That to-do list on your desk seems to grow longer every day:
In reality, we could probably fill this page with what the expectations are and still not capture everything you need to do. And procurement’s never really been a check-the-box kind of job. Meeting all of these goals requires merging strategic sourcing and procurement.
Too often, strategic sourcing and procurement operate in silos: one sets the strategy, the other manages the transactions. But modern supply chain success comes from integrating both. When you approach procurement in a unified way and support it with data-driven insights, you can uncover hidden savings, eliminate redundancies, and ensure purchases support long-term goals.
Strategic sourcing and procurement are closely linked but serve different purposes.
Strategic sourcing involves long-term planning, supplier evaluation, and aligning contracts with institutional priorities. It is proactive, focusing on optimizing value and reducing risk over time.
In contrast, procurement manages the execution, issuing purchase orders, processing payments, and ensuring day-to-day compliance. It is reactive, ensuring operational continuity.
When integrated, these functions create a continuous cycle:
It’s the procurement version of the circle of life, and it takes a procurement strategic sourcing plan to manage the supply chain efficiently.
Integrating these disciplines creates greater value for your institution. By linking strategy to execution, colleges and universities can meet multiple objectives and create long-term supply chain success.
Integration maximizes lifecycle savings and reduces redundancies. When combined with a strategic spend assessment, institutions often uncover hidden savings, such as duplicate suppliers across departments or underutilized contracts, that can be consolidated for greater efficiency.
This approach also helps make sure this strategy is embedded into the daily procurement process. This allows for greater standardization, meeting compliance objectives and reducing risk.
You can no longer afford to react to supply chain disruptions. Geopolitical conflicts, inflationary pricing, tariffs, and other economic risks can upend your pipeline at any time. Risk management has become a core competency for procurement teams to build a resilient supply chain.
Through strategic sourcing and procurement, you can look for suppliers that align with your goals and will act as partners rather than simply providers. These relationships are often more collaborative and help identify innovative solutions.
Most institutions have priorities for sustainability or supplier inclusion, but these can fall flat if not carried through in day-to-day purchasing. Strategic sourcing is essential to meeting these goals.
By integrating sourcing and procurement, you can also respond more quickly to supply chain disruptions. Strategic sourcing can identify alternate suppliers and monitor potential supply chain disruptions that would impact your institution.
While the benefits are clear, achieving integration is not always simple. To do so, you need to create both a structure and a process to link strategy with execution.
Integration starts with a shared vision. Procurement teams must align on goals such as cost optimization, compliance, and institutional initiatives. Spend assessments provide a baseline for setting these objectives with accurate data.
Modern eProcurement platforms play a critical role. By connecting strategic sourcing decisions with transactional systems, you improve purchasing through approved suppliers and negotiated contracts and reduce maverick spend.
Centralized analytics transform how sourcing and procurement work together. Spend analysis is the foundation of this process, giving you the insights into spend patterns, compliance risks, and savings opportunities you need to work strategically.
Cooperative agreements unify strategy and execution by combining the power of aggregated spending for volume discounts with top-tier suppliers. You can save considerable time and money while improving your procurement strategic sourcing.
Faculty, facilities managers, sustainability officers, and finance leaders all influence sourcing and purchasing decisions. You need to be aligned on your goals to make real change.
In short, strategic sourcing sets the roadmap; procurement ensures the plan is carried out daily.
Take the first step toward integration by requesting a Strategic Spend Assessment (SSA) from E&I Cooperative Services. See where your institution can save, streamline, and strengthen procurement.