Maverick buying – good advice doesn’t have to be expensive.

Key facts about maverick buying.

First and foremost, maverick buying is a phenomenon that affects all companies. Although the term itself has different definitions in technical literature, they are similar at their core and the idea can be distilled down to “procuring items outside the scope of standardised procurement channels”, as published by Helmut Wannenwetsch, for example.

Please note that in a nutshell, the phenomenon of maverick buying can be said to include all purchases of materials, as well as services, which are made outside the scope of negotiated framework agreements or by circumventing defined procurement processes and thus excluding the relevant individuals in the Purchasing department.

Causes of maverick buying

The causes of maverick buying are as varied as those who do it in companies. In some cases, when people search for suitable C-parts or consumables online, they come across (what seems to be) an unbeatably low-cost offer. However, the crux of the matter is that if they first have to run it by the Purchasing department, as they are meant to, they lose time. In many cases, the low-cost offer expires as a result. Their main concern is to respond quickly to take advantage of the offer.

In other cases, people have to work with their department to respond quickly to deadline pressure from customers, and in doing so bypass the Purchasing department. After all, it’s all about keeping customers happy!

In many cases, however, it is also simply the case that those concerned in the technical departments are not aware of the regulations laid down by the Purchasing department, meaning they do not know what the correct steps are and simply order what they need. It is also often true that companies do not have structured C-parts management or lean processes when procuring consumables. These examples clearly show that a wide range of scenarios can arise when it comes to maverick buying and managing consumables. The thing that unites all of them is that unnecessary costs are incurred. Since the phenomenon of maverick buying is a real money pit for companies of all sizes, experts are also looking into it.

Maverick buying is not about the need for materials

At an academic level*, the reasons for maverick buying have now been set out in detail:

Intentional maverick buying: If employees buy C-parts (or other goods) without involving the Purchasing department, one of the reasons may be because they receive or have received a personal advantage from the supplier.

Accidental maverick buying: An employee orders an urgently needed C-part from supplier A because they do not know that the company has a framework agreement with supplier B.

Absolute necessity: A consumable is required so urgently to fulfil the order that it is ordered outside business hours from the nearest supplier who can be reached straight away.

Well-intentioned action: Consumables are ordered with good intentions from a supposedly low-cost supplier.

Reckless purchasing: Employees purchase consumables while deliberately bypassing existing procurement processes.

*Katja Seifert, 2010, “Maverick Buying – Ursachen, Konsequenzen und Lösungsansätze” [Maverick buying – causes, consequences and solutions], Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/193053

How to eliminate maverick buying.

In your role as a Managing Director or controller, do you also believe that you need to take measures to guarantee the best possible security of supply in your company?

Then take action! No matter whether maverick buying is caused by stress during production or a lack of trust in the Purchasing department, or whether the Production employee cannot wait for a C-part and therefore simply orders it themselves: it will without doubt end up costing you money – each and every time.