Tail spend has a specific set of challenges, quite different to those faced with the management of strategic spend. We recently spoke with several procurment leaders about some of these challenges and how they might be addressed.

To be competitive and efficient in today's market it goes without saying that adopting automation in some guise is almost now a prerequisite. 

In recent times, aspects of zero-based budgeting have made an appearance in the spend planning practices of many companies, but this past year has made the case for adopting the concept much stronger.

During the past year, the need for more resilient supplier networks has steadily risen to the top of every CPO's importance list.

In early 2021, IHS Markit conducted a survey with procurement professionals under the title 2021 Supply Chain Insights Global Survey , revealing that "supply chain professionals often lack the tools, data, and platforms needed to diversify their supply chains and optimise their processes."

In April 2021, Forrester Consulting conducted a study commissioned by Ivalua with 454 finance, procurement, and supply chain professionals in which they revealed that 50% of organisations are planning to increase their investments in procurement, and 85% recognise that procurement plays a key role in revenue growth.

Most procurement professionals are aware that tail spend has the potential to hold a lot of hidden value but until it can be managed effectively, extracting that value is difficult. What may also hamper the task of bringing maverick spend to heal, is a failure to understand where the responsibility to do so lies.

One of the most important tools for procurement professionals when planning for strategic purchasing decisions is having the ability to access solid and reliable data. But when it comes to making the same decisions with non-strategic and lower-value spend in the tail, oftentimes, swathes of transactional data flows through the process going uncaptured and under-utilised.

In early March 2020, Wakefield Research led a survey for Tealbook-Research with procurement leaders in which 96% of them agreed that focusing on agility is more important than cost savings for their companies’ bottom line in the long term.