In September 2016, our new Vice President for Financial Affairs, Gerald Hector asked us to review the procurement process. We documented the procure-to-pay process from the need for a good or service through the entire process for ordering and paying the supplier or service provider. We met with the financial transaction and business service centers to review the process and with Senior Finance Group and Small Business Group members. We conducted 15 customer focus groups with 111 participants, and we surveyed an additional 684 campus customers. Thank you very much to all of you who took time to meet with us and share your feedback, and thank you to those of you who participated via the survey!
Based on previous customer feedback and our analyses, we presented to Mr. Hector a “Quick Wins” proposal that identified four recommendations for reducing complexity and simplifying the procurement process for the campus. The four quick wins we proposed were:
This fall, we will be working with your centers and business officers to review procurement card transaction limits and strategic deployment in the colleges and administrative units. Areas with a business need will be eligible for a higher procurement card transaction limit. We also will continue to work on implementing additional quick wins, reviewing the feedback received, and identifying opportunities to make buying easier for our campus customers.