Don't miss out on joining nearly 1,500 of your colleagues and peers at higher education's premier planning event of 2010, SCUP–45. The Society for College and University Planning's 45th annual, international conference and idea marketplace is July 10–14 in Minneapolis!

Here's your SCUP Link to "How Campuses Are Changing Procurement for Cost Containment: A Major Study"

This is the kind of resource planners need in order to be on top of the changing environment. The report, from AASCU and NAEP, is based on a survey of chief procurement offices at US institutions. On this Web page, the news release, an executive summary, and the full report can be downloaded.

From the joint press release:

“At a time when federal and state lawmakers are calling on higher education leaders to do more with less, attention must also be paid to the role that state regulatory reform can play in reducing costs and improving efficiency,” says AASCU President Muriel A. Howard.

“Such reform in the multibillion-dollar higher education procurement enterprise offers great opportunity for individual campuses and university systems to streamline purchasing operations to save time and money, and to increase product and service quality. But most importantly, it would enable the redirecting of critical resources toward universities’ core missions of teaching and learning,” she says.

The survey reveals that although U.S. public colleges and universities frequently use technologies that facilitate smart purchase expenditures, further improvements can be realized through the use of additional e-procurement tools that can help institutions better assess, control and leverage procurement expenditures. The study also notes that institutions authorized by state policy to participate in cooperative purchasing arrangements are making broad use of such compacts.

“This study affirms that, while institutions are making gains in boosting cost savings and productivity in their procurement operations, much more can be done, in partnership with states, to streamline the procurement process,” said Doreen Murner, CEO of NAEP. “The purchasing function on college campuses can often go unnoticed. Yet this study illustrates its pervasiveness and underscores the opportunity for reform, while maintaining accountability for taxpayer-provided appropriations and students’ tuition dollars.”