There's a difference between a purchasing team and a procurement function. Many organizations with Asian sourcing operations have the first, but far fewer have the second.
A purchasing team executes. They raise POs, manage vendor relationships day-to-day, chase deliveries, and resolve invoicing issues. Good ones do this very well. But purchasing is typically viewed as a cost center, expected primarily to execute transactions at the lowest achievable cost. It's a reasonable expectation, but it sets a ceiling on what the function can do.
A procurement function owns risk and adds value. It asks which suppliers are single-sourced and why. It models what happens when a key vendor has a bad quarter. It evaluates exposure to currency fluctuations and logistics disruptions before they hit margins. It qualifies backup suppliers before you need them. In short, it avoids costs before they hit your bottom line.
Consider expedite fees alone. Every supply disruption that forces premium freight or emergency sourcing costs money immediately. At typical margins, recovering that through new sales requires several dollars of revenue for every dollar lost. A procurement function that eliminates that cycle should be seen as performing margin protection, not adding overhead.
In my years working in Asia, the procurement function was expected to own these questions - second sources, risk registers, exit plans, with a key mandate of securing supply. Coming back to Canada, I found that many companies had never asked their purchasing teams to think that way. It isn't a gap in talent; it's a gap in what the function was set up to do.