Procurement teams in higher education face mounting pressure to do more with less. Budgets are tighter than ever, and there’s an increasing demand to cut costs. The job has become more challenging and the need more urgent.
Most academic institutions use a two-pronged approach: find innovative ways to save money on goods and services and create efficiencies to reduce the cost of procurement. Procurement software may be the solution you need.
Manual procurement may feel familiar, but comes with significant limitations. At many colleges and universities, procurement still relies heavily on email-based communication, spreadsheet tracking, and paper-driven approvals. These methods are time-consuming. McKinsey reports that employees spend 1.8 hours a day just searching for the information they need.
Finding that email, chasing signatures, reconciling conflicting spreadsheets, or manually checking vendor compliance, each step introduces the risk of mistakes or missed savings opportunities. Manual systems also make it harder to maintain visibility into institutional spend, making strategic planning and forecasting a challenge.
Compliance risks also increase when documentation is fragmented or difficult to retrieve. Institutions may struggle to enforce contract terms, meet audit requirements, or validate supplier qualifications, opening the door to potential legal and financial consequences.
The best procurement software can streamline your source-to-pay cycle by bringing most or all of your workflow onto a centralized, digital platform. From supplier onboarding and bidding to contract management and invoicing, procurement software introduces automation and agility into your workflow.
By modernizing your workflow, you can:
Implementing procurement software requires an initial investment in licensing, setup, and training. However, the ROI from process automation, increased compliance, and better supplier management adds up quickly.
One of your most expensive (and limited) resources is time.
A seamless workflow helps you optimize that time, helping turn more attention to strategic sourcing and value creation than clerical tasks.
Here are two examples:
A college or department requests a $50,000 piece of lab equipment. With manual processes, the purchase may take weeks to approve, with forms passed back and forth between departments. Using procurement software, the request routes automatically, compliance is checked instantly, and the order is placed in a matter of days.
Or maybe, you want to conduct an internal audit to verify supplier contracts and spend. Manually compiling the information and documentation might take days or even weeks. With the best procurement software, you can pull and sort records quickly.
Institutions that use the best procurement software also benefit from improved budget accuracy and financial planning. Procurement and finance teams can analyze trends, anticipate needs, and make better decisions. Over time, this transparency leads to better contract utilization and even greater cost control.
Procurement technology helps you work more strategically. The data you get can uncover insights into hidden savings. Strategic analysis can help you find where you could bring more spend under contract, consolidate suppliers to achieve greater volume discounts, and find opportunities to leverage cooperative contracts.
E&I Cooperative Services offers a no-cost Strategic Spend Assessment for members, providing a detailed data analysis to uncover strategies to maximize spend control and find efficiencies.
Procurement software also creates automated audit trails to make compliance reporting more efficient. For example, you can more easily demonstrate adherence to policy, track diverse supplier engagement, and assess sustainability impact to make sure your procurement aligns with institutional values.
Despite the advantages, some institutions hesitate to move away from manual processes. They may fear disruption to familiar systems or face budget constraints. Still, the long-term benefit can pay dividends.
Moving forward, academic institutions should conduct an audit for current procurement workflows to identify roadblocks and inefficiencies. A cost-benefit analysis can produce the data you need to justify an investment. Meanwhile, even small steps, such as digitizing requisitions or centralizing contract management, can generate immediate benefits and build momentum for broader adoption.
When it comes to procurement in higher education, manual processes are costly in more ways than one. They consume valuable staff time, increase the risk of errors, and make it harder to achieve strategic goals.
Procurement technology offers a smarter path forward. By automating routine tasks, improving transparency, and enabling better decision-making, procurement software allows you to save time, reduce costs, and deliver greater value.
E&I Cooperative Services is the only member-owned, non-profit sourcing cooperative focused exclusively on education. Explore our competitively solicited cooperative contracts and eProcurement software solutions.
