How a French Roadmap Inspired Kaleida’s Tail Spend Revolution
- Jason Roberts, CEO
- Jun 23
- 3 min read
From Tyres to Tasting Menus: How a French Roadmap Inspired Kaleida’s Tail Spend Revolution.
In the early 1900s, brothers Édouard and André Michelin faced a problem.
They sold tyres, a niche product at the time, considering France had fewer than 3,000 cars on the road. To grow their business, they had to stimulate demand for driving itself. So they created a guide. Not just any guide; the Michelin Guide.
It started small: maps, instructions on tyre maintenance, petrol station locations, and places to eat and sleep across France. Their thinking was simple: get people driving more, and they’ll need more tyres.
Then something remarkable happened.
To stand out from a sea of generic travel info, they began reviewing restaurants. At first, it was practical advice for hungry travellers. But as demand grew, the guide evolved. Anonymous reviewers. Rigorous standards. And finally the Michelin star system.
A tyre company had accidentally become the world’s most prestigious judge of fine dining.
Why? Because they understood a truth that most others missed: if you want people to change behaviour, you have to remove friction and add aspiration.
That same thinking is what led Kaleida to launch our tail spend service.
We built Kaleida to help large organisations diversify their supply chains. We championed SMEs and diverse-owned businesses. But we quickly saw a pattern.
Corporate buyers wanted to buy diversely but the systems around procurement made it hard. The process for onboarding new suppliers was slow. Risk-averse. Fragmented.
And while huge contracts often had procurement strategies behind them, tail spend, the 20% of budget spread across 80% of suppliers, was chaotic, unmanaged, and full of friction. This was our Michelin moment.
Just as the Michelin brothers realised that the future of tyre sales lay in inspiring people to drive, we realised that the future of supplier diversity lay in helping companies spend their tail budgets more intentionally.
So we created a solution. A service that takes the complexity out of tail spend. That makes it easier to find, onboard, and manage diverse suppliers for those “below the line” purchases that still matter. That turns unmanaged spend into a strategic opportunity.
We didn’t pivot away from our mission. We leaned into it and innovated around the friction.
The Michelin Guide didn’t sell more tyres by talking about tyres. It sold more tyres by making people care about the journey. Likewise, Kaleida helps organisations care about every pound they spend, especially the hidden ones.
Because tail spend isn’t just miscellaneous. It’s meaningful.
So if you ask us how we built a tail spend service, the answer’s simple:
We followed the road. We paid attention to what our customers were struggling with. And like the Michelin brothers, we realised that the real opportunity wasn’t where everyone was already looking.
It was in the gaps. In the friction. And in the untapped potential waiting just off the main road.
Kaleida is here to help you win.
Stay informed, be bold, and seize the opportunities this Act brings.
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About Us
"Finding Diverse Suppliers is time-consuming as the process today involves researching against multiple databases."
Founded in 2019, Kaleida International is a B2B marketplace for Tenders connecting Buyers to Suppliers, and Diverse Suppliers. With a focus on helping the Chief Procurement Office achieve its ESG goals, and alerting companies to new revenue opportunities, Kaleida's fully-inclusive platform helps Buyers find, identify and assess Diverse Suppliers they can invite to Tender.
In 2025 Kaleida will publish £800b in both Public and Private sector tenders for suppliers, and Diverse suppliers to apply to. By increasing access to commercial opportunity, we believe we can drive equality through providing access to economic parity.
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