Improving Procurement Efficiency: Best Practices for Buying Cooperatives

Are you constantly being asked to do more with less? We suspect the answer to that question is an unqualified yes. Across higher education, procurement teams are asked to do more with smaller budgets, fewer resources, and rising prices. It can feel a bit like swimming upstream while the current keeps pushing you back. Just as you start to make progress, something else comes downstream. It might be another unplanned request, a new mandate for supplier diversity or sustainability, or another budget reduction.

It can feel overwhelming, especially if you don’t have a significant level of procurement efficiency built into your processes.

Former State University of New York Chancellor Nancy Zimpher calls it systemness. “Over the past decade, systemness has emerged as a modus operandi for campus leaders and governing boards seeking to accelerate transformation across multiple campuses,” Zimpher said.

This transformation requires a commitment to procurement efficiency and a willingness to embrace different approaches to manage costs in today’s environment.

Procurement Efficiency in Higher Education

Reducing administrative overhead and improving procurement efficiency are key to managing time, effort, and spending. Yet, many colleges and universities have legacy systems that operate in an independent, decentralized manner. Departments and campuses may buy goods and services differently, when consolidation might offer improved cost efficiencies and standardization.

In recent years, multi-campus systems have begun embracing the concept of systemness as a core function. However, this approach applies to institutions of any size.

Buying cooperatives play a critical role in this strategy. By leveraging competitively solicited cooperative agreements (contracts), you can improve efficiency through shared sourcing, volume discounts, and increased compliance.

How Buying Cooperatives Drive Efficiency

A buying cooperative allows you to pool your purchasing power with other institutions. This helps achieve better pricing and faster procurement cycles. It eliminates the need for every institution to issue its own RFPs, thereby significantly reducing the administrative workload and associated costs.. In addition to  lowering costs up to 15% in many cases, you also benefit from greater efficiency, including:

• Access to prequalified suppliers: Buying cooperatives handle supplier vetting and contract negotiation, removing redundant work.
• Reduced cycle times: Shared contracts and digital catalogs accelerate purchasing and approvals.
• Improved compliance: Cooperative agreements are designed to meet public-sector purchasing standards.
• Alignment with institutional goals: You can more easily find suppliers that meet your goals for diversity and sustainability.

This alignment matters a great deal. 80% of decision-makers say they have specific goals, such as working with certified suppliers and responsible purchasing, which can make procurement more complex. Buying cooperatives make those goals easier to achieve by integrating responsible sourcing strategies.

Here is an example of how cooperative procurement improves efficiency compared to going it alone across different phases of the procurement process.

Best Practices for Enhancing Procurement Efficiency

Here are some best practices to consider in your strategy to improve efficiency:

• Standardizing processes across departments: Establishing consistent requisition, approval, and purchasing workflows to eliminate variation and ensure accountability.
• Embracing procurement automation: Creating automated workflows to replace your manual processes saves time and improves efficiency.
• Adopting digital tools: Using eProcurement platforms, catalog enablement, and P-card marketplaces automates manual tasks and centralizes purchasing.
• Leverage cooperative contracts: Identify spend categories where group contracts can streamline purchasing and provide immediate savings.
• Focusing on supplier performance and alignment: Selecting suppliers that meet your institutional priorities, beyond price.
• Measuring outcomes: Tracking key metrics, such as cycle time, contract utilization, and spend under management, to demonstrate improvements.

Building a Culture of Systemness and Shared Values

True efficiency requires a shift in mindset for many colleges and universities. A culture of systemness creates a shared purpose, whether you’re trying to create efficiencies across departments or across multiple campuses.

Buying cooperatives support that mindset by connecting procurement teams through a common structure that fosters collaboration and collective success. With cooperative agreements, you are leveraging the collective buying power of other institutions and benefiting from the combined knowledge of other procurement professionals.

When you operate within this cooperative framework, you create a cycle that can continue to improve your efficiency over time, helping you produce greater value even as budgets tighten.

Legacy decentralized procurement worked when budgets were generous- those days are over. See how E&I’s cooperative solutions modernizes efficiency without sacrificing institutional control.