At the Indian manufacturing site of a US-headquartered appliances company, questions had formed around procurement: whether the vendors supplying the plant were what they appeared, and whether the buying process was serving the company or someone inside it. There was a physical dimension too: the site's security contractor was part of what needed examining.
“Vendor quotations, bills of materials and transmittals were compared for the patterns that signal steering.”
The investigation, carried out during my tenure at a global investigations firm, worked the documents against the ground. Vendor quotations, bills of materials, and transmittals were compared for the patterns that signal steering: pricing that tracks too neatly, specifications written for one bidder, the same handwriting behind competing quotes. The vendors themselves were verified as businesses: who owned them, whether they had premises and capacity, and how they connected to one another and to people inside the plant. The security contractor's billing and deployment were reviewed against what the site actually received.
Head-office analytics can flag a suspicious vendor. Telling a real supplier with sharp pricing from a shell company with a friendly buyer usually needs a visit to the vendor, and that answer decides the company’s next step, which can range from renegotiating with the vendor to a wider investigation.