# Ivan Canovese

Ivan Canovese advises businesses on procurement and cost management, including how to understand supplier costs, improve purchasing decisions and prepare for supply-chain risks.

- Profile: https://b2binfluencer.marketing/creators/ivan-canovese/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivancanovese
- LinkedIn followers: 3,801
- Topics: artificial-intelligence, supply-chain, procurement, supply-chain-risk, ai-in-procurement
- Based on 16 dated posts, latest 2026-09-04

## Summary

Ivan Canovese is most useful for practical procurement, cost management and supply-chain risk commentary for B2B decisions.

- Best for: A procurement consulting firm or cost-intelligence platform commissioning advisory content on cost intelligence and supply-chain risk.
- Not for: Mass-market consumer, lifestyle, or sponsorship campaigns needing large consumer reach and sponsored-post performance.
- Check first: Confirm audience data and any documented sponsorship format or comparable post performance before contacting them.

### Takeaways

- Cost and risk work belongs before the event, not after it.
- The problem is not too little data, but data without direction.
- AI earns its place by taking supplier prices apart.

## Main ideas

- **Cost and risk work belongs before the event, not after it**: Canovese argues that companies treat cost optimisation as an emergency to handle when there is time, and supply-chain risk as an abstract worry. Both fail for the same reason: by the time a problem is visible, the company is managing damage rather than preventing it. The fix has two parts. First, put analysis on the calendar, turning a slower operational period into a working window for supplier and cost analysis, with decisions ready before the market or a supplier moves. Second, build visibility: know where suppliers are, how their prices fluctuate and which competitive alternatives exist. They say only a minority of companies take a preventive approach, while many remain reactive, and argue that integrated monitoring lets a company see real costs and potential changes.
- **The problem is not too little data, but data without direction**: Several posts challenge the assumption that more reporting solves cost problems. Canovese writes that dashboards, reports and KPIs can look perfect on paper while a company is still navigating by sight: the real question is whether the information guides decisions. Fragmented data gives only half the story, and a cost that is measured but not controlled remains uncontrolled. The missing element, they say, is direction: cost intelligence that also takes in marginal cost lines, which can matter more than expected.
- **AI earns its place by taking supplier prices apart**: Canovese's most concrete claim about AI in procurement concerns decomposition. Applied to procurement, AI can break a supplier's price into raw materials, logistics, labour and margin; separate genuine cost increases from simple markup; and cut analysis time from weeks to minutes. That can move procurement from a tactical function to a value lever for CFOs and CEOs—but only, they insist, when AI is used with judgement rather than as a data tap.
- **Overlooked cost lines are where control is won**: Canovese argues that companies judge a service by its visible unit—an hourly rate or supplier invoice—and miss the variables that determine total cost and quality. A mundane category becomes the test case: hygiene and workplace safety are non-negotiable, so the task is not to cut the service but to treat it as an optimisable category, controlling cost, frequency and efficiency. The same logic runs through the CFO material, where marginal cost lines are said to carry more weight than they appear to.
- **Geopolitical volatility is a reason to move, not to freeze**: Canovese focuses on a specific chokepoint: the 30 km Bab el-Mandeb strait between Yemen and Djibouti, which carries 12% of seaborne oil and more than 20% of international containers. They set out what a full closure would do to oil prices and trade between Asia, Europe and Africa. The conclusion is behavioural rather than fatalistic: companies that respond well are not waiting for stability. They are more selective, analyse costs more closely, renegotiate contracts before the market moves, reduce supply-chain fragility and secure energy at better prices. Canovese calls this a change of mindset and warns against using uncertainty as an excuse to slow down.
- **Ask why before proposing**: The promotion post is chiefly a statement of method. Canovese says the move to Senior Partner at ERA Group EMEA followed significant thresholds of projects managed and revenue generated, but argues that the real achievement is trust: a CFO returning for a second project, a procurement director introducing them to another company, or an operations director returning with a new problem. Their working habits are humility, listening before proposing, asking why something has always been done a certain way before suggesting an alternative, and building tailored paths rather than bringing ready-made answers.

## Work to read

- [Being named Senior Partner at ERA Group EMEA](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ivancanovese_quando-ci-si-guadagna-un-titolo-nuovo-activity-7437082370660360193-6Kgm)
- [AI applied to procurement: decomposing supplier prices](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ivancanovese_oggi-il-problema-non-%C3%A8-la-mancanza-di-dati-activity-7422579276710838272-Sh-I)
- [Bab el-Mandeb and the procurement response to geopolitical risk](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ivancanovese_incertezza-economica-aziende-caute-activity-7452261106523271169-sjCX)
- [A cost-intelligence report aimed at manufacturing CFOs](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ivancanovese_cost-to-make-cost-to-move-report-era-group-activity-7439601590925303808-yMtP)
- [Cleaning services as a case study in indirect cost](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ivancanovese_pulizie-spesa-necessaria-e-ottimizzabile-activity-7458417963789082624-06Xj)
- [Visibility, data and proactive risk management](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ivancanovese_la-gestione-del-rischio-non-%C3%A8-un-concetto-activity-7426905293839654912-nrFq)

## Brand relationships

- **ERA Group** (employment)

## Partnerships

Ivan Canovese's posts offer no sponsorship or paid-partnership format. They read as practitioner commentary on procurement, cost management and supply-chain risk, while the promotional elements point to his organisation's own content: a cost-intelligence report offered to manufacturing CFOs and an article on how AI is changing procurement. Canovese describes himself as Senior Partner for EMEA at ERA Group, a consulting firm, positioning his publishing within a consultancy practice rather than a creator sponsor programme. For a brand seeking a content partnership on cost intelligence and supply-chain risk, the likely fit is commissioned or co-authored advisory material, not a packaged sponsorship slot. Ask directly about availability, terms, deliverables and pricing; the posts provide no rate card, media kit, sponsorship policy or published sponsorship example.

## Alternatives

- Guido Aru: Pick Guido Aru when the partner's real problem is the gap between procurement and finance rather than supply-chain disruption. The two posts work through exactly that moment: a procurement function presents a 10% saving to the board, the CFO asks where the number shows up in the accounts, and the answer is vague — because one side measures discount against a previous list price while the other measures margin, cash and payment days. Aru also frames the follow-on question that matters to a budget committee: reconstruct spending by supplier instead of by cost centre, and the same product bought at different terms by different departments, overlapping contracts and one supplier listed under three commercial names start to appear. If the campaign's decision moment is a CFO questioning a procurement slide, this is closer to that moment than Canovese's wider cost-intelligence framing.
- Michele Sciabarrà: Choose Michele Sciabarrà when the campaign is about AI capability, software product decisions or a founder-led technical story — for instance, a platform selling developer tooling or AI products that wants a first-person account of running a company. The posts show that directly: sharing the chief executive role with a co-founder and taking the CTO title to stay close to the product, and an argument that AI-written software and AI-assisted work change what programmers are for. For a partner running a campaign about how AI changes a technology organisation, this is a more specific match than a cost-focused creator.
- Alessandra Salimbene: Choose Alessandra Salimbene when the buyer is a small-business or retail operator rather than a manufacturer's finance chief — in optical retail and comparable owner-managed sectors — or when the campaign is about getting AI and digital tools actually used inside a business that has little marketing structure. The posts diagnose why separate campaigns, CRM, social and AI initiatives fade out one after another, and ask how much of a working week is structured clearly enough to hand to a model that works unattended for 40 minutes. That last question is a practical test a partner could build content around for small-business audiences.

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AI-assisted summary of public posts. Audience demographics are not available. Engagement appears only where we checked recent posts. Method: https://b2binfluencer.marketing/methodology/