TL;DR
- One of the most common reasons procurement teams give for skipping GPO membership is some version of "we prefer to work alone."
- But going it alone means missing out on Una's average 18 to 22% savings across core indirect categories, with access to more than $100 billion in combined member purchasing power.
- The usual objections (relevance, better savings solo, inflexibility, losing control of strategy) don't hold up once you look at how membership actually works.
- Members choose which categories to participate in. Nothing is mandatory, and nothing about your existing strategy gets replaced.
- "Alone" looks different depending on team size and purchasing power, but the disadvantage shows up in every version.
You're a top-performing procurement pro. Like your hero (Batman), you think of yourself as a bit of a lone wolf. You're part of a team, sure, but you prefer to handle things your own way.
Aaaaand you've just missed out on 18 to 22% in cost savings across several key indirect categories.
At Una, we have dozens of conversations with procurement professionals every week, and one of the most common reasons we hear for not joining a group purchasing organization is some version of "we prefer to work alone." Fair enough, as far as it goes.
But lone-wolf procurement teams are missing out on the collective leverage of more than $100 billion in combined purchasing power. Below, we debunk the most common reasons teams give for going it alone, and look at why bulk purchasing power tends to win out regardless.
Lone-Wolf Procurement: Why Go It Alone?
A handful of concerns come up frequently when procurement teams explain why they've stayed out of a GPO.
Won't joining a GPO make me less relevant?
The opposite tends to happen. Outsourcing transactional categories to a GPO expands the scope of what your team controls, since you're no longer spending your time chasing quotes on office supplies or shipping. That freed capacity goes toward the categories and relationships that make procurement genuinely visible to leadership, which is a stronger position than staying stretched thin across everything.
Can't we get better savings on our own?
Sometimes, for specific categories. Nothing about GPO membership requires you to participate in every category on offer, or even most of them. Use it where it helps and keep running your own sourcing everywhere it doesn't. Even in categories where your own negotiation might edge out the average, you're still bypassing a time-consuming RFP and sourcing cycle, freeing that time for the categories where your own leverage genuinely matters more.
Can a GPO accommodate our specific requirements?
A well-run GPO builds that flexibility in rather than forcing a one-size-fits-all agreement. Members participate directly in structuring supplier terms, and can negotiate adjustments where a category has requirements the standard contract doesn't cover. It's closer to a starting point you can shape than a fixed package you have to accept as is.
Will this replace my procurement strategy?
Members control the GPO relationship, not the other way around. Think of it as an additional resource that takes select non-core categories off your plate, so your team can put more weight behind the strategic sourcing work that actually needs a human making judgment calls, not a rubber stamp on a purchase order.
What Does "Alone" Actually Mean in Procurement?
"Alone" looks different depending on the team, but the disadvantage shows up in every version of it.
A one-person procurement function is already stretched on bandwidth, with a hard ceiling on how much organizational spend one person can realistically bring under control. One-person teams are often the ones who benefit most from a GPO, since it extends their reach without requiring more headcount.
A team with limited purchasing power on its own, a single office with a handful of departments all separately negotiating something like a shipping provider, is leaving leverage on the table simply because its volume alone isn't enough to move a supplier's pricing - even if you consolidate spend across departments.
A team with purchasing power already consolidated across multiple offices or sites is in a different position, and here the calculation shifts. Consolidated spend gives you more negotiating leverage on your own, so the GPO's value comes less from raw vo1lume and more from speed and freed capacity on the categories you'd rather not spend internal time on. Even so, only the very biggest organizations can hope to match the volume of a GPO.
The Power of Group Purchasing
Whichever version of "alone" your team fits, joining a GPO changes the shape of the problem rather than just the numbers.
You get a team of sourcing advisors who already know the supplier landscape in your indirect categories, so you're not building that expertise from scratch every time a category needs attention. You enjoy access to contracts that have already been vetted, negotiated, and stress-tested by a membership base far larger than your own spend alone, so the leverage is already built in before you show up. Finally, you gain a partner watching category pricing and supplier performance on an ongoing basis, catching issues and renewal opportunities your team might not have bandwidth to track on its own.
Of course, the numbers are impressive, too: $100 billion in combined purchasing power, 18 to 22% savings across indirect categories, and a 97% retention rate across 10,000+ active members.
The lone wolf instinct made sense when the alternative was a slow, generic vendor relationship with no real flexibility. A GPO membership is like having a much larger procurement function quietly working the categories you don't have time for, while your own team stays focused on the bigger picture.
Ready to see what going in with $100 billion in combined purchasing power looks like for your spend, instead of going it alone? Contact Una today.
