According to E&I Cooperative Services’ State of Higher Education Procurement Industry Report 2025, as many as 30 to 40% of universities now face deficits, many in the hundreds of millions of dollars. For many, the gap is growing as well, increasing the focus on cost reductions and accountability across purchasing.
eProcurement solutions with a solid catalog enablement strategy have become key tools to address these challenges as part of a more connected, integrated tech stack that centralizes procurement and data to enable better decision making. So, let’s explore how eProcurement for education works and how you can optimize your spending strategy.
Let’s start with an eProcurement definition: eProcurement is a digital solution to handle the entire purchasing cycle from requisition and approval to payment and reporting. It replaces a good deal of the manual work, paper files, and spreadsheet workflows, which significantly improves transparency throughout the procurement cycle.
Core components of eProcurement solutions include:
In higher education, eProcurement helps you manage decentralized purchasing across departments, campuses, and research grants and increase the spend under contract. With ERP procurement integration, data also flows seamlessly through to finance and operations so that everyone has access to a single source of truth. No more digging through file drawers or computer files to find information.
When you implement (and integrate) eProcurement solutions effectively, you get measurable operational, financial, and strategic benefits, including:
An analysis showed that between 50 and 80% of current procurement work can be automated, eliminated, or shifted to self-service models with the right process and tech. Just think what you could do if you could achieve that kind of time savings.
Artificial intelligence is accelerating this progress, too. More than a third of procurement teams say they’ve already incorporated AI into their institution, and nearly 80% plan to deploy more AI tools within the next three years.
Spend under management is the portion of your total institutional purchasing that flows through approved procurement systems, contracts, and policies. It represents the degree of control an institution has over its spending and is a key performance indicator for procurement maturity.
When spend is not managed, maverick spending outside approved processes can quickly erode savings. Unmanaged spend can erode 10-20% of your potential savings every year.
This is significant because:
A catalog enablement strategy, including punchout catalog integration in your eProcurement solutions, can make a big difference in reducing maverick spend, especially when you couple that with cooperative purchasing contracts that leverage volume discounts.
Here’s an example of how this plays out all too often. One department might decide to buy office supplies from multiple vendors. Another department might choose yet another supplier. Prices are inconsistent, and you aren’t getting the advantage of the contracted rates you’ve negotiated. Yet, an eProcurement system that steers buyers to the optimal supplier for products as part of a catalog enablement strategy can significantly lower costs and consolidate suppliers to lessen the administrative load. Everyone benefits from standardized pricing and easier compliance tracking.
A Strategic Spend Assessment (SSA) from E&I Cooperative Services can also provide you with a comprehensive analysis of your institution’s purchasing activity. A no-cost SSA identifies non-contract and off-channel spend, uncovers opportunities to bring more spend under competitive contracts, and highlights supplier consolidation opportunities that can significantly reduce your total procurement costs. By combining detailed spend analytics with benchmarking across higher-education peers, procurement leaders get a roadmap for optimizing sourcing strategies and driving measurable financial results.
A successful initiative in eProcurement for education is a comprehensive approach that includes several key features.
Punchout catalogs are supplier-hosted online catalogs connected to your eProcurement system, providing benefits like:
FYI, many of the goods and services available through E&I’s cooperative purchasing agreements include ready-to-use punchout catalogs, giving your campus access to negotiated supplier pricing.
Catalog enablement helps to create standardized, searchable catalogs within your institution’s eProcurement platform. This is a great feature to have because it enables:
A sound catalog enablement strategy can also incorporate specific institutional initiatives like supplier inclusivity and sustainability data, ensuring institutional goals are embedded in every transaction.
Connecting your eProcurement systems with your Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software creates an integrated purchasing and financial ecosystem. The benefits of ERP procurement integration include:
There are some steps that you’ll need to take, like data mapping and workflow alignment, but IT teams can work with specialists in integration for higher education.
You can also turn procurement data into actionable insights. With eProcurement for education, you can track key metrics, such as:
Monitoring your KPIs helps you make better decisions.
Adding supplier enablement tools helps you onboard, verify, and monitor vendors. Some of the more advanced supplier management systems allow you to evaluate (and weight) performance based on specifications you set. These might include hitting certain performance marks, monitoring ESG goals, or evaluating Tier 2 and Tier 3 suppliers further down the supply chain.
You can also simplify the vetting process when you choose to opt into cooperative purchasing contracts through E&I Cooperative Services. Each contract is competitively solicited and vetted for compliance and certifications relevant to the education sector.
Measuring return on investment (ROI) in eProcurement involves both financial and operational metrics, but the ROI is typically fast. Institutions that adopt comprehensive automation typically see 25 to 30% reductions in processing costs and up to 80% faster procurement cycle times. Those adopting digital procurement systems report a nearly 10% improvement in overall productivity, especially when these eProcurement solutions include AI and advanced automation.
You also see other indirect savings like:
Of course, you’ll also benefit from direct savings such as reduced manual labor, lower off-contract spend levels, and volume-based cost savings when using cooperative purchasing contracts.
There are a few key challenges along the way that you need to solve. Let’s look at some of the most common ones and eProcurement solutions to overcome them.
Challenge: Decentralized processes
Departments may resist standardized systems that replace legacy workflows.
Solution:
Launch pilot programs and phased rollouts to gain awareness and show success before committing to full-scale adoption.
Challenge: Data integration issues
Integrating eProcurement solutions with legacy ERP platforms can be complex.
Solution:
Work closely with IT teams and cooperative partners to align data models and security standards. Get outside help if needed.
Challenge: Change management
Faculty and staff may be hesitant to learn new tools.
Solution: Communicate benefits clearly, provide hands-on training, and offer consistent support. Make sure tools are intuitive and easy to understand.
Challenge: Incomplete catalog data
Inaccurate or inconsistent supplier content will limit your effectiveness
Solution: Partner with cooperative organizations for catalog enablement and supplier onboarding assistance.
Challenge: Policy misalignment
Current procurement policies may not reflect digital workflows.
Solution: Review and update your policies to align with new automation capabilities and compliance requirements.
Cooperative purchasing contracts simplify access to suppliers and eliminate redundant RFP processes, saving you time and money. With cooperative contracts, you can dramatically reduce procurement cycle time and administrative burdens. You get access to competitively solicited, compliant pricing models that typically result in 10–15% cost reductions. By leveraging demand across 6,000 member institutions, E&I Cooperative Services can negotiate volume pricing and terms that align with the unique needs of the education sector. These are savings that are typically not available to individual institutions no matter how large they are.
E&I Cooperative Services offers hundreds of cooperative agreements. Members can search for what they need and compare agreements to what they have in place to see if there are advantages. Since membership is free and there is no minimum spending limit, colleges and universities can make their own decision about how and when to participate.
You also have a way to better understand overall value by incorporating the E&I Economic Benefit ModelTM which evaluates supply chains based on:
For example, many cooperative contracts through E&I have built-in incentives or additional cost reductions for hitting buying thresholds. In addition, E&I offers members patronage refunds based on annual participation.
Many contracts work seamlessly with eProcurement solutions, enabling punchout catalog integration.
Some institutions are still working through paper requisitions and email approvals, while others have moved to integrated systems that connect procurement to finance and operations. Look at these four levels to see where you are on the scale.
Level One: Manual Procurement
Purchasing happens through paper forms, emails, and spreadsheets. There’s no central system, so tracking spend or maintaining compliance is tough. Procurement teams spend most of their time processing transactions instead of focusing on strategy.
Level Two: Basic Digitization
You’ve started using online requisition forms or shared drives, which cuts down on paperwork. But without a central platform, data is still scattered, and reporting is limited to looking backward rather than planning ahead.
FYI, if you’re at level one or level two, you may want to consider adopting E&I’s no-cost eProcurement platform that offers catalog enablement and free P-card marketplace.
Level Three: Integrated eProcurement
Your system connects to your ERP; approvals are automated, and key suppliers are accessible through punchout catalogs. You have much better visibility into spending and can track compliance as part of your daily workflow. Most higher education institutions are at this level.
Level Four: Intelligent Procurement
You’re using analytics, AI, and predictive tools to forecast demand, manage supplier risk, and make smarter purchasing decisions. Procurement is more strategic, contributing directly to financial sustainability and institutional goals.
The institutions getting the most value from procurement are the ones moving toward level four. Each step forward takes you from reacting to problems to making decisions based on solid data that supports your mission. If you need help along the way, E&I has competitively solicited contracts with leading consulting and integration companies to help with your digital transformation.
How do you integrate eProcurement with existing ERP systems?
Integration involves mapping data fields, configuring user permissions, and syncing budget, vendor, and financial data in real time between your eProcurement system and ERP platform.
What is catalog enablement in procurement?
A catalog enablement strategy creates standardized supplier catalogs with contracted pricing so users can make purchases within approved systems and policies.
How much can universities save with eProcurement systems?
While the answer depends on your current digital maturity level, some institutions see savings up to 15% when integrating eProcurement solutions and catalog enablement strategies.
What are cooperative purchasing contracts?
Cooperative contracts are competitively solicited agreements available to multiple institutions through a sourcing cooperative like E&I Cooperative Services. They streamline procurement and consolidate demand against similar institutions to achieve volume pricing discounts.
E&I Cooperative Services helps higher education institutions achieve eProcurement excellence through competitively solicited cooperative contracts, catalog enablement, and access to consulting and integration experts to improve your procurement process. E&I also offers hundreds of cooperative agreements with top-tier suppliers, which can significantly save you time and money. View available contracts or connect with your E&I rep to find solutions that fit your academic institution.