In an era of constrained budgets, higher education procurement leaders are seeking sustainable cost savings through more strategic approaches to sourcing goods and services. At the same time, technological innovations offer new opportunities to improve operating efficiencies—further reducing administrative costs while improving vendor and customer satisfaction.
But the transition to more strategic, technology-enhanced procurement units has been difficult. Most units have historically been staffed and organized to support transactional activities, like processing requisitions and invoices. Accordingly, they are not staffed to perform more strategic tasks, like spend analytics and competitive contract negotiation and management.
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.
This toolkit is designed to help procurement leaders execute on strategic goals in four focus areas:
Create staff capacity for analytical work through process improvementCollect and monitor performance metrics to advance strategic goalsCreate new roles and hire staff with elevated skill sets to expand strategic capabilitiesCommunicate policies and processes with campus stakeholders to get buy-in for necessary changes. Process automation and redesign toolsUse this tool to sequence investments in automation technology and other process improvement efforts. Procurement leaders should leverage technology and process redesign to maximize operating efficiencies and create staff capacity for strategic activities. However, leaders oversee a variety of processes that may benefit from technology enhancement or redesign. This tool provides a more systematic way to pinpoint the improvements that will yield the highest returns on investment and determine the ideal order of implementation.
Use this tool to…