By Yvonne Tevis. Efforts led by UC Systemwide Procurement’s IT strategic sourcing team achieved almost $70 M in “benefit” for UC in fiscal year 2021 by negotiating contracts with suppliers. That is $25 M more than in the previous year!
Last year’s great achievement was the result of strong collaborative partnerships among Systemwide Procurement, the UC IT Leadership Council, the UC IT Sourcing Committee, local campus and health procurement offices, and other key stakeholders and business process owners, said Thomas Trappler, associate director for IT Strategic Sourcing.
Over the years, the partnership has resulted in more than 70 systemwide IT agreements covering a wide range of IT products available for use by UC locations, including Dell, Cisco/ePlus, ServiceNow, Salesforce, and more.
Trappler explained that “benefit” is calculated using a consistent methodology to quantify the financial value derived from executed agreements. Benefit reflects more than reduction in cost or “savings,” it captures other types of value, such as revenue, or avoidance of a price increase. Additional detail about the methodology for determining benefit is available.
New projects nearing completion this year include assistive technology solutions, IT security tools, and telecommunications. Representing a significant amount of work and systemwide collaboration, much of which occurred last year, these projects aren’t included in the 2021 benefit calculation. They’re expected to result in 20 additional agreements and even more financial value to UC.
Suggestions for new systemwide IT strategic sourcing projects are always welcome for consideration by the IT Sourcing Committee, itself a partnership between IT and Procurement.
Trappler emphasized that every IT agreement reflects hours and hours of work by his team (Bala Balakumar, Roshni Pratap, and Michael Wegmann) in UC Procurement’s IT Center of Excellence, along with many subject matter experts across UC. These experts help prioritize what projects to work on, provide the expertise to develop requests for proposals, evaluate supplier responses, facilitate adoption of new agreements, and provide ongoing feedback about supplier performance.
“The benefits achieved are the result of all of us working together,” Trappler said, “with Procurement and IT each bringing its own essential expertise.”
Yvonne Tevis is editor, UC IT Blog, and chief of staff, Information Technology Services, University of California Office of the President.
Great work, Tom, team, and others!