We’ve entered unprecedented territory. According to Deloitte, two-thirds of higher education finance professionals believe the current business model will become unsustainable over the next 5 to 10 years. Despite best efforts, there are challenges to the status quo, requiring a more serious look at spending and planning.
It’s not theoretical, and some academic institutions aren’t going to make it. More than 80 public or nonprofit colleges have closed, merged, or announced plans to do so since 2020. And nearly every institution has had cutbacks. More than 70% of colleges and universities have made expense reductions across nearly all areas of their operations.
Finance and procurement leaders know this reality all too well, which is why strategic procurement has become more important than ever. Procurement efforts have become critical drivers in reducing costs and delivering value, with measurable goals that help solve short-term financial challenges and align with long-term institutional priorities.
At its core, strategic procurement is a long-term, holistic approach to sourcing that goes beyond buying what’s needed today at the lowest cost. It emphasizes aligning procurement decisions with institutional objectives, such as sustainability, student experience, and risk management.
Unlike traditional procurement, which focuses more on price and speed, strategic procurement solutions leverage data, supplier relationships, and institutional priorities to deliver greater value over time. It’s about transforming procurement into a proactive, strategic function that strengthens the entire institution.
Strategic procurement management requires a commitment to collaboration across finance, administration, and academic leadership. It’s the only way to make sure you meet budget targets and advance the broader mission of your institution.
While every institution’s approach is unique, a well-defined strategic procurement process ensures consistency, transparency, and measurable outcomes. Strategic procurement planning typically includes five steps. Let’s look at each and provide specific actions you should take.
Begin by analyzing your spend data to identify inefficiencies, redundancies, and opportunities for consolidation. A clear spend analysis provides the foundation for all other decisions in the process.
Action Items:
E&I Cooperative Services can be a big help here. We offer no-cost Strategic Spend Assessments (SSAs) to members. Our data analysts will do a thorough review of your spending data and find areas where you can bring more spend under contract, achieve greater volume discounts, and apply cooperative contracts to reduce overall spending.
Strategic procurement management includes a category-based approach, grouping similar goods and services to unlock greater negotiating power and sourcing strategies. Category management also makes for better visibility into supplier performance and lifecycle costs.
Action Items:
E&I has category specialists who can help you develop long-term roadmaps that align with your goals or fill in gaps in your knowledge base about specific categories. This information often includes insight into product lifecycles and development for key suppliers to help with strategic procurement planning over a longer timeline.
Rather than choosing suppliers solely on price, you need to evaluate suppliers on compliance, financial stability, sustainability practices, and the ability to innovate. It’s all about how the total cost of ownership adds up and aligns with your goals.
“It’s not just about how much money you can save. It is holistically about how can you have cost avoidance? How can you bring value?
– Lenora Sevillian, Director of Procurement at Nova Southeastern University, in Supply Chain Dive
Negotiations need to emphasize long-term value and risk reduction.
Action Items:
Strong contract governance is essential for strategic procurement services. Contracts should include clear performance expectations, compliance requirements, and risk mitigation strategies.
Action Items:
Standardizing and centralizing your strategic procurement management process can significantly improve your approach. E&I’s cooperative agreements can help, offering access to hundreds of competitively solicited contracts designed specifically for the education sector to meet common compliance requirements.
Ongoing monitoring ensures suppliers deliver on commitments. Analytics and KPIs track spend, compliance, and supplier performance to close the loop on your strategic procurement solutions.
Action Items:
While you might take this for granted, a 2025 study showed that fewer than 10% of colleges and universities have a reliable tracking process in place to show that the perceived value is actually delivered.
Step | Primary Focus | Key Action Items |
Spend Analysis | Identify inefficiencies and savings opportunities | Consolidate spend data, categorize expenses, benchmark costs |
Category Management | Build leverage and category-specific strategies | Group purchases, align with goals, set metrics |
Supplier Selection | Choose and negotiate for long-term value | Screen suppliers, form partnerships, negotiate total value |
Contract Management | Ensure compliance and governance | Standardize templates, embed SLAs, review regularly |
Performance Monitoring | Track and refine supplier performance | Use dashboards, hold reviews, continuously adjust strategies |
Strategic procurement planning provides the roadmap for aligning sourcing activities with your institutional goals.
You must first establish your objectives. Are you trying to radically reduce costs? Meet sustainability goals to show demonstrable reductions in carbon emissions? Ensure compliance? Reduce risk and solidify supply chains?
Likely, you’ll need to do all of these things (and more). But without clear targets, planning cannot be measured or evaluated.
Higher education procurement operates under strict compliance requirements, including federal and state regulations. A strong framework builds in compliance controls while assessing risks such as supplier instability, market fluctuations, or regulatory changes.
Disruptions are less frequent than a few years ago but likely to increase with inflation, geopolitical conflicts, and tariff concerns. We’re still seeing problem areas throughout the education sector. For example, 92% of food service programs report supply chain disruptions that caused operational challenges.
Continuity is still an issue for many institutions, too. While 57% of organizations report having mitigation plans, the rest admit they have no backup plan for supply chain disruptions. Without redundancy and resiliency, you risk being caught off guard by supplier failures or geopolitical shocks.
Digital tools like eProcurement platforms, catalog services, and analytics dashboards are critical for enabling strategic procurement services. These technologies improve your efficiency, visibility, and compliance while providing valuable data for decision-making.
They can also reduce your maverick spend by offering access to pre-approved catalogs that are under contract to stakeholders.
Speaking of which, your strategic planning framework must involve your key stakeholders (faculty, administrators, finance, and IT) to make sure that that you realize the full benefits of strategic procurement and address all of your institutional needs.
The benefits of strategic procurement create both measurable and intangible value.
Strategic sourcing, cooperative agreements, and category management can help reduce costs. Using cooperative purchasing, for example, can often produce cost reductions of 10–15% by aggregating demand across multiple institutions and tapping into larger volume discounts.
With regulatory environments tightening and government policy changes coming quickly these days, institutions rely on their procurement teams to ensure compliance and minimize risks. Your strategic procurement framework will help guide you.
Sustainability, supplier diversity, and community engagement can be built directly into procurement decisions, allowing you to advance priorities that matter to your students, faculty, and stakeholders.
Long-term supplier partnerships foster collaboration, innovation, and shared value. Suppliers often provide new technologies, services, and cost-saving measures when integrated strategically. Your strategic procurement process can produce partnerships with key suppliers to help you optimize value.
You also benefit from access to data as part of your procurement strategy. This gives you more visibility into spend patterns, risks, and opportunities for optimization.
Institutions that leverage strategic procurement services typically see stronger results. Here are a few best practices that make a difference.
Centralized processes eliminate duplication, reduce risk, and ensure greater control over compliance and institutional objectives.
“The financial strain faced by many colleges and universities, along with the need for a systemic approach to these strategic choices, is prompting institutions to adopt a more centralized approach to managing resources.”
– Deloitte 2025 Higher Education Trends
Using pre-negotiated cooperative contracts eliminates the need for lengthy RFPs, while driving cost savings and compliance benefits. This is one of the most effective strategic procurement solutions available to higher education today and can yield nearly immediate savings.
Strategic spend assessments uncover hidden savings and help institutions build category-specific sourcing strategies. They provide a baseline for more advanced planning and optimization. E&I Cooperative Services provides no-cost spend assessments for members.
Staff training and development ensure procurement teams can keep pace with evolving technologies, compliance requirements, and market dynamics. E&I’s EdPro Hub community provides an opportunity for procurement professionals to share strategies, tactics, and solve challenges.
Real-time dashboards, spend analysis tools, and supplier scorecards give procurement leaders the visibility to make better decisions.
Strategic procurement is a necessary evolution for higher education institutions facing budgetary pressures, compliance demands, and rising stakeholder expectations. By focusing on long-term value creation, implementing defined processes, and leveraging technology and partnerships, you can create a procurement strategy that is efficient and reduces costs.
E&I Cooperative Services is the only member-owned nonprofit cooperative focused exclusively on education procurement. We help more than 6,200 academic institutions save time, reduce costs, and stay compliant. Members have access to hundreds of competitively solicited cooperative agreements backed by a team of experienced professional and category specialists and resources to optimize your strategic procurement services.
What’s the difference between strategic and traditional procurement?
Traditional procurement focuses on immediate, transactional purchasing, while strategic procurement takes a long-term, mission-driven approach that aligns sourcing with institutional priorities and risk management.
What are the key steps in the strategic procurement process?
The process typically includes spend analysis, category management, supplier selection, contract management, and ongoing performance monitoring.
How does strategic procurement reduce costs?
By consolidating spend, leveraging cooperative agreements, and building supplier partnerships, institutions can achieve significant savings and reduce inefficiencies.
How do you measure strategic procurement success?
Success is measured through cost savings, compliance performance, supplier scorecards, stakeholder satisfaction, and progress toward institutional goals such as sustainability or diversity.
Contact E&I Cooperative Services, the only member-owned nonprofit sourcing cooperative focused exclusively on the education sector. Start saving time and money with cooperative agreements designed for higher ed.