Higher education procurement teams are shifting from traditional cost-containment to building institutional agility that anticipates needs and reallocates spending in real time, a sector analysis finds. The report argues procurement should enable campus decision-making through unified systems, improved spend analytics and faster approval cycles. Authors highlighted five pillars of agile procurement—unified systems, transparency, analytics, risk-aware sourcing and empowered users—and recommended technology adoption to close agility gaps. The analysis cited that roughly 25% of operating budgets flow through procurement, underscoring why procurement reform can materially affect an institution’s ability to respond to enrollment changes, funding shocks and strategic priorities.