E&I Members: Make Your Voice Heard in Less Than a Minute! Help us improve your experience-fast, simple, and meaningful.
Things aren’t any easier for procurement teams this year. A 2026 study by The Hackett Group shows an average workload increase of 8–10%, with “declining or flat headcount and operating budgets.” So, it continues to do more with less.
Getting the job done requires a more structured, automated, and strategic approach, leveraging procurement best practices to streamline processes and reduce costs. Here are some of the keys to improving operations in private and government education procurement.
The clearer and more comprehensive your procurement policies are, the tighter control you will have over spending. The key here is consistency across departments to reduce noncompliant purchasing.
POLICY AND COMPLIANCE CONTROLS
Between 50% and 80% of current procurement workflows can be automated or shifted to self-service models if the right tools and procedures are in place. Yet, most academic institutions still do the bulk of this work manually. Modern procurement tools can streamline workflow significantly, including:
Institutions are also exploring AI solutions in procurement at a rapid pace. 80% of Chief Procurement Officers consider AI investment a priority to streamline tasks.
Supplier performance has a direct impact on procurement outcomes. Universities and government education procurement teams benefit from using consistent supplier evaluation criteria to guide sourcing decisions, including:
Your procurement best practices should include periodic reviews to make sure you’re finding efficiencies. A Strategic Spend Assessment (SSA) by E&I Cooperative Services is designed to analyze your spend to identify where you can improve contract utilization and lower your costs. At no cost to members, an SSA will review the past year’s supplier-level purchasing data drawn from AP systems and purchasing card programs (not transaction-level data).
E&I procurement analysts then evaluate the data to identify patterns and opportunities across multiple procurement categories by assessing:
The results are compiled into a customized report that highlights potential cost savings opportunities and provides a data-driven roadmap for improving private or government education procurement strategy.
With the data in hand, you can look for ways to reduce procurement costs. You may not always be able to negotiate lower prices on new contracts or renewals, but there are strategies you can put in place to help with cost control. Data for your SSA can help show you how, and employing these procurement best practices can also lower costs.
Cooperative contracts provide access to competitively solicited agreements and leverage the aggregate purchasing power of other institutions. For example, E&I has more than 215 cooperative contracts that are ready to use and pre-negotiated on behalf of more than 6,400 academic institutions.
Besides cost savings, integrating cooperative contracts with digital procurement solutions has been shown to reduce purchasing cycle times by as much as 40%, freeing up resources for core institutional missions.
Colleges and universities often work with thousands of suppliers. Consolidating spend reduces the administrative burden and provides stronger negotiating power to achieve greater volume discounts.
Especially in decentralized purchasing at the department level, off-contract spend can significantly increase your costs. When more purchasing occurs through approved contracts, you can capture contracted savings while also improving purchasing transparency.
Data analysis can identify categories with the highest potential for cost reduction. Rather than issuing new sourcing events across all categories, procurement teams can prioritize areas with the largest spending volumes or the highest levels of off-contract purchasing.
When you’re trying to lower costs, it’s easy to overlook the longer view. However, you must still focus on the total cost of ownership for savings over time. In many categories, the purchase price is only a part of the lifetime cost.
E&I Cooperative Services provides personalized procurement support for institutions. Connect with your E&I representative today to discuss more ways to apply procurement best practices or request a no-cost Strategic Spend Analysis.