If you are like many of our clients, managing a multitude of expense categories is a daily challenge.

This year, you’ve had a whole new set of urgent responsibilities piled on top of your already loaded plate. When you actually find the time to pursue cost savings initiatives, it stands to reason that your focus would largely remain on the categories with the highest spend levels.

But significant savings opportunities also exist in categories that make up the tail spend of your overall budget—and if you play your cards right, you can drive savings in these areas while also hitting your goals in priority categories.

One “case in point” category that seldom hits the radar of corporate buyers is pest control. But in this overlooked category, 30-50% savings is often available while improving program quality at the same time. Opportunities to save money while improving quality and outcomes are worth exploring.

Here are the top four reasons your pest control invoices are spiraling out of control, thus negatively impacting the corporate bottom-line—and how to get things back under control:

1. Technical knowledge requirement

Category managers should have basic knowledge of the common pests that threaten both the products their company produces, and the ingredients utilized in the processes. This is critical for effective and successful negotiations with pest control suppliers. Of course, while this knowledge may exist to some extent with field operators and quality assurance personnel, it’s rarely possessed by category managers. As a result, a buyer is dealing from a position of weakness both internally and with suppliers.

2. Category complexity

From a vast world of pest types to the wide variety of pest control devices placed in and around a facility—not to mention the frequency with which these devices are inspected and serviced, pest control is a highly complex expense. And even after attaining a base understanding of a site-level program, pest control suppliers add additional layers of confusion by using inconsistent terminology and invoicing practices. All of this typically leaves category managers wondering if the expense is going to be more trouble than it’s worth, playing right into suppliers’ hands.

3. Vast supplier base

Pest control tends to be a locally—and not strategically—sourced expense. As a result, when a business grows and the category spend rises to a level where it grabs the attention of a category manager, the starting point in any strategic exercise tends to be a decentralized jumble. Suppliers across an enterprise will typically range from “One-Man-and-a-Truck” operations to national brands, and everything in between. To further complicate things, each of the suppliers has constructed their own unique program, making it incredibly difficult to create apples-to-apples comparisons in order to properly evaluate program costs. Again, category managers are scared off—exactly what the suppliers want.

4. Layers of regulatory requirements

The hodgepodge of federal, state, and local pest control regulations are daunting to a non-expert as they vary from state to state. For example, products that may be on an approved materials list with your company may not be used in certain states, counties, or even cities due to specific risks of exposure to non-target animals. And some states require prior notification before any pest services applications are made at the location while other states do not.

Yet again, category managers back away, and the suppliers continue to enjoy their robust margins.

Time to partner up

Category managers consuming this piece may find themselves even more reluctant to tackle Pest Control than they were before they started reading.

But…what if there were a better way? What if you could shift from “playing checkers” in this complex category to playing three-dimensional chess?

What if an expert partner could step in, facilitate data collection, analyze and benchmark your program, set a strategy with you and then execute that strategy in the marketplace—thus doing all the “dirty work” and helping to implement a program that is best-in-class not only in terms of quality, but also in terms of cost?

What if you could find and realize 30-50% savings in this category while working on other initiatives?

Good news—all of this CAN happen, and we can help you make it happen. Reach out to learn more.

Talk to an expert today