Higher education buying departments expect to save hundreds of millions of rand through a new e-procurement and travel management platform.
Purchasing Consortium Southern Africa (Purco SA), the higher education procurement consortium, concluded an e-procurement master agreement with e-solutions provider mymarket.com in February. The system is scheduled to go live in June.
Purco SA represents 42 member institutions including all South African and Namibian public universities, as well as FET colleges, private higher education providers and related institutions such as the SABS, CSIR, NRF and others.
In 2013 Purco SA helped its members save almost R100-million through collaborative contracts.
After evaluating more than 40 local and international e-procurement solutions, Purco SA selected mymarket.com to power the new Purco SA Online platform. The portal is a fully integrated, customisable e-procurement and travel management solution used by some 150 of South African corporates. The solution facilitates more than 21 000 buying transactions daily, from more than 15 000 suppliers.
Purco SA CEO Selvan Govender is confident the new platform will contribute immeasurably to leveraging the collective buying power of Purco SA’s members to drive tangible cost reductions. As the platform gains momentum and more institutions adopt Purco SA Online he also expects it to deliver significant process efficiencies, a reduction in off-contract (maverick) buying and improved financial compliance.
Dawood Tagari, MD of mymarket.com, says in his experience buying organisations can achieve savings of 25% or more
The platform is free to suppliers until they make a sale and Tagari notes that the small transaction fee is offset by the benefits. Purco SA Online offers exceptional access to education buyers, and experience indicates that buyers
typically halve their off-contract procurement and double their spend with contracted suppliers.
Statistics from the Aberdeen Group reflect that suppliers typically achieve a 67% increase in buyer visibility, 47% more orders, a 24% reduction in customer servicing costs and a 26% improvement in their order to cash cycles.
Purco SA chairman Chris Liebenberg, who is also senior finance director at the University of Free State, says institutions are very aware of the need to maximise the public funds with which they are entrusted. He says Purco SA members are committed to achieving savings that can be directed to improve academic programmes.
