Consolidating Indirect Spend Across Regions

The challenge

An organisation operating across several regions bought indirect categories such as facilities services, IT hardware and professional services locally. Each region had sensible reasons for its choices, but together they produced overlapping contracts, inconsistent terms and little leverage with suppliers that served the whole business.

The approach

The category team began by building a common taxonomy so that spend could be compared like for like across regions. It then separated categories that genuinely benefited from a single strategy from those where local markets, regulation or service needs made a local decision more sensible.

For consolidated categories, regional stakeholders sat on the sourcing teams and helped write the requirements, so the resulting agreements reflected local needs. Frameworks were designed to allow regional call-offs and approved local exceptions rather than forcing every site onto a single supplier.

What changed

Terms became more consistent, supplier relationships clearer and spend easier to track. Regions retained room to respond to local conditions, which kept their support for the programme rather than turning it into a contest between head office and the field.

Lessons for practitioners

Consolidation works best as a deliberate choice category by category, not as a principle applied everywhere. Local agility is preserved by designing for it in the agreement, not by granting exceptions after the fact.