A company with offices in four cities has four people who have ordered merchandise, four suppliers, four price lists and four interpretations of the brand. Nobody chose this. It is the default when each office has a need and no obvious central route.
The cost is not mostly the brand drift
Inconsistency is the visible symptom, which is why it gets raised in brand terms. The bigger cost is procurement: four offices ordering 300 units each pay four short-run prices, four setup charges and four shipping bills for what could be one 1,200-unit run.
That is the version of the argument that gets a decision.
Separate approval from ordering
Centralising the approval of what is available is straightforward. Centralising the act of ordering is where these programs fail, because a single ordering desk becomes a queue and offices route around it.
Approve the catalog centrally. Let each office order from it directly.
Hold the stock somewhere that is not an office
Bulk pricing requires taking delivery of bulk. If that lands in an office, somebody's meeting room becomes storage and somebody's assistant becomes a warehouse. Holding stock externally and releasing it per office is what makes volume buying practical.
Let offices order what they actually need
An even split across locations always leaves one office short and another with a cupboard full. Ordering against real demand is more accurate and less wasteful, and it needs held inventory to work.
Report by office or the program is undefendable
If orders are not associated with the office that placed them, nobody can answer what merchandise cost per location. That question always arrives eventually.
Warehousing covers holding one run and releasing it per location, and branded eStores covers giving each office a controlled way to order.