Spend Management | News

University of Wisconsin-Madison Implements New Spend Management Solution

• By Leila Meyer
• 01/16/13

The University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison) has selected a new cloud-based spend management solution to automate business functions, streamline purchasing processes, and improve insight into spending.

The university has seven vendors on its existing purchasing system, but with the new system it plans to add 33 more vendors by the end of the year in order to encourage university personnel to make purchases through approved vendors as a way of maximizing savings. However, adding vendors to the existing purchasing system is time-consuming and inefficient, according to Mike Hardiman, director of procurement for the university.

The Wisconsin Department of Administration gave the university approval to use the SciQuest cloud-based spend management solution through its contract with the Western States Contracting Agency (WSCA), a multistate purchasing consortium. According to the company, SciQuest enables colleges and universities to automate and manage their procure-to-pay process, including sourcing, shopping, requisitioning, and accounts payable.

SciQuest will enable UW-Madison to streamline the process of adding vendors, which will make the purchasing process easier for faculty and employees and improve contract compliance, according to Hardiman. "SciQuest enables us to direct more spending through the university's purchasing platform," said Hardiman in a prepared statement. "By capturing more in-depth data on spending, we can also negotiate more strategic contracts, achieve greater savings, and gain greater visibility into the entire source-to-settle process."

The University of Wisconsin-Madison is a public research university located in Madison, WI. It operates 20 schools and serves more than 29,000 undergraduate, 8,700 graduate, and 2,500 professional students.

Further information about SciQuest spend management solution is available at sciquest.com.