2026 Mobile Industry Predictions: Insights from Nick Petheram of Nomia

As mobile operators navigate an increasingly complex regulatory, operational, and ESG landscape, procurement is emerging as a critical driver of resilience and competitive advantage. While strategic spend categories such as network infrastructure remain important, many organisations are recognising that tail spend—high-volume, low-value purchasing across fragmented supplier networks—can create significant exposure to compliance, governance, and operational risk if left unmanaged. Greater visibility and control over these transactions is becoming essential for maintaining agility, audit readiness, and supplier accountability.

At the same time, the most effective procurement transformation strategies are combining artificial intelligence with human expertise. AI can rapidly identify patterns, risks, and cost-saving opportunities across large supplier ecosystems, but human judgement remains vital for supplier selection, negotiation, governance, and policy alignment. For telecoms operators, this hybrid approach helps reduce supplier sprawl, strengthen oversight, improve ESG performance, and support faster, more informed decision-making. As customer expectations around service reliability, security, and ethical business practices continue to rise, procurement control is increasingly becoming a foundation of trust and long-term business performance.

Read the full article on Mobile Industry Review.