from companies sharing solutions they believe could benefit us.
Having a business sponsor is the most essential step. Someone needs to want to buy the service in order to bring a supplier in. If you don’t have a service we need, chances are we won’t bring you in. Finding that business sponsor is critical.
Sometimes, if we see something valuable, we’ll introduce potential business sponsors ourselves. But ultimately, we need to ensure there’s real value and a clear driver for bringing in a new supplier.
Many of our business relationships start informally. Often our business partners meet vendors at trade shows. One thing to keep in mind is how important pilots are. For an organization to bet on a new product or service, we want to see how it works. Many smaller or newer relationships begin with a pilot. A vendor might offer their product or service in a single store or region to demonstrate its value. It’s not just a PowerPoint presentation—it’s a show-and-tell situation. That’s how you get a company like Home Depot interested: by demonstrating the value you can bring. If the pilot is successful, then we look at scaling. If we’re going to roll out your product or service to 2,200 or 2,400 stores, we need to know you have the ability to scale. The pilot gives us the chance to test that before moving to the enterprise level.
Building on a few things I heard—identifying a champion and proving you can scale—there are always standards in between those steps.
For startups that are often operating with limited resources, what advice would you give on successfully navigating those standards?
Trust is the foundation. Even if you have limited resources, if I trust that you can navigate our processes and scale up over time, that goes a long way. For me, it starts with establishing credibility and trust. Once that’s there, we can work internally to accommodate areas where you might not yet have full resources.
Trust and credibility really are the foundation. Startups actually have a unique advantage: they’re often on the cutting edge of innovation. Large enterprises don’t move as quickly, so innovation often comes from startups. That said, large companies deeply care about security, risk, and data privacy. Those things are fundamental to the trust we have with our customers. Startups need to balance speed and innovation with strong internal controls that protect enterprise data.
It’s also important to have a plan. You may be small today, but you should know what third-party partners or resources you’ll bring in when it’s time to scale. If we suddenly need to roll something out to hundreds or thousands of stores, we need confidence that you have a plan to get there. You don’t have to be ready immediately, but when the time comes, we need to know you can scale quickly.
Let’s build on that. How do your companies balance risk and innovation internally? What kinds of conversations happen behind closed doors that startups might benefit from understanding?
Planning definitely helps build trust. When I can see a clear plan, it gives me confidence to advocate for you internally and help move things forward.
We also have formal due diligence processes. Every new supplier at Southern Company goes through a validation process to assess risk. We evaluate whether the business is sustainable, whether they protect our data, and whether they meet compliance standards like SOC 2. We also work with a third-party company called Fortress to conduct vendor risk assessments. As a publicly traded company, we have to ensure that the partners we work with can protect our data and support our business objectives.
At the same time, we’re willing to take on more risk if the reward is high enough. When there’s a strong potential partnership, we’ll work with vendors to help mitigate risks on both sides.
Outside of technical standards, you represent three major companies in Atlanta, and I’m sure your inboxes are full of outreach. This region is also known for its diversity. Can you talk about supplier diversity and how it might help entrepreneurs stand out?
Our philosophy is simple: we want to win with whoever wants to win with us. Show us what you have and how it helps us maintain our market position and improve the customer experience.
At Fiserv, supplier diversity is very important. We work with many veteran-owned, women-owned, and Black-owned businesses.
For example, one of our veteran-owned suppliers recently opened a pop-up café in our office building cafeteria. It’s a great example of how we partner with local small businesses and diverse suppliers.
At Southern Company, intentional inclusion is one of our core values. We have a dedicated supplier inclusion program focused on small, minority-owned, and diverse businesses. When we bring those suppliers in, we also help develop and grow them. At the same time, we still evaluate everyone on merit—quality, cost, service, and delivery—because affordability for our customers is a core part of our mission.
Let’s talk about relationships. Networking and relationship-building are often just as important as standards. What qualities help founders succeed during this process—and what qualities make you move away quickly?
I value perseverance. What can be frustrating is suppliers who ping constantly without adding anything new. Monthly check-ins are great if you’re bringing new insights or ideas. Price matters, but it’s not everything. If you show me a new way to solve a problem, that’s far more interesting.
Relationships are really the flywheel. Trust leads to credibility, credibility leads to value, and that value strengthens the relationship. At Southern Company, many supplier relationships last decades. That only happens when partners consistently deliver value and build trust over time.
At Home Depot, we use the word “partner” as a term of endearment for our closest vendors. The best partners understand our business. They know our operations, our existing vendors, and where improvements can be made. People who come prepared, informed, and hungry make it much easier for us to say yes.
We’ve made it more than 20 minutes without mentioning AI. From your vantage point in procurement, what technology trends are you most excited about?
I use AI to save time. It helps me prepare faster, build business cases, and work more efficiently. It gives me a starting point that I can then refine.
AI is a game-changer, especially because it unlocks the value of data. Most companies don’t fully understand their own data. AI allows us to ask natural language questions and quickly uncover insights that would have taken hours to find manually.
We also use AI to understand customer behavior and improve operations. But there’s still something AI can’t tell you: how a vendor will behave when something breaks on a Saturday night. That’s where trust and relationships matter. We want vendors who will be in the trenches with us when things go wrong.
We’re nearing the end of our time, so I’ll ask one final question. What’s the biggest myth about procurement that you’d like to demystify?
One myth is that procurement is only about cost. It’s not. Innovation matters just as much. For example, the bright orange pickup lockers at Home Depot stores started as an idea from a vendor who brought us something new and exciting.
Another myth is that you should go around procurement. Some suppliers try to go directly to the CFO or engineering teams. That’s a mistake. Procurement is often a key stakeholder and influencer. If you involve us early and build trust with us, we can help you succeed internally.
I’ll add one more myth: technology alone isn’t enough. Companies often lead with their technology stack—AI, AWS, Azure—but the real starting point is understanding the customer and their business problem. Technology should come after that.
That brings us right to time. Thank you to our panelists for joining today.
Moderator: Richard Hesse, Inspire Brands
Panelists:
- Neeraj Gulati, Southern Company
- Jonathan Townsley, Fiserv
- Geri Williams, The Home Depot
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the enterprise procurement process?
The enterprise procurement process is how large companies evaluate and approve new vendors before purchasing products or services. For startups, this usually involves internal review across several teams, including procurement, legal, and security. The goal is to confirm the solution delivers value while meeting the organization’s risk and compliance standards.
Why do startups have to go through procurement?
Procurement helps enterprises make informed buying decisions. Before committing to a new vendor, companies need to confirm that the startup can protect sensitive data, operate reliably, and deliver on its promises. The process also ensures the solution aligns with internal priorities and business goals.
How long does enterprise procurement take?
The timeline varies widely depending on the organization and the complexity of the deal. A small pilot project might move quickly, especially if a strong internal champion is involved. Larger deployments, however, often require multiple reviews—legal, security, finance, and operational—which can extend the process.
What documents are required during procurement?
Most enterprise buyers require several forms of documentation before onboarding a vendor. These may include contracts, insurance certificates, responses to security questionnaires, and a data processing agreement (DPA). In some cases, companies will also request proof of compliance frameworks such as SOC 2.
What is a vendor risk assessment?
A vendor risk assessment is an evaluation used to determine whether a supplier is safe to work with. Enterprises review areas like financial stability, cybersecurity practices, data protection measures, and operational reliability. This process helps companies understand potential exposure before formally approving a vendor.
How can startups speed up enterprise procurement?
Startups that move through procurement faster usually have clear documentation ready, understand the buyer’s business priorities, and can demonstrate real-world value through pilots or case studies. Having a strong internal advocate within the enterprise also helps accelerate the process.
Do small startups need SOC 2 to sell to enterprises?
While SOC 2 certification is common in enterprise sales, especially for companies handling sensitive data, it is not always mandatory. Some buyers may accept alternative security documentation or allow startups to work toward certification over time, depending on the level of risk.
What role does procurement play in acquisitions?
Procurement can indirectly influence acquisitions by validating a startup’s enterprise readiness. When a company consistently passes procurement reviews and supports large customers successfully, it demonstrates operational maturity. That credibility can strengthen the startup’s appeal to investors or potential acquirers.
