UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS
“ The good thing is we had the opportunity to deepen the procurement competencies of the folks in these legacy organisations , who can now go deeper , instead of being generalists ”
DAVID CHO CHIEF PROCUREMENT OFFICER AND MANAGING DIRECTOR , UMASS
everything to everyone . It ’ s not just about building the catalogue , for instance , but how do we leverage their platform ? Some of our partners ’ data on the things we buy is better than the data we have in-house . So we can leverage that kind of intelligence .”
The Power of Partnerships A good example , Cho says , is the partnership with Huron , with which UMass ’ investment has risen over the past 18 months . “ They ' ve been terrific in looking at where we are today and where we want to be tomorrow ,” Cho says . “ What ’ s really vital is that it ' s not just what they know , it ' s how they deploy . It ' s how the team we work with at Huron take in that input from us and understand the particular outcomes that we ' re looking for . To be able to factor in change management , very gracefully as part of the underlying sense of processes and services that they ' re delivering , has been tremendous .”
Another key supplier , SupplyLogic , provides “ intelligence that we can ' t build ,” Cho says , which is helping the organisation towards its supplier diversity objectives . Taking print services as an example , the UPST can leverage SupplyLogic ’ s platform to discover veteran-owned suppliers ,
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