The rapid consumerization of IT across different areas of campus is becoming the new normal in technology acquisition. Along with the steady decline in technology price points and the quickening pace of IT penetration, CIOs are working against independent budgets and vendors who market direct-to-end users.
This is a growing challenge for IT leaders—but also an opportunity for meaningful change. While non-expert purchasing has many risks, distributed purchasing environments offer CIOs a tremendous opportunity to facilitate campus digitization.
With appropriate measures for discovering distributed purchasing and effective methods for education and partnership with buyers, CIOs can leverage their peers to ensure safe and cost-effective IT acquisition across the institution.
This resource is part of The Essential Guide to Cost Containment Strategies for Higher Education. Access this guide for 500+ critical tactics for immediate and long-term cost savings.
Download the complete executive brief or explore the table of contents below to discover two major areas of opportunity where colleges and universities should focus their energy to have the most significant impact on distributed purchasing engagements.
Section 1: Best Practices in Supporting Frontline IT PurchasingScaling expertise in technology procurement demands careful allocation of limited IT resources across a wide user base. To maximize IT's impact, progressive higher education institutions are limiting purchasing authority and driving contracts through discoverable channels, while creating dedicated resources to insert "light-touch" technology expertise directly into end users' procurement processes.
Getting Visibility into Frontline IT Buying
Practice 1: Purchase Authority Resets (p. 6) Practice 2: 100% eProcurement Usage Campaigns (p. 7)Getting Units to Use IT Vendor Evaluation…