Unlocking the Power of Leveraged Spend for Private Equity Firms
In private equity, efficiency isn’t just an advantage — it’s survival. PE firms operate in fast-paced environments where maximizing portfolio performance, standardizing operations, and reducing costs are top priorities. One powerful but often overlooked lever? Leveraged spend — the practice of consolidating purchasing power across portfolio companies to negotiate better pricing, terms, and outcomes.
The Challenge: Fragmented Procurement Across PortCos
Many PE firms find themselves managing a portfolio of companies that each approach procurement differently. One may be paying top-tier pricing for cloud infrastructure, while another is locked into an outdated cybersecurity solution at unfavorable terms. Vendor overlap is common, but without centralized procurement strategy, the portfolio misses opportunities to aggregate value.
This fragmentation leads to:
- Duplicated costs across identical services
- Missed volume-based discounts
- Inconsistent vendor contracts and SLAs
- Disparate support and renewal timelines
- Reduced visibility into total technology spend
Worse, it slows down transformation. When every portfolio company negotiates its own contracts and goes through separate procurement cycles, the time-to-value across the portfolio suffers — which hurts returns.
What Leveraged Spend Really Means in Practice
Leveraged spend isn’t about forcing every company into a one-size-fits-all solution. It’s about identifying strategic areas where consolidation makes sense, and then using the collective buying power of the portfolio to secure enterprise-level contracts, vendor attention, and services that individual companies could never access on their own.
Done right, it allows PE firms to:
- Standardize best-in-class vendors across portfolio companies
- Negotiate lower rates based on aggregated volume
- Streamline support through a single escalation path
- Improve time-to-value for technology deployments
- Gain transparency into where tech dollars are being spent
It’s not just about pricing — it’s about efficiency, speed, and strategic alignment.
Too often, portfolio companies are left negotiating tech contracts in isolation. At ReadyNine, we believe private equity firms should leverage their collective buying power — not just to cut costs, but to streamline operations and drive measurable value across their holdings. ReadyNine
Where to Start
Most PE firms already have the data they need to act — it’s just siloed across procurement teams, CFOs, and IT leads within each company. A successful leveraged spend strategy starts by:
- Auditing current vendors across core categories (cloud, communications, cybersecurity, etc.)
- Identifying overlap, price inconsistencies, and gaps in support
- Segmenting opportunities based on ease of consolidation and financial impact
- Prioritizing renewals or new projects where collective negotiation will make the most difference
How ReadyNine Supports Leveraged Spend Programs
This is where firms often turn to a technology solutions provider — someone with the vendor relationships, technology insight, and playbook to turn opportunity into action.
ReadyNine works directly with private equity firms to strategically consolidate vendor contracts across their portfolios. Our Leveraged Spend Program uses data from across your holdings to negotiate:
- Enterprise-grade pricing
- Premium vendor contracts
- Bundled services
- Centralized escalation paths
We maintain flexibility for each portco while driving measurable value at the fund level. When combined with our R9Certified provider ecosystem and industry-specific playbooks, leveraged spend becomes a force multiplier — not just for savings, but for transformation.
Ready to Consolidate Your Tech Spend?
Learn how ReadyNine’s Leveraged Spend Program can help your portfolio companies secure better pricing, stronger vendor terms, and long-term technology value.
