The obvious cost of maverick spend is the premium price paid. The hidden costs — lost leverage, risk and invisibility — are often larger.
What maverick event spend looks like
It's the venue booked directly because it was quicker, the agency engaged on a relationship, the party organised without a sourcing process. Each decision is well-intentioned. Collectively, they bypass every commercial safeguard the organisation has.
The layered cost
- Price — off-process bookings rarely get benchmarked or negotiated, so they pay more.
- Lost leverage — spend that doesn't flow through the framework can't build the volume that wins better terms.
- Risk — suppliers engaged off-process may be uncontracted, uninsured or non-compliant.
- Invisibility — maverick spend never reaches reporting, so it undermines the whole picture.
Every maverick booking is a small tax on the whole programme — it pays more itself and weakens the leverage of everything sourced properly.
Why mandates don't fix it
The instinct is to ban off-process buying. But mandates without enablement just drive the behaviour underground. Teams go maverick when the official route is slower or worse than doing it themselves.
The real fix: make compliance the easy path
Maverick spend collapses when the sanctioned route is genuinely the best option — a fast, well-priced preferred supplier programme that's easier than going direct. That's why consolidating without restricting choice matters so much. Reduce the friction, and compliance follows.