TORONTO, ON – A groundbreaking public competitive procurement method designed by the University of Toronto’s Procurement Services is the National First Prize winner of this year’s Canadian Association of University Business Officers (CAUBO) Quality and Productivity Award.
“We’re delighted and honoured to be recognized by our peers,” said Eddy Jin, Director of Procurement Services, University of Toronto (U of T). “The new Negotiable RFP is an innovative procurement tool with a customer-centric focus at its heart and its success has been possible because our clients were open to new solutions. At U of T, Procurement Services supports some of the most brilliant researchers in the world and it is gratifying to offer our clients high value, effective solutions.”
University of Toronto’s new Negotiable RFP is a public procurement method with a state-of-the art legal mechanism developed in collaboration with The Procurement Law Office. This innovation allows unprecedented flexibility for clients to tailor deliverables to best meet their project needs. Prior to the Negotiable RFP, the conventional procurement process locked the buyer into an agreement that could not change. More importantly, the process has resulted in significant negotiated enhancements above and beyond solutions proposed by the market. This is a significant advantage especially in highly intensive research environments such as U of T, where technologies often change faster than the RFP process life cycle.
In a radical departure from traditional approaches to implementing a new business solution, Procurement Services, in partnership with the Rotman School of Management’s DesignWorks, utilized Business Design methodology to gain unique insights to the community and the critical importance of meeting their needs. Procurement Services used the Business Design findings and stakeholder input to develop a holistic suite of solutions that improved the customer procurement experience and demonstrated the value of the new compliant procurement mechanism.
One year after implementation, results far exceeded expectations. Process compliance rose from 50% to 99%, the number of RFPs submitted rose from 70 to 113 (a 60% increase in use of the RFP process), and hard dollar savings generated by the negotiation step amounted to $1.1 million.
“The Quality & Productivity selection committee is always impressed with the high calibre of submissions from our member institutions, and this year was no exception,” said CAUBO’s Executive Director Nathalie Laporte. “U of T’s winning project embodied best the five criteria used to select the winners: transferability of the idea, innovation, quality impact, productivity impact, and transformative value on the institution. CAUBO and the selection committee congratulate the Procurement Services team on winning the 2012 First National Prize.”
The prestigious award was presented on June 17th at the CAUBO 25th Annual Quality & Productivity Awards in Montreal. The Quality and Productivity Awards program recognizes innovation in post-secondary management and administrative practices. It is the second CAUBO award to be received by Procurement Services, University of Toronto. The first was in 2005 for UShop, the University of Toronto’s online shopping marketplace.
U of T is the first public sector institution in Canada to adopt the Negotiable RFP as its standard competitive procurement method. Its success has garnered interest and inquiries from a growing number of public sector organizations across Canada and internationally.
For more information, please visit http://www.procurement.utoronto.ca/presentations
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About University of Toronto
The University of Toronto has assembled one of the strongest research and teaching faculties in North America, presenting top students at all levels with an intellectual environment unmatched in breadth and depth on any other Canadian campus.
U of T faculty co-author more research articles than their colleagues at any university in the US or Canada other than Harvard. As a measure of impact, U of T consistently ranks alongside the top five U.S. universities whose discoveries are most often cited by other researchers around the world. The U of T faculty are also widely recognized for their teaching strengths and commitment to graduate supervision.
Established in 1827, the University of Toronto today operates in downtown Toronto, Mississauga and Scarborough, as well as in nine renowned academic hospitals.
About CAUBO
Founded in 1937, CAUBO is a non-profit professional organization representing the interest of administrative and financial officers in Canadian universities and affiliated colleges. It is an umbrella organization for the many players in university administration.
Media contact:
Diana Magnus
Acting Associate Director
Procurement Services
University of Toronto
Phone: 416-978-7447
Fax: 416-978-5483
diana.magnus@utoronto.ca
