Growing Trend Sees Schools Reach For IT eProcurement
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Leading IT provider, Probrand, believes current pressure to get more from existing budgets and faster is driving a spike of interest in procuring IT through a simple eprocurement process. A trend that matches current Transformational Government aspirations.
In the last quarter, the business has signed-up an unprecedented number of education establishments to its online IT procurement portal www.theITindex.co.uk/gov including Brighton University, Northumbria University and Gateways High School, Leeds.
Probrand Sales Manager, Richard Hunter-Rice, said: “Education establishments are under the same if not greater economic pressures as the private sector. This is prompting buyers, who are often asked to multi-role in a tighter spending environment, to look at innovative ways of getting best priced IT products in the shortest possible time.
“Eprocurement offers education IT buyers just that. It meets the needs of improving technology education in the classroom as more advanced IT can now be bought for less.”
Innovative IT has been acknowledged by government as playing a key role in transforming schools and this is prompting the broader education sector to keep spending on IT.
Hunter-Rice continues: “eprocurement is helping schools and Local Education Authorities on average save 15% of their IT budgets and a working week in time usually spent calling suppliers to barter on price. That is 15% that can be used to get better, faster, more sustainable IT for the classroom and back office.”
www.theITIndex.co.uk/gov daily updates over 110,000 products by best price and stock availability from 2000+ suppliers and offers SIMS integration to meet the demands of education back office environments.
This IT buyer’s tool instantly generates more than three prices per product and is accredited as offering ‘procurement excellence’ by CIPS and ‘Best Practice Best Value’ by the Institute of Chartered Accountants.
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Eprocurement is a best practice approach highlighted by Sir Peter Gershon’s Efficiency Review of 2004 as a joined-up mechanism of driving cashable savings and improved productivity.
Direction Gershon still stands by in his current role championing better procurement from within the Cabinet Office as part of the Efficiency Reform Group. And with £670m of efficiency savings announced at the Department for Education, the tightening of public spend is likely to see eprocurement placed centre stage in facilitating cost reduction.
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