case study study: portland public schools makes the grade with e-procurement marketplace overview...
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Case Study:Portland Public Schools Makes the Grade with E-Procurement Marketplace
Overview
Portland Public Schools (PPS), the largest school district in the
Pacific Northwest, with approximately 47,000 students in 85
schools, found itself facing a very challenging budget environ-
ment. In the midst of declining tax revenues and vanishing Federal
Stimulus funds, the School District would have to absorb a 15%
budget reduction in spite of increasing enrollments. Faced with
shrinking budgets and limited staff, PPS Procurement Services
recognized empowering end-users to shop on-line as an im-
mediate, operational imperative – not a future state vision to
be realized when – or if – budgets were someday restored to
pre-recession levels. However, they also realized that enabling
end-user on-line shopping could not come at the expense of a fully
transparent process capable of enforcing compliance with “best
value” contract pricing.
E-Commerce 1.0
Procurement Services quickly realized that without a business
system plan and funding to deploy an E-Procurement infrastruc-
ture to extend their back-end PeopleSoft Financial ERP (Enterprise
Resource Planning) system, they could achieve some “quick hit”
benefits with minimal or no cost simply by allowing users to go
on-line and shop at vendor’s websites using District-issued Pro-
curement Cards (P-Cards). While users benefitted from a more
intuitive on-line shopping experience and fewer Procurement
Services resources had to intervene to process highly manual
requisitions and orders for routine purchases of school and class-
room supplies, several limitations quickly became evident:
• Users had access to only five (5) vendor websites comprising
a fraction of total spend
• Users encountered a different user interface and navigation
method at each vendor website, leading to confusion and
inefficiency, since the shopping process required them to
search and check-out from each site one at a time to fill all
the items on their “shopping list”
• Inability to comparison shop from competing vendors to find
the “best value”
• Limited order and spend visibility
• Millions in purchases allocated to Grant Funds could not be
placed with P-cards at vendor websites since prior review
and approval was required by Grant Fund auditors
B2B e-Commerce in the Cloud
Private Marketplace Results-to-Date
PPS Procurement Services first initiated a “soft launch” with a targeted group to gauge user reaction. “The early returns from
School Administrator and Staff users have been overwhelmingly enthusiastic,” says Procurement Director Dave Fajer. “Even those
with experience shopping on-line at supplier websites in the past are ecstatic about how much easier the Marketplace is. The cross-
catalog shopping feature allows them to do a ‘Google-like’ search and get all the results at one time, without having to navigate each
supplier site individually, and they can create a multi-vendor shopping cart and have the system automatically distribute separate
orders to each supplier.”
Figure 3: Private Marketplace Homepage View
1 Research Court, Suite 450
Rockville, MD 20850
T: 301.421.0298
www.equallevel.comB2B e-Commerce in the Cloud
The PPS Private Marketplace (Figure 3 above), has now been endorsed as the dedicated buying channel for PPS and is slated for Dis-
trict-wide roll-out in time to support the busy “back to school” buying season. Key benefits realized by the school district include:
• Cost Savings from reduction in Maverick Spend and improved visibility
• Comparison shopping enabling “Best Value” purchases
• Increased P-Card utilization and rebates by capturing millions in Federal Grant purchases
• Eliminated warehouse operations and buffer inventories by empowering end-users to order directly and receive timely delivery
PPS’ vision to rapidly evolve E-Commerce focused on creating a single on-line portal – a one-stop shop for all agency supplier
contracts, with a single user interface and PPS branding for a familiar, consistent buying site for de-centralized administrators,
teachers, and other staff across the 85 schools in the District. The Private Marketplace would need to both engage suppliers and
empower end users. With limited IT and budget resources, the Private Marketplace would need to leverage supplier E-Commerce
systems by “punching out’ to supplier maintained web catalogs with PPS contracted items and pricing, while allowing users to
quickly and easily comparison shop across vendor catalogs to identify the “best value” purchase for each item they require, without
having to leave the Marketplace portal. In determining key requirements for the Private Marketplace, it was just as instructive to
identify what PPS did not want as what they did, as summarized by Figure 1 below.
Figure 1: PPS Private Marketplace Requirements Summary
E-Commerce 2.0: The PPS Private Marketplace
Usability• Cross-catalog, key word search from single UI
• Consumer shopping features (item compare, product
reviews, shopping lists)
• Place orders to multiple vendors from single shopping
session/cart
• User profiles store P-Card, location-based ship-to’s
• Power users can share accounts with casual users, e.g.
parents with ability to order with personal credit cards
Supplier Enablement• Establish punch-out connections to supplier web catalogs
– no PPS supplier catalog maintenance
• Integrate with supplier’s existing E-Commerce infrastructure
– enable small, local suppliers to establish no-cost punchout
capability
• Deliver electronic POs with secure P-Card data – no
participation or transaction fees to suppliers
• Settle all orders through P-Cards – single monthly billing
statement – no invoice processing
Compliance• Support approval workflow for Grant fund purchases - routed
via e-mail to grant auditors for approval
• Fully transparent buying process and verifiable audit trail to
ensure purchases are properly approved, from authorized
vendors at contracted prices
• Centralized Catalog Control– manage user catalog access and
views, site content and branding, user permissions and
profiles, reporting
Implementation• Proven public sector solution
• Turn-key, cloud-based solution requiring little or no IT support
to deploy software or on-board suppliers
• Operational, production system up and running < 90 days
• Stand-alone system but capable of future integration to
back-end ERP (PeopleSoft)
• Budget-friendly, predictable fixed annual subscription
Private Marketplace Features and Benefits
PPS Procurement Services selected Equal Level’s hosted technology platform and was able to be and up and running within 90 days
from project launch with an investment of less than six figures. Key features of the Equal Level Technology platform are summarized
in Figure 2 below:
Figure 2: Private Marketplace Features
SupplierFees
Sourcing/Sole Source
Software
CatalogMgmt.
Manual PO/Invoice
ComplexitySingle UI, X-CatalogSearch
“Punchout”Catalogs
“Touchless”P-Card Orders
Software as a Service (SaaS)
FullParticipation
ComparisonShop Multiple Co-Ops
PPS’ vision to rapidly evolve E-Commerce focused on creating a single on-line portal – a one-stop shop for all agency supplier
contracts, with a single user interface and PPS branding for a familiar, consistent buying site for de-centralized administrators,
teachers, and other staff across the 85 schools in the District. The Private Marketplace would need to both engage suppliers and
empower end users. With limited IT and budget resources, the Private Marketplace would need to leverage supplier E-Commerce
systems by “punching out’ to supplier maintained web catalogs with PPS contracted items and pricing, while allowing users to
quickly and easily comparison shop across vendor catalogs to identify the “best value” purchase for each item they require, without
having to leave the Marketplace portal. In determining key requirements for the Private Marketplace, it was just as instructive to
identify what PPS did not want as what they did, as summarized by Figure 1 below.
Figure 1: PPS Private Marketplace Requirements Summary
E-Commerce 2.0: The PPS Private Marketplace
Usability• Cross-catalog, key word search from single UI
• Consumer shopping features (item compare, product
reviews, shopping lists)
• Place orders to multiple vendors from single shopping
session/cart
• User profiles store P-Card, location-based ship-to’s
• Power users can share accounts with casual users, e.g.
parents with ability to order with personal credit cards
Supplier Enablement• Establish punch-out connections to supplier web catalogs
– no PPS supplier catalog maintenance
• Integrate with supplier’s existing E-Commerce infrastructure
– enable small, local suppliers to establish no-cost punchout
capability
• Deliver electronic POs with secure P-Card data – no
participation or transaction fees to suppliers
• Settle all orders through P-Cards – single monthly billing
statement – no invoice processing
Compliance• Support approval workflow for Grant fund purchases - routed
via e-mail to grant auditors for approval
• Fully transparent buying process and verifiable audit trail to
ensure purchases are properly approved, from authorized
vendors at contracted prices
• Centralized Catalog Control– manage user catalog access and
views, site content and branding, user permissions and
profiles, reporting
Implementation• Proven public sector solution
• Turn-key, cloud-based solution requiring little or no IT support
to deploy software or on-board suppliers
• Operational, production system up and running < 90 days
• Stand-alone system but capable of future integration to
back-end ERP (PeopleSoft)
• Budget-friendly, predictable fixed annual subscription
Private Marketplace Features and Benefits
PPS Procurement Services selected Equal Level’s hosted technology platform and was able to be and up and running within 90 days
from project launch with an investment of less than six figures. Key features of the Equal Level Technology platform are summarized
in Figure 2 below:
Figure 2: Private Marketplace Features
SupplierFees
Sourcing/Sole Source
Software
CatalogMgmt.
Manual PO/Invoice
ComplexitySingle UI, X-CatalogSearch
“Punchout”Catalogs
“Touchless”P-Card Orders
Software as a Service (SaaS)
FullParticipation
ComparisonShop Multiple Co-Ops
Case Study:Portland Public Schools Makes the Grade with E-Procurement Marketplace
Overview
Portland Public Schools (PPS), the largest school district in the
Pacific Northwest, with approximately 47,000 students in 85
schools, found itself facing a very challenging budget environ-
ment. In the midst of declining tax revenues and vanishing Federal
Stimulus funds, the School District would have to absorb a 15%
budget reduction in spite of increasing enrollments. Faced with
shrinking budgets and limited staff, PPS Procurement Services
recognized empowering end-users to shop on-line as an im-
mediate, operational imperative – not a future state vision to
be realized when – or if – budgets were someday restored to
pre-recession levels. However, they also realized that enabling
end-user on-line shopping could not come at the expense of a fully
transparent process capable of enforcing compliance with “best
value” contract pricing.
E-Commerce 1.0
Procurement Services quickly realized that without a business
system plan and funding to deploy an E-Procurement infrastruc-
ture to extend their back-end PeopleSoft Financial ERP (Enterprise
Resource Planning) system, they could achieve some “quick hit”
benefits with minimal or no cost simply by allowing users to go
on-line and shop at vendor’s websites using District-issued Pro-
curement Cards (P-Cards). While users benefitted from a more
intuitive on-line shopping experience and fewer Procurement
Services resources had to intervene to process highly manual
requisitions and orders for routine purchases of school and class-
room supplies, several limitations quickly became evident:
• Users had access to only five (5) vendor websites comprising
a fraction of total spend
• Users encountered a different user interface and navigation
method at each vendor website, leading to confusion and
inefficiency, since the shopping process required them to
search and check-out from each site one at a time to fill all
the items on their “shopping list”
• Inability to comparison shop from competing vendors to find
the “best value”
• Limited order and spend visibility
• Millions in purchases allocated to Grant Funds could not be
placed with P-cards at vendor websites since prior review
and approval was required by Grant Fund auditors
B2B e-Commerce in the Cloud
Private Marketplace Results-to-Date
PPS Procurement Services first initiated a “soft launch” with a targeted group to gauge user reaction. “The early returns from
School Administrator and Staff users have been overwhelmingly enthusiastic,” says Procurement Director Dave Fajer. “Even those
with experience shopping on-line at supplier websites in the past are ecstatic about how much easier the Marketplace is. The cross-
catalog shopping feature allows them to do a ‘Google-like’ search and get all the results at one time, without having to navigate each
supplier site individually, and they can create a multi-vendor shopping cart and have the system automatically distribute separate
orders to each supplier.”
Figure 3: Private Marketplace Homepage View
1 Research Court, Suite 450
Rockville, MD 20850
T: 301.421.0298
www.equallevel.comB2B e-Commerce in the Cloud
The PPS Private Marketplace (Figure 3 above), has now been endorsed as the dedicated buying channel for PPS and is slated for Dis-
trict-wide roll-out in time to support the busy “back to school” buying season. Key benefits realized by the school district include:
• Cost Savings from reduction in Maverick Spend and improved visibility
• Comparison shopping enabling “Best Value” purchases
• Increased P-Card utilization and rebates by capturing millions in Federal Grant purchases
• Eliminated warehouse operations and buffer inventories by empowering end-users to order directly and receive timely delivery