Tail Spend Management

Turn your overlooked spend into measurable value

Procurato’s Tail Spend Management service helps you gain control over the “long tail” of low-value suppliers and transactions, reducing administrative burden, improving compliance, and unlocking savings.

Why is Tail Spend Management Important?

Most organisations find that around 80% of their suppliers account for just 20% of their spend. This “tail spend” is often scattered across multiple systems, includes one-off purchases and inactive suppliers, and is hard to manage effectively. This fragmentation means tail spend is frequently overlooked, dismissed as a high effort and low reward area of spend.

At Procurato, we take a structured approach to tackling the tail. Using our SpendQube analytics platform and procurement expertise, we map, segment, and action your tail spend. The result is cleaner data, fewer suppliers, and a procurement function that is easier to manage.

How it helps your business

Cost Savings with Real Impact

Aggregating tail spend into managed categories reduces purchase prices and generates measurable savings.

Lower Administrative Burden, Freeing Up Your Team

Reducing the number of suppliers, purchase mechanisms, and transactions means less time spent on approvals, PO processing, and supplier set up.

Better Visibility & Control
A clearer view of spend helps you spot non-compliant purchases, remove inactive suppliers, and improve policy compliance across the business.

Lower Risks

Reviewing and rationalising spend reduces exposure and creates a more controlled and resilient supply base.

Overview

How it works

Our Tail Spend Management service brings clarity and control to the long tail of suppliers, turning what is often seen as high-effort, low-return spend into a source of measurable value.

We begin by mapping your entire supplier base and running Pareto analysis to identify the “tail” – typically the 80% of suppliers that account for just 20% of spend. This provides a fact-based starting point for action.

Next, we segment the tail into meaningful categories such as one-off purchases, spot buys, inactive suppliers, and areas for consolidation. This segmentation allows us to develop targeted strategies that reduce complexity, improve compliance, and unlock value.

Once the strategy is agreed, we partner with you to bring it to life. Through structured tail spend management, we equip your team with the tools and processes to monitor activity, manage supplier onboarding, and maintain a lean, well-governed supply base that consistently delivers long-term value.

What you get from Tail Spend Management

Our Deliverables

Tail Spend Analysis

A clear, data-driven view of your supplier tail, segmented by spend type and category.

Action Plan by Segment

Specific recommendations to address non-compliant spend, one-off purchases, spot buys, and inactive suppliers.

Supplier Consolidation & Clean-up

Rationalisation of supplier base, removal of inactive suppliers, and introduction of preferred options.

Process & Policy Improvement

Recommendations to streamline purchase mechanisms, control new supplier creation, and improve compliance.

Team Training & Handover

Capability uplift to enable your team to manage tail spend continuously.

Why Procurato

We combine real industry expertise with technology that adds value. We speak the same language as your teams, avoiding consultancy complexity, and deliver insights in a clear, practical way.

Agile and adaptable, we stay aligned with your agenda even when challenges arise, always focused on delivering what we promise and leaving behind solutions that last.