Joint Purchasing of ICT

Jointly agreeing a specification of hardware or software can help to bring purchasing power through bulk ordering. This can mean financial savings.

Sharing experience of equipment suppliers between partners may help with decision-making. When specifying equipment, one partner may have experience of accessibility issues or have experience of other technical issues that may help the partnership in a purchasing decision. Joint purchasing may extend to support services.

Discussion

In theory, clubbing together to buy makes financial sense, and can also help with tricky and expensive areas, such as buying in expert advice on technical requirements, technical developments, support for ongoing maintenance, or sharing staff training.

Good examples of the practice are, however, harder to uncover than might be expected. Differences in the specifications of machines and software needed, and different priorities and timescales among purchasing partners has led to some collaborations being slow, abandoned, or of doubtful value.

Pros

• Leverage and financial savings
• Sharing the development of technical specifications
• Sharing product research tasks and findings
• Sharing experience in use and maintenance

Cons

• Compromises in specification on one side or on all sides
• Timescales for procurement may not match

Related case studies: Community First, FOSS and BME Complementary learning network.