Su forges agreement with national office supplier

CNY Business Journal (1996+), Dec 7, 2007 by Martino, Kristina

SYRACUSE - Syracuse University's Purchasing Department entered into a three-year contract with a national office supplier this summer with the goal of reducing its office-supply costs by $600,000 over the next three years.

The 16-employee department started the contract with Corporate. Express US, Inc., July 1, identifying the distributor as Syracuse University's (SU) preferred supplier for office supplies.

The preferred-supplier agreement has no financial terms in the contract and Douglas Freeman, director of purchasing, says it's a measure to centralize office-supply ordering by all the university departments, both academic and non-academic. The goal of the agreement is to streamline the procurement process and minimize costs for departmental office supplies, ink, and toner cartridges, according to SU.

As part of the agreement, the purchasing department will encourage other university departments to purchase their office supplies through Corporate Express' simplified online ordering process.

"But we aren't mandating that you have to go online," Freeman says.

Corporate Express US, Inc., is a wholly owned subsidiary of Corporate Express NV (NYSE: CXP), which says it is one of the world's largest business-to-business suppliers of office and computer products. Corporate Express says it generated $4.9 billion in 2006 sales.

The purchasing department negotiated the deal with Corporate Express in which the list price of most office supplies are reduced by 70 percent or more, according to a university news release.

SU spends about $1.2 million annually on miscellaneous office supplies, with more than 50 percent of this sum incurred through procurement-card purchases from a variety of vendors chosen by each department independently, according to SU. With this Corporate Express agreement, Freeman says the university can expect to save about $600,000 in office-supply expenditures over the course of the three-year contract due to the reduced prices.

Included in the Corporate Express agreement, Freeman says, is the availability for departments to make necessary orders and receive them the next day. He says this eliminates the need for departments to stockpile office supplies and allows them to spend the money on immediate projects instead.

Corporate Express will offer easy Web-based ordering, next-day desktop delivery,and competitive-reduced pricing, according to SU. For example, a print cartridge costing $269.99 will cost $209.57 under the agreement.

"There's savings to departments both in money and time," Freeman says. "Based on the information and inquiries we're being requested from departments I think it s going to be a success," Freeman says.

The purchasing department is located at 210 Skytop Office Building on the Syracuse University Campus.

SU selected Corporate Express as the vendor last year through a bidding process.

The Colorado-based office supplier also contracts with Bucknell University, Columbia University, and Yale University.