Battling through
Faced with the rising cost of goods, lower student numbers, and legislative change, challenges are stacking up for UK universities and their procurement teams.
With the Procurement Act 2023 coming into force in October, procurement leads have been busy preparing for the new rules, while battling with the cost of delivery crisis.
Added to these pressures, sustainability must now be at the forefront of the buying process. This comes with its own challenges; sustainable procurement often requires additional time and cost resources, as well as the right digital solution to evaluate supplier performance.
What does good look like?
Modern purchasing solutions should be able to perform a number of key functions:
- Be user friendly and intuitive
- Be hosted in the cloud, bringing greater agility
- Make it easy for all data to be accessed centrally
- Integrate with finance management systems
- Integrate with Amazon Business and other leading platforms
- Reduce administrative burden and cost through automation
- Reduce maverick spend
- Give a clear view on supplier performance and green credentials
It’s time to save time
With Purchasing from OneAdvanced, a range of automations are on hand to speed up tasks, eliminate the need for double data entry, and review changes updated by suppliers. By reducing manual input, universities can save countless hours of administration, a benefit seen at University of Leeds:
“Since we started using OneAdvanced’s Purchasing solution, our team have been able to save an average of 3,300 hours a year on admin time.”
- Tim Brannon, Director of Procurement at University of Leeds
Hosted in the cloud, Purchasing makes it easy to work from anywhere with an internet connection – a prerequisite in today’s world. It also means you get automatic updates as they happen, without the need to install any software.
Purchasing is also exceptionally user-friendly, meaning it can be picked up quickly, with minimal training required. The single, centralised portal allows your end users to easily buy goods from approved suppliers; this is configured for each user’s spend data, rather than the organisation as a whole.
A clear view on spend
Purchasing offers powerful connections and integrations. The solution integrates with our cloud-based financial software, Financials, giving you a clear view on spend across multiple buying departments.
Available as an additional module, Amazon Business Punchout enables your team to have a concise view on spend when purchasing from Amazon Business. Furthermore, controls can be set, ensuring all requisitions go through your standard approval processes before an order can be placed – reducing maverick spend.
Maverick spend can also be reduced through Purchasing’s buying process, which enables the user to buy on a single, centralised platform. Preferred suppliers can be highlighted, encouraging responsible, guided purchasing.
Easy to be green?
Purchasing allows your university to adhere to sustainability goals, through the ability to source goods and services from reputable and responsible suppliers. Further, the software allows the user to track information on the supplier’s suppliers, ensuring sustainability throughout the supply chain.
Suppliers can be tagged with attributes including locality and sustainability credentials, giving a clear view on purchasing in line with your organisation’s ESG objectives. Using the Insights Spend Analytics module, users can track supplier performance against KPIs.
Summing up
With cost savings now a priority, universities should look towards digital solutions that deliver a clear view on spend. Using Purchasing from OneAdvanced, universities have an agile, cloud-based solution that makes it easy to reduce maverick spend, produces a single source of centralised data, and keeps the organisation in line with its sustainability goals.
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