UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS
of a comprehensive shared services plan , a collaborative , system-wide , cross-functional project that was released in April 2019 and endorsed by the UMass Board of Trustees .
“ The outcome was very similar for each of these separate functions at the campus level , but business was conducted in six different ways , with different operating procedures , and even the same technologies were configured differently ,” Cho says . His first challenge was to unify these disparate organisations and harmonise a “ patchwork ” of policies , procedures and technologies into a standardised system for conducting business . The new centralised organisation driving procurement efficiency for UMass is known as the Unified Procurement Services Team ( UPST ).
“ The premise of this was to create a shared services environment to support the campuses ,” says Cho , whose newly unified team now manages close to $ 1 billion in annual spend and more than 17,000 active suppliers . “ 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 ,” he says . The team reduced in scope from 70 + to 50 specialists , but “ we built competency frameworks specific to the function , and we can plan training paths for each individual and role to build more domain expertise ”.
With the mandate to create a functioning shared services organisation while still maintaining business-as-usual support for campus procurement activities , the UPST had their work cut out for them . Unfortunately , within three months of becoming operational they had to face the COVID-19 pandemic and its ripple effects on the system . UMass experienced a $ 240m revenue shortfall . They shifted their focus to supporting UMass in meeting specific short-term objectives , such as health and safety goods and services , and remote learning equipment , that needed to be addressed instantly . But when the initial dust of the pandemic had settled , so too did Cho ’ s focus .
“ Better , Faster , Cheaper ” The procurement harmonisation project is underpinned by a philosophy to derive more value at every point , something Cho characterises as “ Better , Faster , Cheaper .” “ It ’ s about ensuring that we have more strategic partnerships , and that we ' re getting the best value in reducing operational risks ,” Cho says . “ We ’ re faster by using catalogues , for example , and pre-negotiating a lot of framework agreements so that people can point , click , and buy , just like we do every day in our personal lives . To be cheaper , we ’ re using market intelligence benchmarks that come not only in the form of price points , but operating procedures , best practices , and really using that market intel to its full extent .”