A method for improving performance of a computer procurement application includes using the procurement control system computer, determining a peer group associated with a first entity; using a procurement control system computer, obtaining, from client computers respectively associated with the entities, configurations that instruct a procurement application how to perform procurement tasks for the respective entities of the entities in the peer group; using a procurement control system computer, obtaining, from a first client computer associated with the first entity, a first configuration that instruct the procurement application how to perform procurement tasks for the first entity; obtaining a desired end result from the first entity; using the procurement control system computer, using a machine learning algorithm, determining configurations of the peer groups that have a causal relationship to the desired end result; providing a description of the configuration value to the client computer associated with the first entity.