In contrast to direct procurement, indirect spend includes everything that goes into running a business that isn’t directly tied to the end product, such as maintenance, repairs, and operations (MRO), marketing, facilities, consumables, fleet, freight, travel and IT. Although it can make up as much as 50% of a company’s total purchases, it doesn’t often get the attention it should. The problem with ignoring indirect spend, however, is that you could be missing out on...

Many organizations struggle with poor procurement spend visibility or lack it completely. Think about the old adage, “you can’t control what you can’t measure,” and you’ll realize that this is an ongoing challenge with large enterprise organizations. Without visibility into what your organization is spending, you have no way to control it. The top, and the most obvious, reason why most organizations struggle with spend management and compliance is that the majority of procurement spend...