Video
DPW Amsterdam 2025 | Keynote
20 minutes
Description
Across these DPW Amsterdam clips, LightSource CEO Spencer Penn lays out a blunt truth: procurement has spent decades optimizing the edges while ignoring the core. Direct Materials, where the real money, complexity, and risk live, are still managed with spreadsheets, email, and tools never designed for the job. The result is chaos disguised as control and teams that save millions without visibility, leverage, or credit.
Penn walks through the history of procurement technology, explaining how incentives, misconceptions, and vendor priorities pushed innovation toward Indirect spend. He breaks down how physical products are actually delivered, from design through production, and why the gap between PLM and ERP has never been properly addressed. That gap is where procurement teams struggle most.
The answer, he argues, is Spec-to-Scale. A purpose-built operating system for Direct Materials that connects specifications to scaled production, works across industries, and finally reflects how modern enterprises build physical goods. As AI lowers the barrier to powerful yet usable systems, the case for rethinking Direct procurement is no longer theoretical. It’s overdue.
Speakers
Spencer Penn
CEO & Co Founder
Key moments
The big flow of dollars: Why Direct procurement is the "Elephant in the room"
Spencer Penn recounts running the $30B Tesla Model 3 supply chain on spreadsheets and email, exposing how broken Direct Materials procurement still is. While vendors chase tail spend, the real money and the real pain in Direct has been ignored for decades.
Direct materials: The Spec-to-Scale operating system
Direct Materials were never meant to live inside Source-to-Pay tools built for Indirect spend. Penn introduces Spec-to-Scale as the missing operating system that finally connects PLM to ERP.
Incentives drive tech adoption: The waves of procurement tech
Procurement tech has evolved in waves, but nearly all of it was built for Indirect spend. Penn explains why incentives drive adoption and why Direct Materials now demand purpose-built systems.
The AI revolution: Sophisticated systems with a simple UI
AI flips the complexity tradeoff, making powerful enterprise systems usable without making them painful. Penn positions LightSource as a full Direct Materials ecosystem that manages physical products from spec to scale.
The Plight of the Proletariat: Why procurement is undervalued
Procurement saves millions but still works in Excel, while sales gets paid and praised with CRM. Penn calls out the imbalance and why procurement remains undervalued despite its impact.
What it takes to deliver a vehicle: The supply chain lifecycle
OEMs don’t make cars, suppliers do, and procurement sits at the center of that complexity. Penn breaks down the lifecycle and explains why success depends on a system that bridges PLM and ERP.
Spec-to-Scale: The philosophy for every physical product
Spec-to-Scale applies to any company that builds physical products, no matter the industry or terminology. Different names, same problem, and the same need for Direct-focused systems.
The procurement pendulum: From Direct systems to Indirect noise
Procurement’s focus swung from Direct to Indirect, and the industry followed the wrong money. Penn argues it’s time to swing back, with Spec to Scale as the system of record Direct has been missing.
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