Here’s a common scenario: a department administrator needs to purchase lab supplies. She fills out a form, emails it to her supervisor, waits for a signature, follows up with procurement, and then days or even weeks later, the order is finally placed.
Contrast that with a centralized eProcurement platform that allows that same administrator to choose from pre-approved suppliers on contracted rates with auto-approval happening in seconds. Days or weeks become minutes.
As higher education institutions look for greater operational efficiency and accountability, eProcurement is helping streamline buying, and institutions are embracing it. Verified Market Research expects spending in the procurement software market to grow from $5.8 billion in 2024 to $13.2 billion by 2031.
eProcurement is short for electronic procurement and uses digital tech to manage the entire purchasing process from requisition to payment. This replaces legacy manual processes with automated workflows and centralized visibility.
Here’s how the two processes compare.
Traditional Procurement | eProcurement |
Paper-based or email requests | Centralized online platform |
Disparate approvals | Automated workflows |
Manual data entry | Integrated systems |
Limited visibility | Real-time spend analytics |
With eProcurement systems, universities can digitize core purchasing functions, including:
This saves time and creates audit-ready records for internal control.
Continuing challenges to budgets, grants, and funding are putting intense pressure on finance and procurement teams. eProcurement helps deliver strategic value and helps overcome at least some of these challenges by producing:
When procurement is streamlined, the entire institution benefits. Faculty get what they need faster, finance gains greater budget control, and administrators can worry less about transactions and more about strategic goals.
Some procurement professionals estimate that between 50-80% of current workflow can be automated, eliminated, or shifted to self-service models with eProcurement and AI tools.
AI-powered approvals, predictive analytics to forecast demand and optimize contract usage, intelligent sourcing based on evolving needs, and risk mitigation strategies: All of these are possible when you add AI to the mix.
For universities managing thousands of purchases across decentralized departments, this type of intelligent automation can deliver massive gains in speed, accuracy, and control.
The eProcurement definition goes beyond the software. It’s a tool to enhance operations on several levels. Colleges and universities can set specific goals and use the platform to help measure and meet these goals.
With better spend visibility, you can stay on budget and plan ahead. Pre-approved catalogs, aligned with contracted rates, can also reduce maverick or off-contract spend.
Centralized procurement enables tracking of environmentally preferred spending and can help direct buyers to eco-friendly products.
Institutions can identify and prioritize purchases from diverse and minority-owned suppliers, helping purchasers to easily find certified diverse sources.
Self-service capabilities give end users access to approved catalogs while maintaining procurement control.
Not every institution is ready to implement a full-scale eProcurement platform overnight, and that’s okay. The path to digital procurement maturity can start small and scale over time.
Some colleges or universities start with P-card marketplaces, like E&I’s BlankBuy, allowing users to make low-value purchases through controlled virtual catalogs. Others digitize their existing supplier relationships for easier ordering and tracking. More mature organizations will combine requisitions, approvals, invoicing, and reporting in an integrated solution.
Regardless of where you start, every step toward eProcurement contributes to greater strategic impact.
eProcurement as part of your digital tech stack allows finance and procurement teams greater control over spending and insight to make more strategic decisions
E&I Cooperative Services can help. As the only member-owned, nonprofit sourcing cooperative focused exclusively on education procurement, we offer competitively solicited contracts for digital procurement solutions, as well as our own digital procurement solution that help you save time, reduce costs, and stay compliant.
We offer eProcurement solutions for members, including:
And membership is free for academic institutions.
See which eProcurement path fits your institution’s current needs. Explore E&I’s member solutions and find your starting point.