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By leveraging cooperative contracts, procurement organizations are reducing administrative workloads, improving purchasing consistency, and benefiting from competitive pricing negotiated through the combined volume of thousands of institutions, resulting in procurement savings.
Group purchasing is growing rapidly as a way to achieve procurement savings. Across industries, organizations collectively spent $7 billion in 2025 through GPOs, reflecting rising adoption among institutions seeking stronger cost control and reduced sourcing complexity.
This shift is driven by multiple pressures:
Cooperative contracts through GPO membership eliminate the need to run redundant competitive solicitations, giving immediate access to pre-negotiated agreements that meet the compliance requirements of public and private institutions.
The value of cooperative purchasing extends beyond initial price reductions. Institutions benefit through a combination of direct savings, process efficiencies, and long-term cost avoidance.
Preparing RFPs is a time-consuming task. Developing specifications, reviewing submissions, answering vendor questions, running evaluations, and negotiating terms can take months. In most categories, this process duplicates work already completed by a GPO’s competitive solicitation.
Cooperative contracts eliminate these RFP cycles. Instead, you can adopt cooperative agreements immediately, reducing your administrative burden and accelerating purchasing timelines, all while saving money.
GPOs can negotiate better deals with suppliers than individual schools by representing thousands of institutions. This often leads to double-digit pricing advantages. For example, E&I Cooperative Services members often save 10% to 15% using cooperative contracts.
Savings in specialty areas can go even further. For example, procurement savings for technology such as laptops, printers, and software can reach up to 30%. GPO membership is increasingly valuable as institutions update technology or modernize their facilities.
Cooperative contracts often include terms that reduce expenses over the lifecycle of a product or service. These might include:
By eliminating pricing variability and ensuring dependable contract performance, you reduce your financial risk.
It’s not uncommon to find cooperative contracts, through E&I Cooperative Services, that use companies you already do business with. When Saint Louis University (SLU) needed new health and fitness equipment for its campus recreation spaces, the team found that out firsthand, resulting in immediate procurement savings.
SLU had worked with Core Health & Fitness in the past successfully, so when it found there was a cooperative contract ready to go, it streamlined the procurement process, realizing an 8% reduction in costs and a 5-year warranty. “In an environment when everyone’s being asked to do more with less, and everyone’s trying to manage their time as best as possible, being able to use this agreement is like a breath of fresh air because it expedites the process,” said Eric Anderson at SLU.
For SLU, GPO membership allowed the team to bypass months of administrative work, focus on additional priorities, while also securing strong warranty protections and verifiable procurement savings.
You can demonstrate the value of GPO membership by measuring a few specific areas.
This includes unit price reductions on recurring purchases, technology, equipment, or services. When contracts deliver savings of 10%, 15%, or even more, these numbers accumulate quickly across an academic year.
Reducing the time required for sourcing, contract evaluation, and supplier negotiation leads to significant staff efficiency gains. These savings allow you to spend more time on analytics, compliance initiatives, supplier relationships, or other institutional projects.
Guaranteed service levels, extended warranties, and structured contract terms help prevent unplanned expenses. These protections can be as valuable as upfront pricing discounts.
Maverick and off-contract spend can add up fast. By consolidating departments under cooperative agreements, you minimize unapproved purchasing and maximize pricing opportunities. In turn, this strengthens your financial control.
To realize maximum value from your GPO membership, you’ll want to put a few best practices in place.
Directing fragmented purchases into a smaller number of strategic agreements helps achieve greater savings and price consistency while also reducing the administrative burden of managing hundreds or thousands of suppliers.
Spend analysis reports help teams discover areas of off-contract spending, category fragmentation, or outdated agreements. E&I offers no-cost Strategic Spend Assessments (SSAs) to uncover areas where you can reduce costs.
Educating faculty, administrators, and department buyers ensures stronger adoption and reduces the frequency of rogue or noncontract spend.
Regular conversations with the category specialists at E&I can help you identify new opportunities, innovative solutions, and additional contracts to explore.
Explore more than 200 competitively solicited contracts designed exclusively for education through E&I Cooperative Services and check out all of the benefits of becoming a member.