“In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.”

― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Executives suddenly have a client in town they need to wine and dine. Shipping has found itself short of an essential supply, as has the front office, and marketing has approved some very expensive new printing plates to accommodate a customer’s last minute artwork change—in the world of supply chain and procurement, stuff is bound to happen.

Although sometimes loud, more often than not, much like high blood pressure, maverick spend, otherwise referred to as rogue spend (the spend that falls outside of corporate rules, guidelines and purchasing processes), can be silent but deadly. Maverick spending is often seen in low-volume, high-frequency purchases, but it can happen anywhere, anytime, stemming from poor communication or overly stringent, time-consuming processes that fail to flex when they need to.

Employees aren’t looking to break the rules, but unclear or overly cumbersome Procure-to-Pay (P2P) processes that fail to meet the needs of end-users open the door to maverick spend as employees are left to their own devices.

But as the military general, strategist, philosopher, and writer Sun Tzu once astutely stated, “In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.”

What rogue spend may be costing your company and why you can’t afford to let it go unchecked

It’s an issue that often goes unaddressed, perceived to be “high effort, low return.” But when left unchecked and untallied, whether creeping in slowly like a thief in the night, undetected and unbothered with invoices falling in just below the allowable limit, or unexpectedly taking large chunks out of your monthly budget, the impacts of unmonitored—and unoptimised—spend can be far greater than realised.

Spending that falls under the radar and outside of negotiated contracts can introduce significant risk to your brand, threaten your long-term viability, undermine your competitive advantage, and stunt growth and profits.

Here’s what limited visibility and control may be costing you.

The high costs of lost opportunities

Up to 80% of Your Spend Is Maverick Spend

Thanks, in large part, to disparate systems and manual processes resulting in a lack of visibility on company-wide purchasing data, keeping to budget and realising cost savings represent a significant challenge for CPOs, CFOs, and enterprises of all shapes and sizes.

Maverick spend can often be riddled with superfluous and redundant purchases and overflowing with opportunity. Perhaps you have varying pricing and terms from the same supplier for the same item across your business units, are buying ten different kinds of tape all at an exorbitant cost, or simply are buying too much or too little of something; your maverick spend may be the “low-hanging fruit” you’re missing out on.

Identifying synergistic opportunities, non-contract spending leading to value leakage and ways to better wield your purchasing power will enable you to realise cost savings and optimise procurement.

Aggregating tail spend (yes, yet another term for maverick spend) into larger, proactively-managed categories can help reduce purchase prices. More importantly, you’ll gain better visibility and control and reduce administrative and labour costs, a number that can be quite significant, depending on the degree of ”clean-up” across your rogue spend. In fact, saving 10% on the tail, which represents 20% of third-party costs, equates to a 2% saving across the entire spend.

The landscape of risk

The landscape of risk has never been harder to manoeuvre, and the implications have never been greater. 


Conscious consumers with the power of social media behind them are quick to call out a corporation’s bad service, quality, or perceived ethical wrong-doings. Meanwhile, governments worldwide are moving swiftly to introduce legislation designed to hold corporations accountable for their environmental impact, sustainability claims made on labels, and any human rights violations found in their supply chains.

For instance, Germany’s Supply Chain Due Diligence Act requires companies to “identify, prevent and address human rights and environmental abuses within their own and their direct suppliers’ operations.”

As CPOs know, it only takes one bad actor or missed shipment to shut your lines, impacting financial outcomes, service levels, brand reputation, operational efficiencies, market stance and long-term business viability.

Whether the value of spend is big or small, direct or indirect, the following areas of risk may be hiding in your rogue spend:

  • poor sustainability or ethical labour practices
  • cybersecurity
  • legal and regulatory compliance
  • inflation
  • extreme weather 
  • geopolitics (leading to large shifts in tariffs or sanctions)
  • volatile currencies
  • supplier solvency
  • quality
  • scarcity of raw materials
  • labour strikes
  • theft and tampering

Who you choose to do business with matters greatly. When the risk landscape is so vast, even when purchases technically meet your buying rules and guidelines, any unmonitored spend can introduce significant risk of all kinds.

Over-reliance on a single supplier or region, opaque global supply chains, unvetted suppliers and unapproved materials or services all create vulnerability points CPOs must mitigate. And technology, combined with human expertise, is the only real way to get there.

Leveraging technology and expertise to turn risk into opportunity and reduce maverick spend

If there is one lesson that Covid taught supply chain professionals, it’s that it all starts with visibility. There is no greater threat than one that lies in hiding, increasing your time to action and limiting your ability to respond.

However, managing risk and cost is complex, requiring the right data delivered in the right forms and at the right level of detail. Identifying geopolitical or currency risks, for example, is easier when you can map out your supply chain. Prioritising cost savings initiatives requires spend analysis by categories and by supplier.

Yet too much data can often lead to decision paralysis. The trick is simplified but powerful procurement data analytics that deliver the most valuable insights and help you answer common spending questions, track real-time trends, and dig deeper into your spending with easy-to-use dashboards.

Well, that and some knowledgeable experts armed with decades of procurement expertise who know how to execute.

Procurato and SpendQube: Your empowerment partners

From procurement consultants to revolutionary procurement software, SpendQube and Procurato empower procurement specialists to reduce maverick spend, mitigate risk and realise hard cost savings.

SpendQube unifies your spend data so that you can bring it all together and start comparing suppliers to themselves and each other, illuminating business savings opportunities in customisable intuitive dashboards that make your business savings opportunities obvious.

Procurato offers deeply experienced industry experts—not consultants, but doers with unparalleled expertise in complex categories that assist you in delivering real savings through sourcing execution rather than PowerPoint recommendations.

Ready to pick that low-hanging fruit? Give us a call to arrange a demo.