Investigative Services Category Procurement Intelligence Report

The market for Operational Services and its sub-segments such as Investigative Services are at an interesting intersection. Companies are putting a great premium on sustainability and green practices within their entire value chain and business operations. Suppliers are not only expected to understand these practices but also demonstrate a solid history of abiding to similar principles.

Suppliers are no more just the experts in Investigative Services. Many are moving up the value chain and offering integrated services that go beyond just Investigative Services. This new business model helps buyers on multiple counts, such as fewer suppliers to manage, cost savings arising of volume buying and long-term strategic partnerships with a chosen few suppliers that maximize the ROI and allow for strategic optimization experiments.

Even as technological prowess of suppliers is increasing and processes are routinely being digitalized, there is a growing concern around putting critical data and information in the hands of a third party. Buyers are making elaborate contracts that aim to prevent intentional or unintentional data leakage or theft.

Trends like these and many others discussed in this report are necessitating a relook at the way Investigative Services is procured and the procurement cost saving opportunities that exist.

Investigative Services procurement best practices are moving towards a level of sophistication which is typically seen in traditional procurement categories. Category managers now have an attractive opportunity to adapt the best practices seen within this category as well as those being leveraged in other non-related categories. This report summarizes the best practices picked from across multiple categories that could work well for category managers involved with Investigative Services procurement strategy.

For example, There is a shift in focus toward minimizing emissions and energy usage to achieve sustainability goals. Buyers should monitor and evaluate the energy consumption of suppliers' operations before procurement. This also helps adherence with standards mandated by various national and international regulatory authorities.

Competitive bidding as a cost optimization tool is extremely potent but should be carefully deployed only when there is no significant differentiation among Investigative Services suppliers.

Large organizations are optimizing category spend by eliminating tail-spend service providers and engaging with a single service provider to meet buyers' needs. Buyers generally prefer to engage with preferred global suppliers. However, if global suppliers do not have an operational presence in a specified country, buyers should engage with local/regional service providers.

Investigative Services procurement managers also need to proactively identify and mitigate potential risks that can arise in the supply chain or contracts for Investigative Services procurement. Some examples include: