Pooling demand before purchasing
Most businesses still buy like it’s 2003.
One person orders office supplies. Another orders janitorial. Another orders IT gear. Different vendors. Different prices. Different timing. Nobody knows total demand until after the money is already spent.
Pooling demand before ordering flips that model.
Instead of 20 people making 20 small purchases, you coordinate demand first, then go to market with leverage. That changes everything:
Better pricing from volume
More negotiating power with suppliers
Cleaner forecasting
Fewer duplicate purchases
Better visibility into spend
Easier standardization across teams/locations
Ability to run RFQs with real volume behind them
And the crazy part is the internet should have solved this years ago. We coordinate rides, food delivery, hotel pricing, even social networks in real time — but a lot of businesses still buy operational products in fragmented silos.
The companies that figure out how to organize demand before the order happens are probably going to have a massive advantage on indirect spend over the next few years.