Chemicals & Biotechnology procurement teams enter 2026 with continued raw-material volatility, energy exposure, and compliance-driven overhead.
Many 2026 plans are already set; the question is whether targets and initiatives align with what peer organizations are actually achieving in process control, transaction efficiency, supplier structures, and payment-term execution.
This article draws on the Chemicals & Biotechnology State of Spend benchmark dataset. The benchmarks are calculated from aggregated, anonymized, cleansed transactions covering 2024Q3–2025Q2, with ~USD 156B analyzed for this industry slice.
A useful baseline is the median company profile, normalized per USD 1B of spend.
Median Chemicals & Biotechnology procurement profile (per USD 1B of spend):
This profile suggests an operating model with relatively strong control over direct materials, but significant complexity in indirect services and supplier management.
(bottom performers → top performers)
(bottom performers → top performers)
Cost pressure in 2026 is shaped by raw material volatility, energy exposure, and compliance-driven overhead. Benchmarks indicate that structural choices account for most of the cost-control differences.
Across both direct and indirect spend, top performers share three characteristics:
These patterns point to practical actions:
Takeaway for 2026: Cost optimization starts with simplification. Negotiation effectiveness improves once fragmentation and transaction noise are reduced.
In Chemicals & Biotechnology, resilience extends beyond material availability to service continuity, regulatory compliance, and supplier financial stability. Payment-term execution is a measurable differentiator.
For indirect spend, improving from bottom-performer to top-performer invoice-to-due performance corresponds to an average working capital improvement of ~USD 43K per USD 1M of spend (based on category-level differences in invoice-to-due).
Largest working capital improvement opportunities per USD 1M of spend include:
These categories often combine high spend, decentralized buying, and inconsistent term execution.
Takeaway for 2026: Payment discipline is a lever for resilience. Improving term execution in a small number of high-impact categories can materially increase financial flexibility.
AI and AI agents depend on structured procurement data. In practice, this requires:
Benchmark data shows that even organizations with strong overall PO coverage can have blind spots at the service-line level. Low-PO categories commonly include air freight, accommodation/hotels, legal services, telecommunications, and memberships/sponsorships.
These gaps reduce visibility into spend and limit the reliability of analytics and automation initiatives.
Takeaway for 2026: Treat low-PO service categories as data foundation work. Improvements in control and data quality are prerequisites for scaling AI.
A Chemicals & Biotechnology procurement dashboard for 2026 should prioritize KPIs that explain cost control, risk exposure, cash flow, and digital readiness.
Invoice-to-due measures the time between invoice receipt and the contractual due date. Due-to-pay reflects execution against due dates (positive values indicate late payment in this report’s framing).
In Chemicals & Biotechnology, predictable payment execution supports supplier stability and unlocks working capital without renegotiating prices.
Indirect benchmarks:
Invoice-to-due: 27 days (bottom) → 43 days (top)
Due-to-pay: 12.4 days (bottom) vs 2.8 days (top)
Direct benchmarks:
Invoice-to-due: 34 days (bottom) → 46 days (top)
Due-to-pay: 7.2 days (bottom) vs 1.7 days (top)
Benchmarking is the next step for validating 2026 procurement plans. This article summarizes what “typical” looks like in Chemicals & Biotechnology and how top performers differ.
Use these KPIs as a common language with finance, supply chain, and business leaders to:
align on where performance gaps are structural (governance, consolidation, transaction design) versus commercial,
set realistic targets using peer benchmarks (top/average / bottom),
track impact through 2026 in a way that is comparable across sites, categories, and business units.
The full State of Spend report provides the benchmark values and distributions needed to determine where your procurement team is already operating at a leading level and where targeted changes are most likely to deliver the next step of measurable value.