Procurement of goods and services typically makes up between 20% and 33% of an institution’s total operating budget, making it the second-largest cost center behind salaries.
With so much spending moving through procurement, colleges, universities, and other educational institutions need sourcing strategies that balance cost control, compliance, speed, and supplier performance. A buying cooperative can help by giving participating institutions access to competitively solicited contracts without requiring each organization to conduct a separate solicitation for every need.
A buying cooperative brings organizations together to leverage their combined purchasing power and access contracts established through a competitive solicitation process. Rather than every college or university independently developing specifications, issuing an RFP, evaluating responses, negotiating terms, and awarding a contract for the same category, the cooperative conducts much of that sourcing work on behalf of participating institutions. By aligning to a competitively solicited contract created by a buying cooperative, the institution can save time, money, and resources.
The institution still chooses what to purchase, which supplier to use, and how much to spend.
Here’s how the coop purchasing process typically works.
Educational institutions become members to access cooperative contracts. For example, E&I Cooperative Services has more than 260 ready-to-use contracts that meet public compliance mandates.
The cooperative conducts a competitive solicitation for a particular category of products or services. This typically includes developing specifications, publishing the solicitation, evaluating supplier responses, negotiating terms, and awarding contracts.
For procurement departments, one of the key advantages is gaining access to contracts that have already undergone a formal competitive process. Teams can then review the resulting documentation and determine whether the contract satisfies their institution’s procurement requirements.
Once contracts are awarded, participating institutions can evaluate them against their own needs. Using a cooperative contract does not eliminate due diligence. It can, however, eliminate the need to recreate the entire competitive solicitation process when a coop purchasing contract is already available.
When an institution chooses a cooperative contract, it purchases directly from the awarded supplier under the contract’s established terms. The academic institution remains responsible for internal approvals, purchase orders, budget controls, receiving, payment, and ongoing supplier management.
One of the biggest advantages of coop purchasing is procurement capacity. Running a competitive solicitation takes time, particularly when teams must coordinate specifications with multiple departments, manage supplier questions, evaluate proposals, negotiate terms, and document the award.
Cooperative contracts can reduce that administrative burden for appropriate categories.
They may also provide institutions with several strategic advantages, including:
These benefits can be especially important in decentralized campus environments where numerous departments purchase similar products and services independently.
Coop purchasing should be viewed as one sourcing option within a broader procurement strategy rather than a replacement for strategic sourcing.
Procurement teams still need to determine whether each contract aligns with institutional requirements. That evaluation includes:
The strongest approach is often to evaluate sourcing methods category by category. Some purchases may warrant an institution-specific solicitation because requirements are highly specialized. Others may be well suited to an existing cooperative agreement that already provides competitive terms and appropriate supplier coverage.
In that context, buying cooperatives give procurement leaders another way to increase sourcing capacity while still retaining control over purchasing decisions.
E&I Cooperative Services is the only member-owned, nonprofit cooperative exclusively serving the education sector. E&I serves 6,500 academic institutions and provides access to 260+ competitively solicited cooperative contracts covering a wide range of products and services.
Members can also access procurement expertise, analytics, digital procurement solutions, and resources designed around the operational requirements of educational institutions, including a no-cost Strategic Spend Assessment (SSA). SSAs provide a strategic, consultative approach to help you find efficiencies and savings.
Explore E&I’s cooperative contracts or learn more about the benefits of membership, including rebates and patronage refunds based on participation. Membership is free and there is no minimum purchasing obligation.