The cost of your purchases includes “how” you want to buy them. There is a 40x multiplier between buying potatoes from the field and after processing as crisps (chips in the US).
You need to ensure “special requests” that were needed a few years ago haven’t become lodged in the purchasing specification. You may be paying a special price long after the need for the special product has been designed out of your process.
Two examples follow showing the value of an overhead cost reduction review between buyer and seller.
The business I worked in had a major issue with cardboard. We employed someone to compact cardboard boxes before we became swamped with them! The compacting machine was a constant source of maintenance demands and we had to arrange for disposal of the compacted cardboard. The time delay between ordering the compacted waste removal and it happening, meant that most of the time we paid for less than a full load of waste removal or the yard was piled high with cardboard boxes!
The collection and storage of the boxes took up space, was a fire risk and it occurred to me that somebody was paying for these cardboard boxes that we were paying to get rid.
Of course, we were paying for the boxes and paying to dispose of them!
Your operation, whether it is a physical or service provider, has a variety of outputs.
What is your equivalent to the cardboard boxes that we bought, handled, and threw away?
How do you nurture your people’s desire to work?