Tail spend, characterized by low-value, high-volume purchases, is often overlooked as procurement teams traditionally focus on key suppliers. This leaves tail spend fragmented and unmanaged despite its potential to unlock value through cost reduction, enhanced compliance, and improved operational efficiency. In today’s age of economic uncertainty, supply chain disruptions, and inflationary pressures, neglecting tail spend is no longer an option. Managing tail spend presents challenges such as noncompliance due to weak policy integration, siloed purchasing practices, and data fragmentation that limits visibility. Direct tail spend management is further complicated due to supplier qualification requirements and intricate processes. However, emerging technologies such as AI, analytics, and autonomous sourcing are transforming how organizations address these issues. This report highlights the importance of tackling tail spend, persistent challenges, and strategic approaches for optimization. It demonstrates how digital solutions can revolutionize tail spend management, enabling streamlined processes, improved user experiences, and significant cost savings. The report also identifies key success factors to ensure sustainable improvements, helping organizations unlock the full potential of managing their tail spend. Scope All industries and geographies Contents In this report, we examine: Tail spend management’s importance Modern procurement design principles to effectively manage tail spend Unlocking value through technology in tail spend management Key factors for successful tail spend programs Membership(s) Procurement and Supply Chain Sourcing and Vendor Management

Risk management is a vital component of supplier management and is in the spotlight today amid the evident failure of certain large corporations to build adequate resilience in their operating models. Organizations realize that they can no longer rely on an established operating model and have started looking at risk management strategically to gain a competitive edge and stay relevant in a fast-evolving landscape. Third-party Risk Management (TPRM) is the procurement function’s responsibility in most organizations. While this function is part of a wider risk strategy under a risk-focused group, procurement typically manages the TPRM program, including outsourcing-related risks. Deriving strategic value from risk management requires buyers to adopt a risk-conscious approach to manage their outsourcing portfolios. As buyers chart their approaches to achieve the target risk management maturity, they need to factor in multiple considerations to decide the best-fit risk management program for managing outsourcing-related risks, including treating risk management as a strategic differentiator, shifting the ownership to strategy leaders, increasing technology leverage, and focusing on risk management transformation. In this viewpoint, we study the outsourced risk management landscape, with a focus on supply 
base / location risks and service provider risks. We outline the factors necessary to build a best-in-class risk management organization by outlining the key challenges with current risk management practices and ways to develop comprehensive risk management capabilities. Scope Risk management processes across supply base / location risks and supplier risks All geographies and industries Contents In this viewpoint, we study the following topics: Current risk management practices Key challenges with current risk management practices Emerging best practices in the risk management domain Membership(s) Procurement and Supply Chain Sourcing and Vendor Management

Procurement, once considered a back-office function, has seen a lot of changes in the last couple of years, with enterprises centralizing and streamlining entire processes, adopting strategic and collaborative approaches with suppliers, and outsourcing to leverage third-party expertise. However, most of these changes are focused on indirect procurement. The direct spend space has seen fewer changes due to enterprise reluctance to outsource a core function, and, therefore, remains riddled with inefficiencies, resulting in huge areas of untapped opportunity. This is where third-party technology and process expertise can help, by mitigating these concerns and guiding enterprises on a transformation journey to innovate direct spend management. This paper explores the intrinsic differences between direct and indirect procurement and discusses challenges in direct spend management. It highlights the benefits of tapping into external expertise, as well as current adoption drivers. Finally, it discusses the key issues for CPOs to consider when planning to outsource direct spend. Membership(s)   Procurement Outsourcing