A company thought its procurement was under control.
Then we did the math.
It wasn’t a company in crisis.
No chaotic purchasing. No overwhelmed team. No obvious problem.
The company – with a well-oiled procurement team and clear internal processes – felt like things were running smoothly.
Until we sat down and looked at the numbers together.
The First Thing We Found: Maverick Buying
The first finding wasn’t a delivery problem. It was a visibility problem.
Over 23% of all orders were placed completely outside of procurement.
Departments buying directly from suppliers. Orders without approval. Purchases without negotiated terms. Spending that no one was consolidating.
That’s called maverick buying — and it’s one of the most common and costly blind spots in procurement. Not because anyone has bad intentions. But because no one offered an easier alternative.
What do these uncontrolled purchases actually cost? That’s rarely something you can tell at first glance — because by definition, they go unrecorded. That’s exactly the problem.
The Second Finding: Spot Buying Without a Process
The second area that stood out immediately was how the company handled short-term needs.
One-time orders. Urgent purchases. Materials needed once and never again.
For every single case: a new supplier searched, a new quote requested, a new invoice processed. No structure, no consolidation, no negotiating leverage.
A structured spot-buy process – a clear solution for exactly these one-off orders — was entirely absent. Instead, every department solved the problem on its own. Sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, sometimes expensively, always laboriously.
The result: a significant share of procurement capacity was absorbed by operational one-offs — instead of being used for supplier terms, strategic sourcing, or cost reduction.
What the Numbers Showed
Over 340 active suppliers — for a company that would be better served by a fraction of that number.
More than 60% of supplier relationships consisted of one-time orders — each one with its own process, its own invoice, its own time cost.
And underneath it all: a classic tail spend problem. Many small orders, many small suppliers, high process overhead — for spending that seems insignificant in isolation but adds up to a significant burden in total.
This isn’t an exception. It’s what we regularly find when we actually look at procurement data — regardless of company size.
What We Changed Together
Making Maverick Buying Visible — and Reducing It
The first step wasn’t a new system. It was transparency. We mapped out together where orders were bypassing procurement — and why. In most cases, not out of bad intent, but because the official channel was too slow or too complicated.
The solution: make the right path easier than the wrong one.
Structuring Spot Buy
For one-time orders and short-term needs, we set up a clear process — and took over the operational handling. That means: procurement passes on the requirement, we source, negotiate, and deliver a single consolidated invoice. No new supplier, no new overhead, no lost time.
Supplier Consolidation
At the same time, we conducted a structured analysis of the supplier base. Which suppliers deliver real value? Which ones have grown organically over time and are now redundant? Which ones have grown organically over time and are now redundant? The result was a significantly leaner supplier base — with better terms and less administrative overhead.
What This Client Has Today
The procurement team now spends significantly less time on order processing, supplier correspondence, and operational firefighting.
And significantly more time negotiating terms, evaluating suppliers, and thinking strategically.
That’s the real value. Not just cutting costs — but getting capacity back.
Is Your Procurement Actually Running Well?
The honest answer is: you often don’t know — until someone does the math.
Maverick buying, unstructured spot purchasing, a supplier base that grew without a plan — these aren’t signs of bad procurement. They’re signs of a procurement function that grew with the company, without the processes keeping pace.
It happens in small companies just as much as in mid-sized and large ones. The scale changes. The pattern stays the same.
A structured analysis of procurement spend can reveal where potential lies — in a short amount of time. No months-long overhaul. No major project. One conversation and an honest assessment.
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