Why Maverick Spend is a Warning Sign of Poor Platform Adoption
Article originally published on LinkedIn and featured in Procurement Magazine
When employees repeatedly bypass procurement, it’s easy to treat the problem as one of behaviour.
Perhaps stakeholders don’t respect the process. Perhaps they’re in a hurry. Or perhaps they prefer the suppliers they already know.
Those factors can all play a part. But there’s another question procurement teams should ask, is the approved route genuinely the easiest route?
If buying through the proper process takes longer, requires more knowledge or creates more work, people find another way. Over time, those workarounds become normal and procurement loses visibility over more of the organisation’s spend.
The cost of working outside the process
Maverick spend remains a common problem, including in organisations with established procurement teams, approved suppliers and technology already in place.
The issue is rarely one isolated purchase. It’s the combined effect of activity taking place through email, spreadsheets, direct supplier conversations and other routes that sit outside procurement’s view.
When purchases are made outside approved channels, organisations may pay higher prices, miss contracted terms or continue buying from suppliers that procurement has not assessed. Finance also loses a clear view of where money is being spent and whether negotiated savings are being realised.
The effect builds over time. A small number of urgent purchases, familiar supplier choices or spreadsheet-led sourcing exercises can gradually become an accepted way of working.
Organisations with stronger platform usage tend to manage more spend through approved processes. This gives them better visibility, more influence over supplier decisions and a greater chance of turning negotiated value into measurable results.
The real challenge is adoption. Having a procurement process is not the same as getting people to use it consistently. Every suitable category or sourcing event brought into the approved route gives procurement more control and more opportunity to demonstrate value.
This raises an age-old question, should the use of an e-sourcing platform be mandated?
Mandatory purchase orders, tighter approvals and supplier restrictions can all play a part. But these stick-style controls rarely solve the problem on their own. If the platform remains difficult to use, people will still look for faster alternatives.
The debate changes when the approved route is also the easiest route. A platform that is simple to access, quick to learn and practical for everyday sourcing gives users a reason to adopt it. Compliance relies less on enforcement when the easiest option is also the right one.
Why people bypass procurement platforms
Most employees aren’t trying to undermine procurement, they’re just trying to complete a task.
A category manager may need to issue an RFQ quickly. A stakeholder may need a supplier at short notice. An occasional user may only run one sourcing event a year and cannot remember a complicated process from the last time.
Friction can take many forms
- Users need extensive training before they can run an event
- Buyers still return to spreadsheets for analysis
- Supplier communication happens outside the platform
- Templates are difficult to find or adapt
- Teams use only a small part of the available functionality
These problems can affect organisations reviewing new technology and those that already have a platform in place.
For existing users of e-sourcing solutions, the issue may be inconsistent usage across teams, categories or regions. For prospective buyers of a procuretech solution, it may be choosing software that people can use without a lengthy implementation or training programme.
In both cases, the question is the same, does the technology make the procurement process easier to follow?
Start by measuring adoption
Platform adoption should be measured through activity, rather than licences alone.
A system may be technically live while large amounts of eligible spend continue to be managed through email, spreadsheets or established supplier relationships.
Useful questions include
- How much eligible spend runs through the platform?
- How many sourcing events are completed each month?
- How many trained users are active?
- How long does it take a new user to create an event?
- Which categories or business units still work outside the system?
- Where do users return to manual processes?
The answers help distinguish between occasional user friction and a wider structural problem.
Our Adoption Toolkit e-guide is designed to help teams assess their current position and identify where adoption may have stalled.
Prove value before trying to scale it
Organisations often respond to low adoption with more training, stricter enforcement or a new change programme.
An alternative approach is to prove the value of the process through a small number of real sourcing events.
Choose suitable categories. Run the events through the platform. Track the savings, time taken and level of stakeholder involvement. Then use those results to build confidence across the wider organisation.
This approach gives people a reason to adopt the process. It also allows procurement to identify and remove friction before expanding usage.
For teams reviewing software, this means testing the platform through live events before making a wider commitment.
For existing customers, it can mean restarting adoption with a focused set of events, users or categories.
What happens when adoption becomes the priority
A leading global sports retailer faced inconsistent platform use across a decentralised buying team.
Manual sourcing remained common, active user numbers were low and procurement had limited visibility over sourcing activity.
The retailer made adoption a primary measure of success and focused on helping more people use Market Dojo consistently.
Within six months, it achieved
- 400% increase in sourcing events run through the platform
- 200% increase in active users
- 60% reduction in event creation time
The improvement didn’t come from adding more rules. It came from making the sourcing process easier to use, proving its value through real activity. This principle applies whether an organisation is choosing a platform or trying to get more from one it already has.
A practical 90-day adoption reset
A 90-day reset gives procurement a manageable way to diagnose the issue, demonstrate value and expand usage.
Days 1–30: Diagnose
Review how the platform is currently used.
Identify where buyers return to manual processes, which features are underused and which users need more support. Simplify templates and remove unnecessary steps where possible.
Days 31–60: Prove
Select a small number of suitable sourcing events.
Track savings, event creation time, stakeholder participation and supplier response. Use the results to show what the platform can deliver when it is used consistently.
Days 61–90: Expand
Build on the evidence.
Share results with procurement, finance and senior stakeholders. Identify internal champions and extend the approach to more categories, users or business units.
The purpose of the reset is not to fix every adoption issue within three months. It’s to create enough evidence and momentum to support the next stage.
Make the approved route the obvious route
Maverick spend is often treated as a compliance problem. But when people repeatedly work outside the process, procurement needs to examine the user experience of the process and the e-sourcing platform.
Is it clear? Is it accessible? Can people use it without constant support? Does it help them complete their work faster?
When the approved route is easier to follow, usage increases. Procurement gains better visibility, more spend moves under management and negotiated savings are more likely to reach the budget.
The Procurement Adoption Toolkit includes the adoption checklist, Risk Profile Barometer, Design Principles Framework and 90-day reset plan.
Already using Market Dojo? Use the toolkit to identify where adoption could be improved, or speak to your Customer Success contact.
Reviewing your e-sourcing options? Book a discovery call with Market Dojo to see how a proof-first approach could work in practice.
September 17, 2026