Purchasing executives from New York”™s state university system met this month on the Purchase College campus to plan a shared-services strategy that could save SUNY schools up to $100 million.
“The potential savings are enormous among our 64 institutions, which make up the largest state college system in the nation,” Nikolaus D. Lentner, director of purchasing & accounts payable at SUNY Purchase, said in a press release. “What”™s more, the savings can be redirected by each individual institution to fulfill its academic mission of hiring more faculty and developing needed courses.”
SUNY Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher in her recent 2012 State of the University address in Albany said the $100-million saving in administrative costs and shift of funds to bolster academic and instructional programs was a key goal of her administration.
Seventy officials from 24 SUNY campuses met in Purchase at the Jan. 18-19 conference. Lentner said they left with a “great sense of achievement.” They identified hundreds of potential shared services that could improve efficiencies, including having multi-campus elevator maintenance contracts, centralizing print shop operations and combining electronic travel reimbursement operations on one campus.
The purchasing officials discussed establishing intercampus acquisition contracts and blanket purchase agreements, sharing of contract databases, voucher and purchase order processing and compilation of vendor information. They also considered how to engage the campus community in the planning effort.
“An economic downturn inspires out-of-the-box thinking, some risk-taking, and maybe even a leap of faith,” Judy Nolan, chief financial officer and vice president of operations at SUNY, Purchase, said in a press release.  “SUNY”™s collaboration on shared services is a perfect example of challenging the familiar and perhaps more costly in exchange for an unfamiliar but cost- efficient result.”
SUNY”™s five-year strategic plan, “The Power of SUNY,” was launched by Zimpher and SUNY trustees in spring of 2010. The shared-services conference is an example of the increased collaboration among SUNY campuses that the plan calls for.
“The entire SUNY system is identifying collaborative opportunities for efficiencies, service improvements and cost-saving measures. What better place to begin that conversation than in the area of procurement?” said Lentner.
