The Right Partnerships Can Drive IT Investment in Higher Education

 

Consolidating Technology Purchases Can Lead to Savings

It’s not a stretch to call this moment a time of financial uncertainty in higher education, whether that’s due to the enrollment cliff, evolving federal government oversight, global economic factors, the perceived value of a college education or whatever else may be stressing your campus at any given moment.

Couple one or more of those factors with the budget cuts and overall belt-tightening occurring in higher education and it’s not hard to see how saving even 1% on technology purchasing could have far-reaching effects on the bottom line.

One way universities can realize those savings is through optimizing what IT departments are already getting from their existing vendor partners. Now’s a good time to negotiate a better deal on an existing contract or tap those vendors for new projects. That decision could encourage vendors to offer discounts to repeat customers and sometimes even avoid the time-consuming RFP process.

Remember, those same national and global economic concerns that may have you worried are also on the minds of vendor partners looking to shore up their futures.

Plus, consolidation can save untold hours for IT departments that are understaffed and overworked. Rather than managing Software as a Service solutions from a dozen different vendors in a dozen different departments, consolidating under one platform can dramatically reduce the number of fires an IT staffer needs to put out.

RELATED: Find out how eProcurement services can simplify IT purchasing.

How a Third-Party Procurement Partner Can Help

Universities can take those savings even further through the assistance of third-party providers, including CDW, with deep ties to multiple vendors. The same lessons that apply to working with a single vendor apply at scale with a partner such as CDW that can leverage relationships with the dozens of partner companies it works with to maximize savings.

Even before that happens, a third-party partner can look at your campuswide technology spending and start to identify places where savings are possible. In addition, CDW’s experience with universities around the country allows our team to produce realistic ROI and total cost of ownership figures, something that could help soothe a nervous procurement or finance office.

The bottom line is that there are opportunities to improve the student experience and increase operational efficiency through technology, if you know where to look and how to make the argument.

Those cases may be difficult to make when you’re in the weeds of managing an understaffed IT department, but illustrating how investments can turn into enrollments and how cost certainty can lead to savings could mean the difference between getting your next tech project funded or continuing to make do with what you have.

This article is part of EdTech: Focus on Higher Education’s UniversITy blog series featuring analysis and recommendations from CDW experts.