Client Profile

The London-based University has over 19,000 students from more than 140 countries, and over 4,000 academic and research staff.

The University is London’s leading multi-faculty university and is recognized throughout the world for the excellence of its research, with 58 academic departments rated ‘5’, ‘5*’ and ‘best 5*’ in the UK government’s most recent Research Assessment Exercise.

Customer Background

In order to increase efficiency, the University wished to cut out duplication, simplify order processing, reduce errors, improve access to data and promote best value procurement.

It believed that it could take advantage of optimised spending by utilising centrally negotiated contracts for scientific items and leverage the value of existing investments in Oracle Purchasing.

Solution

Version 1 rolled out Oracle iProcurement to 270 users, taking advantage of Oracle’s intuitive Web-based requisitioning functionality to ensure rapid go-live while minimizing need for user training.

The solution used Oracle iProcurement to automate each step of the procure-to-pay process, reduce paperwork, and enforce the raising of purchase orders for all requisitions.

A programme was implemented that aims to purchase the bulk of regularly used supplies required by the university’s scientific community directly through Science Warehouse via the Oracle iProcurement front-end interface.

Real Business Benefits, Delivered

Following the collaboration, our customer received the following business benefits:

  • Seamless interfaces between Oracle and Science Warehouse, a fully managed e-marketplace integrated with Oracle Database, to allow staff to requisition thousands of products from contracted suppliers via electronic catalogs
  • Leveraged Version 1’s proven expertise in implementing self-service purchasing solutions for the public sector to gain rapid ROI
  • Ability to use Oracle iProcurement to purchase generic items required by all departments, such as stationery and office equipment, online from approved suppliers at pre-negotiated costs
  • Reduced off-contract purchasing, shortened purchasing cycles for most items, and benefited from central visibility of expenditure to gain timely insight into buying trends