Report

The 2025 CPO Survey Report

Tariffs, inflation, and global trade shifts are pushing leaders to find new ways to manage risk, build resilience, and reduce costs. Small suppliers are emerging as a critical lever, but scaling their impact is still a challenge.

Supplier.io’s 2025 CPO Survey Report, based on insights from more than 150 enterprise executives including CPOs, CFOs, and CEOs, uncovers how companies are turning to small suppliers to stay competitive and the roadblocks holding them back.

Scaling Small: Inside the Enterprise Push to Source Smarter and Stay Competitive

What’s inside:

CPO priorities for 2025 and the forces shaping sourcing strategies
Data on how small suppliers drive savings, resilience, and faster time-to-market
The execution gap: why enterprises struggle to scale despite near-universal intent
The high cost of failure when vetting and onboarding break down

Get insights from over 150 enterprise executives on sourcing with small suppliers.

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Key findings include:

Enterprises are shifting strategies in response to disruption.

91% of leaders adjusted their small business sourcing in response to recent or anticipated tariffs; 71% increased spend with U.S.-based small suppliers.

Small suppliers deliver measurable ROI.

Executives reported improved quality (56%), greater resilience (53%), reduced costs (50%), and faster time-to-market (44%).

Scaling remains the top barrier.

96% of leaders would source more from small suppliers if it were easier to find, vet, and onboard them, yet small businesses still account for just 7% of enterprise spend.

The cost of failure is high.

41% of enterprises experienced a failed small supplier partnership in the past year, with consequences ranging from multimillion-dollar financial losses (66%) to delayed product launches (48%) and reputational damage (24%).