Sourcing PC's and Peripherals

Two common techniques used to create price leverage for the purchase of PC's are:

1) Bulk buying whereby volume is consolidated and an RFQ is issued and lowest price for a quantity of PC's is negotiated

2) Two suppliers are used, and competitive bidding processes are used to ensure prices remain competitive.

This may result in the best price for the buy, but rarely results in the lowest TCO or the lowest cost for purchases made over time.

A Strategic Sourcing approach to negotiating a multi-year contract to PC's and Peripherals addresses the total cost of ownership. The norm is to neutralize the supplier brand name and establish a "T" or "time" based strategy, with "T" representing the generation of the technology selected versus the leading edge of the market. In the education sector, most users can leverage a "T-1" strategy, which means there has been a deliberate decision to select PC's that are not at the front of new developments, thereby increasing reliability while lowering price. The price curve in technology markets falls sharply once an innovation is generally available in the market.

The team then develops a well-defined set of specifications, which represents needs versus wants, determines stakeholders needs for break/fix response times, benchmarks pricing for monitors and CPU, reviews the number of standard software images, determines the best method of managing the supply chain including installation, Help Desk integration costs, pricing model options, etc. Armed with facts, the team approaches the market with a clear view of the total cost of ownership and objectively determines the best solution that reduces total cost of ownership and sustains long-term relationship.

By selecting one supplier, every PC, Monitor and/or Peripheral is subject to the same terms and conditions, including price, which lowers the costs and TCO over the term of the contract. This does not preclude the Procurement team from negotiating deep discounts on a single large deployment if unusual circumstances arise.

ONTALA gets results.