Ashley Hubka, senior vice president and general manager, Walmart Business | Image credit: Walmart
For many businesses, the end-of-year holiday season can drive a welcome bump in revenue but also place heavier demands on operations. Time spent restocking supplies or managing other back-office needs takes leaders and their teams away from customers and the initiatives that drive growth.
Walmart Business’s research with Morning Consult shows the scope of the challenge: Nearly half of business owners planned to increase investments in sales and marketing this year, yet many anticipate spending up to 40% of their workweek on administrative tasks. That’s valuable time diverted from strategic priorities that could be spent connecting with customers or developing new products and services.
The good news is that there’s a better way to manage these operational demands. Adopting intelligent procurement practices for everyday business supplies, known as indirect procurement, will help improve efficiency, especially during the busiest times of the year.
Indirect procurement covers all the behind-the-scenes purchases that keep a business running: office supplies, cleaning products, shipping materials, safety gear, and other essentials. Because indirect purchases aren’t customer-facing, staff often handle them reactively (e.g., someone notices the printer paper is low and places an order). Handling supplies this way may be manageable in quieter months, but it can cause serious problems during peak times. If an essential item runs out, someone has to drop other work to replace it, often going to a store, paying extra for rush delivery or making do with an inferior option. Shifting this process from reactive to proactive reduces last-minute scrambling, which helps to keep operations running smoothly, and gives leaders more bandwidth for their top priorities.
Automation is one of the fastest ways to reclaim time from routine supply management. Recurring order systems ensure frequently used items like paper goods or cleaning supplies arrive on schedule without repeated effort. Additionally, sharing purchasing accounts among team members empowers more people to place orders.
Reviewing historical orders reveals seasonal trends, such as a spike in coffee purchases in December or increased shipping supplies before holiday promotions, which helps inform procurement decisions. With that insight, businesses can order in bulk ahead of high-demand periods to reduce restocking trips, spread purchases over several weeks to avoid large, one-time expenses, and align purchasing with marketing plans so a lack of supplies doesn’t slow campaigns. Looking at this data also helps identify waste, such as ordering more of a product than is typically used, which can tie up cash flow and storage space.
Identifying suppliers that offer bulk ordering and subscription services can help stretch procurement budgets further. By consolidating purchases and setting up regular deliveries, businesses can better manage cash flow while reducing administrative effort. For seasonal businesses, arranging bulk orders before peak periods can help smooth out cash flow and ensure supplies are on hand before demand surges.
Any procurement system will falter if it depends on just one person. Distributing responsibility across the team, while maintaining oversight and avoiding delays ensures purchasing stays efficient and uninterrupted. Some practical ways to do this are establishing guidelines that define approved vendors and products, setting budget limits for individual orders, and using centralized dashboards to track spending and deliveries in real time. In addition to keeping operations running smoothly, this shared responsibility model also builds procurement skills across the team, ensuring the business remains agile if roles shift or staffing changes occur.
When the items you need to run the business are in stock and readily available, business leaders and their teams can focus on strategic initiatives instead of last-minute supply runs. You can use that extra time to strengthen relationships with your customers or develop sales and marketing campaigns. When supply emergencies don’t sidetrack teams, they work with greater focus and less stress — conditions that can lift morale even in the busiest seasons.
The benefits extend well beyond the holiday season. Intelligent procurement builds resilience, helping businesses maintain service levels and cost control year-round. Over time, the savings in both time and money create more capacity to adapt and grow.
As the year’s busiest months approach, businesses can’t afford inefficiency in their supply chain, especially for the everyday items that keep operations running. When leaders automate routine tasks, plan ahead with data, make full use of supplier savings, and give their teams the tools to act, procurement shifts from a last-minute scramble to a competitive advantage.
About the author
Ashley Hubka serves as senior vice president and general manager at Walmart Business.
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