By Al Leary, senior vice president, United States Client Operations, Xerox
Like their counterparts in large companies, government agencies are pursuing strategic sourcing plans to save money and gain efficiencies. Makes good sense. Identify big areas of spend. Work with the right partners to reduce cost. Streamline all the elements of the process. And plow savings back into more strategic priorities. If done right, strategic sourcing can uncover new opportunities for productivity and result in reasons for optimism about achieving organizational goals.
Managed print services (MPS) is increasingly part of the strategic sourcing mix. That’s because MPS has decidedly positive outcomes such as:
- Savings of up to 30% on document management costs
- Freeing up valuable IT resources to focus on strategic initiatives
- Improving sustainability by eliminating unnecessary paper and waste
- Secure print from any email-enabled device
Government entities have taken flack for not being on the cutting edge. But the fact is, they are often ahead of the private sector when it comes to MPS. For example, watch how the Georgia Technology Authority has benefited from an MPS strategy:
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One of the reasons MPS is taking off in federal, state and local governments has to do with contracting – a key enabler for strategic sourcing. Federal agencies, cities, counties and municipalities across the U.S. can use contracting vehicles linked to the GSA Schedule 70, 36 and other procurement contracts. If you’re in the public sector, look for cooperative contracts that include: the Midwestern Higher Education Compact (MHEC), the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE), Educational & Institutional Cooperative Purchasing (E&I), and The Cooperative Purchasing Network (TCPN). You’ll find lots of reasons to be optimistic.
Contracting vehicles in the public sector are really hard to navigate. I worked at the University of Hawaii in a purchasing department and using the Western States Contracting Alliance (WSCA) was a pain. I am happy to see that you’re optimistic about the outlook of contracting vehicles in the future. I hope that government purchasing becomes more streamlined in the future.
Thanks for the comment, Damian. We feel your pain but Xerox is actively engaged with government contract vehicles to make it easier to partner with organization such as the State of Hawaii, especially as IT Departments across state and federal entities begin to adopt procurement code that have coorperative purchasing language. It is a trend we see occurring that is helping to avoid costly RFP acquisitions processes. Most of these cooperative purchasing contracts are already competitively bid – it’s a nice, low-cost procurement method.
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