Indirect cost recovery — Wylie Performance Partners

Good agreements go stale quietly.

Most indirect agreements were signed once, by someone competent, at a moment when the terms were fair. Then pricing moved, technology changed, new entrants priced differently, and the agreement renewed without anyone having a reason to look at it.

That is not waste and it is not mismanagement. It is what happens when a category has no owner — and in most organizations, several of them do not.

The categories

Around fifty in total. We lead with the ones where your spend is largest and your agreements are oldest.

Facilities and property

Waste and recycling · Janitorial supplies and services · Laundry and linen · Pest control · Elevator service · HVAC service · Landscaping · Snow removal · Security services · Maintenance contracts · Equipment rental

Utilities and connectivity

Electricity · Natural gas · Water and sewer · Telecom and wireless · Data and connectivity · Managed network

Supplies and logistics

Office supplies · Medical supply · Food service · Uniforms · Chemicals · Packaging · Freight and parcel · Postage and mail · Fleet and fuel

Business services

Merchant card fees · Insurance brokerage · Payroll processing · Background screening · Temporary labor · Shredding · Copiers and print · Promotional print · Lab services · Software and SaaS · IT hardware

Not every category is worth examining at every organization. Part of the first conversation is telling you which ones are not — a category already well managed, recently tendered, or bound by an agreement with real term remaining is one we would say so about.

How the work runs

Four stages. The first costs nothing and you can stop there.

STAGE 01

Diagnostic

We examine current spend and terms in the categories worth examining. No fee, no commitment.

STAGE 02

Baseline

Before any work begins we agree in writing what you spend today, at today's volumes and terms.

STAGE 03

Execute

We renegotiate or re-source, working with your incumbents first. Changing supplier is not the objective.

STAGE 04

Verify & Earn

Recovery is confirmed against your actual invoices over time, not projected.

What we need from your team

Invoices and current agreements for the categories in scope, and someone who can answer questions about how a category is actually used. Measured in hours, not weeks.

What we do not do

We do not touch headcount, we do not recommend service reductions, and we do not change a supplier to make a number look better. If the incumbent is priced correctly, we will tell you.

WHERE THE RISK SITS

You pay from what is recovered, or you do not pay.

Most advisory work asks you to spend before you know whether anything is there. This does not.

STAGE 01

Diagnostic

you can stop here

STAGE 02

Baseline

agreed in writing

STAGE 03

Execute

incumbents first

STAGE 04

Verify & Earn

a share

of what is verified

YOUR RISK ACROSS THE ENGAGEMENTtime only, until value is verified

Public-sector engagements run on a fixed-scope, non-contingency framework.

We are paid only when value is recovered.

No retainer, no project fee, and no charge for the first examination. Our fee is a share of value verified against your own invoices, for a defined period. If nothing is recovered, there is no invoice from us.

Public-sector engagements run on a fixed-scope, non-contingency framework.

WHAT THE WIDER RESEARCH REPORTS

How large is indirect spend? It depends entirely on the sector.

Published estimates of how much of an organization’s spend sits in indirect categories vary widely by sector, and that variation is itself the point. A single number without industry and category context is close to meaningless.

Indirect categories are commonly estimated at 20% to 40% of an organization’s total spend.

McKinsey & Company, cited in indirect procurement literature

Indirect spend is put at 20–40% in manufacturing, 30–40% in utilities and 60–80% in services, technology and healthcare.

Efficio, 2026

A formal measure of indirect spend per $1,000 of revenue reports a median of $92.31.

APQC, sample of 283 companies

62% of respondents named budget pressure as their leading concern, against 31% the year before.

RS Indirect Procurement Report, 2025

Purchased software licences unused in a given month are put at 30% to 40%.

Software asset management studies, market-wide, 2024–2025

Categories commonly benchmarked: facilities, professional services, MRO, IT and telecom, office supplies, marketing, legal, utilities, waste, HR services and travel.

Computer Economics / Avasant, 2025

These figures describe ranges observed across an industry, drawn from samples that may or may not resemble your organization. We publish the source and the sample size for each one because a range is useful for orientation even when it cannot be a conclusion. None of them describe you.

CONTINUE

See the analysis by sector

Six sectors analyzed separately, and four more where we work.

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Follow the research

The benchmark we are building, published as it goes.

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For CPAs and advisors

How an introduction works, and what it does not put at risk.

Read →

A 45-minute working session. Your numbers. No assumptions.

We bring your spending patterns compared with organizations of similar size and type. You provide the context we cannot see. The outcome is a short, defensible list of categories worth validating — and an equally clear list of categories we should leave alone.

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