Maximizing Education Cost Savings with a Cooperative Buying Strategy
In April, ABACC and E&I announced a new partnership with Staples.
For many years, Staples has been a trusted business partner of E&I. Through this relationship, ABACC was able to create a value-add partnership with Staples, providing ABACC with an unprecedented opportunity to create cost savings while driving revenues. This is just one example of the role a purchasing cooperative can play for your business office.
The Role of the Purchasing Cooperative
Holding the line on costs when prices continue to rise can be challenging, to say the least. With increasing pressure on budgets, maintaining quality and compliance without overspending is a tough balancing act for procurement teams.
Cooperative buying offers a solution by enabling your institution to leverage collective purchasing power to achieve volume discounts you likely cannot achieve on your own. A national cooperative purchasing alliance can help you streamline your procurement, meet compliance goals, and significantly reduce your costs.
Bobby Bounds, Executive Director of Procurement Services at Texas A&M University, knows the value firsthand. “By strategically leveraging purchasing cooperatives and GPOs, we’re able to enhance our procurement processes,” Bounds said. “Not only that, but we’re able to achieve some significant cost savings and improve the overall quality of our procurement services as well as the efficiency.”
Understanding the Full Savings Potential
The value proposition of cooperative buying extends far beyond basic discounts. Direct cost savings through pre-negotiated pricing represent the most visible benefit, with discounts up to 25%. However, this is just part of the potential value.
By eliminating the need to develop specifications, conduct solicitations, and evaluate proposals for every category, you can redirect procurement staff toward more strategic initiatives. Cooperative contracts can often reduce procurement cycles from months to days. You can also mitigate risk through pre-vetted suppliers and legally reviewed terms to streamline compliance.
These combined factors frequently exceed the direct pricing advantages.
Developing a Category-Specific Approach
Strategic procurement professionals analyze spending categories to identify optimal cooperative buying opportunities.
For example, technology and IT infrastructure typically yield substantial cooperative purchasing advantages due to standardized specifications and significant volume leverage. A national cooperative purchasing alliance like E&I Cooperative Services offers a robust technology contract portfolio that aggregates demands across institutions and is supported by category specialists who understand your needs. Prioritizing cooperative solutions for infrastructure upgrades or device replacements can yield significant cost savings.
Another high-impact category is classroom furnishings. An education-focused cooperative like E&I will competitively solicit contracts for education-specific configurations, warranty terms, and delivery coordination around academic calendars. Facility maintenance supplies and services also benefit from the cooperatives’ ability to establish consistent quality standards and performance metrics across diverse maintenance needs.
The most effective cooperative buying strategy analyzes each category based on standardization potential, volume advantage, and internal expertise to determine the optimal sourcing approach.
Implementation Strategies for Maximum Savings
Academic institutions should conduct a comprehensive analysis of available cooperative portfolios, mapping contracts to spending categories and identifying coverage gaps or overlaps.
Consolidating and Bringing More Spend Under Contract
Looking for areas where you can consolidate spending to achieve greater volume discounts (and reduce supplier management) can lower costs. Finding areas where you can tame rogue spending or bring more purchasing under contract almost always produces better results.
Planning for Emergencies
For emergency purchases or urgent requirements, having pre-established cooperative contracts that are ready to go provides both savings and crucial time advantages compared to expedited independent procurement.
Active Member Participation
The most successful educational institutions actively participate in cooperatives to get the biggest bang for their buck. You can leverage the collective wisdom of your peers and take part in online communities, webinars, and other resources to find innovative strategies.
Active participation makes sure your needs are known, which can help shape future sourcing strategies by the cooperative and ensure your needs are met.
Building Supplier Relationships
Even with cooperative buying, it’s important to build relationships with your suppliers. Strong relationships can produce innovative solutions, influence product development roadmaps, and create faster resolutions to any concerns that arise.
In recent months, ABACC was able to utilize an E&I relationship and existing contract to help expand benefits to ABACC members. This agreement provides added rebates and opportunities for ABACC members to generate revenue as a united entity.
An Education-Focused National Cooperative Purchasing Alliance
E&I represents more than 6,000 colleges, universities, and school districts, leveraging their collective buying power to negotiate significant volume discounts and terms favorable to academic institutions. Cooperative contracts often include exclusive incentives and rebates that can stretch your procurement dollars further. E&I also offers patronage refunds, sharing proceeds with members based on annual participation.
While there are many national cooperative purchasing alliances, there is only one member-owned nonprofit sourcing cooperative that focuses solely on the education sector and that’s E&I Cooperative Services. In 2024, E&I members made over $3 billion in purchases through the cooperative. Because of its structure as a cooperative, E&I is able to provide members with rebates, incentives, and patronage. As a result of 2024 performance, E&I will provide a total of $7 million to members in either cash or certificates of equity in 2025.
Learn More
When working with a purchasing cooperative like E&I, you often have a dedicated representative to help you with current and future projects. The representatives can serve as a branch of your purchasing/procurement teams.
To partner on your next project with E&I, connect with your rep! Join E&I and Staples at the June 4, 2025, webinar to learn more about the new ABACC specific agreement.
Ask a School Insurance Underwriting Expert: As Winter Approaches, How Can We Protect Our Facilities?
