The Complete Guide to Procurement Software and eProcurement Solutions for Higher Education
How digital are you? Among chief procurement officers, 83% say digitizing the procurement process is a key priority, creating an end-to-end solution that streamlines the entire purchasing process. With today‘s tight budgets and funding challenges, efficiency has become more crucial than ever. If you’re handling a lot of work manually or using legacy procurement software, […]
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 […]
Spend Control Strategies: How Group Purchasing Transforms Campus Budgets
There’s a new fiscal reality in higher education, and procurement teams are increasingly being asked to thread the needle by finding lower costs without impacting quality. It’s no longer just about hitting budget numbers either. For many institutions, it’s about survival. The Forvis Mazars and NC State University Poole College of Management’s Annual Higher Education […]
Procurement Automation: Cutting Administrative Costs in Higher Education
Procurement today is complex. There are more suppliers to manage, tighter budgets, and mounting expectations for compliance and transparency. You have to work to reduce potential supply chain disruptions, while meeting institutional mandates and keeping a constant focus on cost control. Yet, manual processes are no longer keeping up with these demands, especially as many […]
Cooperative Purchasing for Colleges: How Group Buying Platforms Reduce Costs
In the past year, higher education procurement has gotten even more difficult. Deloitte’s 2025 Higher Education Trends report put it this way: “The increasing frequency of budget gaps is acting as a forcing function, compelling higher education institutions to move into the uncomfortable territory of entering into agreements to share resources to find scale.“ That […]
The Essential Guide to MRO Procurement and Facilities Supply Management for Higher Education
Colleges and universities have faced difficult choices in recent years, including layoffs, program restructuring, and budgetary cutbacks that have changed operations. Despite these challenges, many institutions have maintained MRO procurement. While routine maintenance has generally continued, replacements and renewals of facilities are now facing a significant backlog, and funding isn’t keeping up. The 2025 State […]
Controlling Facility Supply Costs: How to Reduce MRO Spend in Higher Education
It’s become a nearly universal mandate across higher education: reduce spending wherever possible. This has forced educational institutions to make hard decisions to meet today’s financial challenges, and it impacts just about every area, including facility supplies and MRO spend. Many campuses are delaying maintenance (deferred maintenance) or putting off infrastructure investments. For example, a […]
MRO Solutions That Work: Improving MRO Management on Campus
Capital projects and new construction are often what capture the most headlines, but it’s MRO that keeps things running smoothly. Each year you make a significant investment, efficient MRO management can make a big difference. Take energy, for example. Campuses in the U.S. spend more than $6 billion each year on energy. Much of that […]
MRO Sourcing Best Practices: Strategic MRO Purchasing for Campus Facilities
HVAC filters, replacement light bulbs and plumbing parts, jan/san supplies, and much more. Every campus has categories of purchases that go unnoticed by students and faculty until something doesn’t work right or fails altogether. Yet, MRO is often overlooked when it comes to procurement. With today’s tight budgets, that can no longer be the case. […]
Managing Repair Parts and Maintenance Supplies: A Facilities Procurement Strategy
Across the country, more than a third of university buildings are over 50 years old. With budget constraints, many higher education institutions have put off maintenance with limited dollars, which is causing downstream problems and emergency spending. Nationally, the total maintenance backlog across schools and campuses is a staggering $112 billion. Unplanned expenses create budget […]