Make Procurement in Education Easy

Post-secondary institutions require many items to service their student body and faculty. These items have to be procured from somewhere. This process can be extremely messy and disorganized – wasting time and money. Ricoh can digitize this process and help you ensure that you are getting the tools you want, for the price you want to pay.

When it comes to procurement, the list is long. Just top-of-mind brings a pretty substantial list to the forefront:

  • Thousands of textbooks
  • Teaching equipment (g., chalk, markers, etc.)
  • Classroom equipment (g., chairs, desks, tables, etc.)
  • Food to stock student stores and cafeterias as well as catering for special events
  • Materials and tools for maintenance and custodial projects

Universities and colleges purchase these items from various organizations and stores spread across the world. It’s an involved process and can easily be tedious, if there isn’t a proper tracking system.

Ricoh Can Get You On Track

A few challenges that can arise from an irregular and/or manual process:

  • As the use of resources isn’t tracked, there is no available data on how and when they are being used. This not only makes it difficult to bill the appropriate individuals but also means that insights cannot be gathered on why things are being used the way they are.
  • Often purchases are made on a department-by-department basis, with little communication between departments with regards to procurement. A department may spend hours, days, or weeks researching or debating which item to obtain for a specific task. Meanwhile, this research might already have been done by another department. This means a significant amount of wasted money and time, as well as unnecessary stress. Also, if different departments are ordering the same thing, they probably should do it together, since it may often incur discounts for bulk purchases.
  • With no tracking, there can be communication issues on what exactly has been ordered and when it is due to arrive. One team member might assume that an item was decided on and ordered, while another may think it’s still pending. On the other hand, some items may be double-ordered by different team members. Such a system can increase stress and lead to increased cost and frustration for all involved.
  • Unexpected staff changes create situations where, if a team member leaves a department, it can lead to a state of confusion over when items are going to arrive and if they were ordered. This can occur because of lack of a formalized system that can easily access current status of ordered items. 

Ricoh’s years of commitment to education has helped us to identify these key operational challenges that educational and other organizations face.

We can implement a sophisticated enterprise content management (ECM) system through which all purchases – and the data associated with them – can be tracked. School staff can be integrated into such a system and teams created such that it is easy for all involved to see the status of different items. The system includes automatic alerts, which are sent to pertinent individuals when certain events happen (e.g., when an item has to be purchased but is not or when an item is about to arrive, etc.). Staff can also communicate about particular items within the system, helping everyone have clarity and insight into the ordering process. Data can also be used to generate more efficient and effective procurement processes in the future. You can find out more at www.ricoh.ca/education.

All in all, by working with Ricoh, universities can become more efficient and help save money! Call a Ricoh representative today to learn how you can make procurement easy!

Talk to a Ricoh representative about how to make procurement easy. Contact us at educationsolutions@ricoh.ca.