Annual Report: Chairman's Report
While we continue to deliver collaborative success, there is a much greater opportunity to reap immediate benefits.
I am proud of the way our Consortium and Members responded last year to the challenges of constrained funding and an uncertain economy to deliver improved student access, welfare and academic outcomes.
The demand for increased collaboration
As in every year since PURCO SA was founded 40 years ago, our resilience and success has been achieved through collaboration, innovation and the development of self-sustaining solutions.
When we act together by pooling our expertise, influence and spend we bring real purchasing power to bear on our procurement activities.
The judicious exercise of that power results not only in improved pricing, quality and service levels. It also delivers shared value for our supplier partners who are enabled to leverage secure contracts and economies of scale to improve their business prospects.
A key factor that contributes to our Consortium’s success is the way it helps Member institutions achieve efficiencies and streamline their procurement processes while maintaining professional levels of compliance and integrity.
Our collaborative model, and the cross-pollination of our combined professional procurement experiences is a proven means to deliver significantly greater benefits for all PURCO SA Members.
However, it is increasingly clear that to continue our success trajectory we need to counter complacency and aggressively commit to even more collaboration. While the challenging economy is reinforcing our Members’ needs to find more and innovative ways to manage expenses and expedite efficiencies, it is also making our suppliers critically re-evaluate the PURCO SA value proposition.
As a voluntary organisation our institutions enjoy the independence to choose whether and when to take advantage of PURCO SA contracts and services. This past year we saw greater levels of collaboration across more contracts and services. What we are hearing more regularly is “we couldn’t have achieved these outcomes without your support, now could you help us with...’’
But there are still unnecessarily significant amounts of spend that are contracted outside the auspices of the Consortium. This defeats the core savings objective of our shared value purchasing model, reduces the overall benefits for all Members, and makes our suppliers question our commitment.
Now, more than ever, our resource-restricted higher education sector needs to actively commit to and join hands in shared-value collaboration.
PURQ achieves critical mass
I am excited about the launch and rapid growth of our latest initiative, PURQ. The online platform provides a centralised source of academic information for students and alumni, and is used to their benefit by universities and businesses whilst maintaining regulatory compliance to protect personal information at all times.
While PURQ’s primary purpose is to provide value to students and alumni through convenient access to their academic information, it offers our institutions compelling operational efficiencies, savings and significant revenue opportunities - at zero cost and no risk.
Consulting Service takes off
Since we launched the Consulting Service in 2016, it has achieved meteoric growth, albeit off a zero base.
The welfare of our students is increasingly a focus of higher education procurement. It is therefore rewarding to see how our Consulting Division and Contract Managers are contributing to projects that meet students’ needs and expectations around access, support, security, nourishment, transport, and improved learning environments.
International project underlines our expertise
Our first international project was completed during 2017 with the University of Antwerpen, indicating an opportunity to act as the South African advisory partner to overseas educational and governmental organisations in the areas of service delivery, tendering and governance.
ISO 9001:2015 reflects quality management systems
Quantified, externally measured professional governance is a key to the successful delivery of big value projects. With its upgraded ISO 9001:2015 accreditation PURCO SA has demonstrable proof that its quality management systems have the capacity to consistently deliver against policies that support our Members’ requirements. The new accreditation was also a key factor in SA securing the University of Antwerpen project.
Membership continues to grow
The past year saw our strategic expansion into the TVET sector gain traction. Membership grew from 49 to 53 at the end of the financial year, and with the addition of new TVET’s reached 60 shortly thereafter.
An opportunity for all to reap immediate benefits
Membership growth and new collaborative initiatives such as the PURCO SA Consultancy Service, PURQ, and internationally funded projects are strategically important elements of a well-rounded, value-adding Consortium.
But while they deliver considerable value to our Members, the real potential for immediate and significant savings and efficiencies lies in bringing our combined influence to bear on leveraging PURCO SA national contracts.
As we support our students and Members to embrace the opportunities of the fourth industrial revolution, more opportunities for collaboration outside the established platforms of goods and services will become more prevalent.
There is substantial scope for Members to increase their procurement spend through PURCO SA contracts. Existing contracts can be accessed with negligible effort and there is every opportunity to collaborate around new commodity and service categories.
Concomitantly, contracted suppliers that enjoy overwhelming support from all Members are empowered to offer our Members improved quality, service levels, and prices.
Now is the time for us to commit more spend to PURCO SA contracts and to jointly reap immediate cost and efficiency benefits.
Vote of thanks
I am grateful for the support and contribution of all our Members and partners this past year. Thank you for your partnership.
Thank you also to our Board of Directors and to the PURCO SA staff for their unstinting support. Every one of the lean team contributed to delivering quantifiable benefits to our Members and their student bodies.
Chris Liebenberg
PURCO SA Chairman
Senior Director of Finance
University of the Free State