Menu
“If you think about who needs a cooperative the most, it’s a small college or university,” said Eric Frank, Chief Executive Officer at E&I Cooperative Services. “They generally don’t have a procurement team at all in many cases. If they do, they have very few people and very few resources. They don’t have the time, energy, and bandwidth to focus on strategic purchasing because they’ve got to do it all.”
It can be overwhelming, given the amount of purchasing that is necessary. Even if small colleges have the resources to get it all done, they rarely have the volume to leverage optimal pricing in negotiations.
What is the better business model for a small college? Leveraging cooperative purchasing organizations to streamline procurement and deliver greater savings.
For smaller colleges, partnering with a cooperative purchasing organization can help level the playing field, providing access to the same competitive pricing that larger institutions enjoy.
Leveraging aggregated spending from multiple organizations, you can tap into volume pricing you likely could not achieve on your own.
For example, instead of negotiating separate contracts for products like computers, software, or classroom furniture, a small college can take advantage of cooperative contracts that are pre-negotiated on behalf of the cooperative’s members. This saves time and ensures that the college receives the best available pricing.
You also get access to a wider range of suppliers. By aggregating purchasing power across multiple institutions, cooperative contracts are more attractive to business partners. You will find top-tier partners that offer significant discounts. In many cases, these suppliers might not respond to an RFP from a small college due to its limited volume. This broadens your reach while helping you obtain more competitive pricing.
There’s another key benefit that often gets overlooked: time savings. Maximizing value in procurement is labor-intensive and complex, especially if you are a smaller institution with limited staff and competing priorities. When you partner with a cooperative purchasing organization, you can significantly streamline procurement.
Cooperative purchasing organizations competitively solicit contracts and handle much of the compliance and legal work required, to reduce your administrative workload.
For small colleges, managing risk is a critical component of a sustainable business model. Purchasing decisions must be compliant with state and federal regulations, as well as institutional policies. Cooperative purchasing organizations help mitigate risk by ensuring that all contracts and agreements adhere to relevant legal requirements.
By partnering with a purchasing cooperative, you can access a network of other procurement professionals who face the same challenges. This fosters collaboration and knowledge sharing. You can learn from one another’s experiences and find new strategies to improve your efficiency. This can be a big plus for small schools that have limited access to other procurement and financial professionals.
As financial pressures on small institutions continue to mount, joining a cooperative purchasing organization can be a strategic move that strengthens their ability to compete and thrive in a rapidly evolving higher education landscape.
“We are really focused on this right now,” Frank said. “We’ve pulled together a small-market team for the first time ever. That team is made up of people who are chief financial officers from small colleges. They understand the challenges and the pain being felt by those small colleges. And we’ve really built a strategy to make it easy.”
Besides streamlining procurement and tapping into collective purchasing power for lower costs, small colleges can also leverage E&I Cooperative Services Strategic Spend Assessments (SSAs) and eProcurement tools.
Schools typically spend between 25% and 35% of their operating budget on goods and services. An SSA is a structured approach to reviewing this addressable spend to find opportunities to reduce costs, bring more spend under contract and consolidate purchasing for greater volume discounts.
E&I Cooperative Services will assign a dedicated Small Marketing Procurement Consultant and Strategic Sourcing Analyst to assess your current contract portfolio and find opportunities to lower costs, helping you optimize your sourcing strategy. SSAs are a free service provided by E&I Cooperative Services to its members.
E&I Cooperative Services also offers members a range of eProcurement solutions including a no-cost P-card marketplace, custom catalog, and consulting. This helps reduce maverick spend, provide greater control over spending throughout your school, and maximize your operational efficiency.
Joining E&I Cooperative Services is simple. There is no cost to do so and no minimum spending requirement; over 6,000 schools, colleges, and universities are already members of this non-profit cooperative purchasing organization that solely focuses on the education sector.
Learn more about the benefits of membership at E&I Cooperative Services.
