University Business - April 2012 - (Page 47)

Poor compliance is a concern that every institution has had to—or will have to—wrestle with to some extent or another. Procurement specialists from a variety of campuses were asked how they approached the rollout and training of their e-procurement systems. Although each experience was different, important commonalities drove success. Here are some simple rules for others to follow. your preferred provider base to gauge their enthusiasm for your initiative,” she adds. “This may have been helpful when prioritizing our vendor enrollment activities.” Take it Slowly That is, give users time to absorb what’s coming and work out potential system bugs before full implementation of the e-procurement system. Wellington O. de Souza, vice president for High Point University (N.C.), says the business and IT offices were the first to use e-procurement. “We had to live through all the implementation issues before the general release and knew exactly what we were doing and how to take the project to a successful close,” he explains, mentioning that they kept it within these confines for about three months. The institution signed a contract with Unimarket in 2009 and launched the solution in 2010. Carroll Community College (Md.) took its system live in December 2010, explains At the College Stan Behnken, purchasing of DuPage, manager—but training of heavy and “unique” after pilot users got users began that September. To start, he created trained on the new a focus group of about e-procurement system, 15 staff. This group attended a 90-minute they became the “gotraining session and worked with the demo for to” people for their a few weeks before going live. departments. Full system implementation took about three months. “The smaller group allowed me to work out any idiosyncrasies that were unique to the college or individual department culture,” Behnken says. Fix says the gap between loading the College of DuPage’s system and going live was about six months, with the purchasing staff trained first. This consisted of two eight-hour sessions a week for four weeks. Then, pilot users—consisting of one individual, typically an administrative assistant, doing data entry from each area—were identified and trained by the solutions provider in half-day sessions lasting a week. The pilot users then became the “go-to” people for their departments. At Virginia Tech, Kaloupek opted for a phased approach as opposed to a “big bang” where everyone takes the leap together. “Our first rollout involved a test group of solid citizen departments that used the system for several months,” he explains. “Based upon their experiences, we were able to learn and smooth out trouble spots.” April 2012 | 47 Lay a Foundation Because these systems represent such a huge change, it’s necessary to whip up enthusiasm ahead of time. Janet K. Fix, purchasing manager at the College of DuPage (Ill.) says they kicked things off through an official “we’re excited” email communication listing the benefits of the Mercury Commerce e-procurement system from ESM Solutions and how these would make peoples’ jobs easier and more efficient. Upper-level support is essential, says Tom Kaloupek, director of materials and management for Virginia Tech. Before implementing the SciQuest system, his team involved senior management, enlisting the executive vice president to send a letter announcing the impending transition. “We also met with the college deans and VPs and provided a briefing on the system,” Kaloupek recalls. “This helped garner leadership support.” Communicating with suppliers is key, as well. “Electronic purchasing requires a lot of coordination,” Kaloupek points out. “We were in the ‘design, build it, and test it’ mode for about nine months, and part of this effort was to build a marketplace, because a lot of suppliers weren’t familiar with this kind of process.” Bringing suppliers into the loop was important for Gettysburg College (Pa.), currently in the pilot stages of implementing a Unimarket e-procurement system. The division of finance and administration is serving as the “proving ground,” says Patricia Verderosa, assistant director of procurement services. About a dozen users are involved in the testing phase; several external campus suppliers have also been involved. She explains supplier acceptance is a “key concern,” inasmuch as the small college, whose purchasing environment is “highly decentralized,” is anxious to retain relationships that have been established with their preferred local vendors. “Decisions regarding approaching the vendor pool were data driven, but also heavily influenced by user recommendation, asking specifically which suppliers they need in the portal to improve its utility,” she says. “In hindsight, it would have been helpful to have solicited universitybusiness.com http://www.universitybusiness.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of University Business - April 2012

University Business - April 2012
Editor’s Note
College Index
Ad Index
Behind the News
Financial Aid
Viewpoint
Independent Outlook
Models of Efficiency
Guns on Campus
Campus Finance
Internet Technology
End Note
Contents

University Business - April 2012