A recent survey from the Centre for Strategic Supply Research (or CAPS to you and I) found that almost two-thirds of supply chain professionals viewed the procurement of services as being more problematical than just plain old materials and component procurement.

Why so? Well, if the survey’s findings are to be believed, the sheer weight of supplier numbers for the buying of direct services - on average respondents dealt with 105 active suppliers, as opposed to 36 active suppliers for the purchasing of direct materials – dictates that buyers often struggle to develop a proactive management approach.

Couple this with, amongst other factors, the fact that less than 60 per cent of services spending takes place through formal systems and processes and you get an understanding of why this is still an area giving many in procurement a considerable headache.

However, according to CAPS, the comparative neglect of services procurement spend in recent years – and the outsourcing of many other back-office operations – means that greater focus is now being placed on an area that can, the research claims, deliver the kind of cost savings needed at a time when many organisations are doing up their belts just a notch or two tighter.

Some companies are already well ahead of the competition, most notably Bank of America, who claims supply management is involved in 100 per cent of its service purchases. To prove their point they’ve upped their resources in an area that is, typically, short in both numbers and the requisite talent.