Earlier this summer, something very exciting happened in the higher education ERP industry. Through the hard work of our expert RFP team and a group of visionary ERP solution providers, E&I Cooperative Services signed a contract agreement that represents a giant leap in an industry with a somewhat antiquated pricing and licensing model.

First, I know that this may seem like a promotional article for my organization, but I promise that it is not meant to be that. I truly believe that what we have done here is the first step in an industry-wide shift in the way ERP solution providers engage educational customers.

In my work with higher education technology leaders across the country this year, it seems that there are several recurring subjects of concern. Given that much of my focus is on ERP and cloud-based systems, CIOs, CTOs, and directors of technology share their concerns about a few central items that are clearly forming their opinions, their planning directions, and their buying decisions in the ERP/SIS and cloud-systems markets.

Why Resellers are the Answer for Technology Procurement

As a veteran technology leader in higher education, I could not begin to count the hours that I have spent either on the phone or in person with hardware and software suppliers negotiating (occasionally begging) for better prices for hardware and software. Every higher educational institution that I have served over the past 26 years has had some initiative to cut costs and improve efficiency. Over the past 5 years though, it has been much like trying to squeeze blood from a turnip, trying different approaches to providing services. Over the past 3 years in our work building a consortium of private colleges and universities (the Higher Education Systems and Services Consortium- HESS) and now leading the technology contracts category for E&I Cooperative Services, I have realized that it is not always WHAT we are buying but HOW higher educational technology organizations are buying that is the core challenge.