It’s been talked about for years, but now it’s a reality. The demographic cliff is here, with high school graduates peaking in 2025. Starting next year, there will be fewer students coming out of high school, and forecasts show continued declines every year for the next decade. Couple that with higher prices, tighter budgets, and serious concerns about funding and governmental policies, and you can see how sourcing, procurement, and overall spending become critical in higher education.
Procurement teams will play an even greater role in shaping institutional stability and long-term value creation to meet these challenges. The E&I Economic Benefit Model™ can track and manage the total value of the work you do, creating a data-driven framework to connect sourcing decisions directly to institutional goals and impact.
Effective strategic procurement planning begins with alignment.
The decisions you make in the procurement process have to support broad institutional priorities. These can range from operational efficiency and bottom-line savings to sustainability, supplier diversity, local impact, and more. Yet aligning those goals with day-to-day purchasing can be challenging without clear metrics.
The E&I Economic Benefit Model™ helps you quantify outcomes in terms of total economic benefit. Rather than measuring success by the lowest bid, you can evaluate the impact across three pillars to see how they match up with your goals.
Strategic procurement planning using the E&I Economic Benefit Model™ provides you with the data you need to clearly demonstrate how your work achieves institutional objectives. This creates greater visibility into your activities and shows measurable outcomes. Rather than seeing procurement as a cost center, the model helps institutional leadership and finance teams understand the important part procurement plays in driving institutional success.
How can I optimize my procurement decisions for cost savings? You’re probably thinking about a question similar to this whenever you evaluate options, including direct and indirect spending. The E&I Economic Benefit Model™ enables you to look at baseline cost comparisons supported by historical data, market benchmarks, vendor quotes, industry case studies, and other relevant data to find ways to reduce or avoid costs. It also helps identify opportunities for consolidation and where cooperative contracts can lower your overall costs.
Strategic procurement is built over the long haul, and that requires a strategic roadmap that connects actions with results. The E&I Economic Benefit Model™ helps you design a clear roadmap to follow. By analyzing total spend, category performance, and indirect procurement costs, you can create a better strategy. This includes forecasting future needs, identifying sourcing opportunities, and sequencing contract renewals for maximum efficiency.
Scenario modeling is another advantage. This model makes it much easier to understand the impact of price fluctuations, supplier changes, or policy updates that affect the bottom line.
Driving real value requires collaboration between procurement and finance teams, working together with a common language. Rather than “savings,” the focus should be on quantifiable total value.
The Economic Benefit Model™ helps you communicate outcomes in the terms that matter to finance: return on investment, risk mitigation, and total savings realized.
“What stands out to me about E&I’s Economic Benefit Model™ is its ability to clearly demonstrate the measurable impact of cooperative purchasing. By providing members with a reliable and transparent estimate of both cost savings and added value, it not only validates the benefits we see in practice but also strengthens our ability to communicate that value within our institutions — Rachael E. Capo, Esq., Director of Procurement Services, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)
It’s not just a measurement tool. The model becomes a conversation framework that deepens trust and collaboration between procurement and finance.
Planning also changes how value is measured. Instead of chasing short-term price cuts, procurement leaders can assess total benefit and show how each contract contributes to the institution’s broader financial picture.
By tracking cost reduction, cost avoidance, and incentives and revenue, you showcase the full impact of procurement decisions, helping balance today’s budget pressures with long-term value creation.
When you have the data to connect strategy with measurable outcomes, the conversation shifts. The focus moves from cost-cutting to value creation, from buying cheaper to buying smarter. The E&I Economic Benefit Model™ provides the structure and insight you need to strategically forecast confidently and demonstrate the impact you’re making.
How can you optimize your procurement decisions for cost savings? Partner with E&I Cooperative Services to integrate the Economic Benefit Model™ into your procurement strategy and optimize every decision for measurable savings and long-term success. Get started today.