Indirect procurement covers all purchases that do not flow into the product sold — services, IT, marketing, fleet, facility management, travel, office supplies.
The counterpart. Direct procurement buys production material, tightly coupled to production planning. Indirect procurement is fragmented, decentralised, rarely repeating.
Why it's harder to govern. Requirements arise across many business units at once. Where it feels slow, maverick spend follows; the same structure produces tail spend.
Where the value sits. The main lever is raising spend under management.