Today, procurement is evolving into a more strategic discipline, driven primarily by a greater awareness of the financial implications of executing this function well. Almost two-thirds of the money currently spent on offshore oil and gas projects goes to procure goods and services, so the return on investment from well-executed strategic procurement and supply chain management can be very high. What are the characteristics of world-class procurement functions and what identifies the best engineering and construction firms in the procurement arena? Successful companies are characterized by an unyielding focus on center-led procurement, strategic sourcing, supplier integration, enterprise-spend management, supplier diversity, and cross-industry benchmarking, each of which is addressed in the article.