Anna Duin

5 Reasons You’re Wasting Money on Your Crew Lodging

When you manage construction projects, you have to travel – a lot. Whether you’re the foreman, project manager, travel coordinator, or general administrator you have to make sure your contractor crews have the rooms they need when they need them. Even if it’s a last minute project, or if there are ongoing delays keeping everyone away longer than expected.

Whatever the story, accommodation fees add up quickly. In fact, lodging fees make up 26% of total travel costs.

It’s why in the recent guest article UNA wrote for ForConstructionPros, we focused on how you can reduce hotel costs. Keep reading to find out the five reasons why your construction crew lodging is costing you more than you think, and how to stop overspending.

(more…)

When You Need to Top Your Procurement Savings and You’re Out of Ideas

If you’re a procurement professional and you’re not already following Procurious, you should be. They continually produce excellent thought leadership content including blogs, videos, training, and discussion forums. It’s the perfect place to go for industry insights, to ask questions, and to connect with other purchasing pros. We’re (obviously) longtime Procurious fans, which is why we were so thrilled to get a chance to write a guest post for them.

UNA’s own Cindy Rittel wrote about one of the most pressing problems in procurement today – how to keep delivering savings each year. Here’s how you can find creative cost reduction solutions, even when you think you’re out of options.

(more…)

Do You Really Need Amazon for Business?

You probably have a tail spend problem. In other words, you are spending a lot more money and time managing the “extras” of your business than you realize. Any good procurement professional focuses on managing direct spend. But what about your indirect spend, the “everything else” that your business needs?

Like cleaning supplies for your warehouse. Or the ink & toner for your company’s hundreds of printers. This tail end of your spending can become a real problem. For example, if you’re wasting time managing suppliers that aren’t part of the main focus of your business. Or if you need high dollar items like janitorial and sanitation supplies, but you can’t get the best price.

To combat this issue, many businesses are turning to convenience services like Amazon. The question is, is using Amazon for your everyday business needs an effective solution?

It turns out there are six surprising problems with this model.

(more…)

Procurement Training You’ll Actually Use

Finding genuinely helpful content in the procurement space is easier said than done. Sure, there’s a wealth of outdated information, vague predictions, and thinly veiled sales ads, but not much expert, actionable content. It’s even more challenging to find resources tailored to your role and interests.

High quality is why we’re such big fans of Philip Ideson’s Art of Procurement podcast. We’ve followed the show for years, and the content is among the absolute best we’ve found in the world of purchasing and procurement. UNA is not being paid or incentivized to share this recommendation; it’s just too good to keep to ourselves.

We’re even more excited about Nudge, which is Art of Procurement’s new microlearning platform. Here’s a sneak peek of what it looks like and why it’s so unique.

(more…)

Cheers to the New Year: UNA Highlights & Plans for 2019

It seems impossible that 2018 is over. Between expanding the team, experiencing record revenue growth, and receiving awards, it’s flown by. None of it would have been possible without you, our clients and followers, thank you so much for supporting UNA. To thank you, we wanted to share a few wins and highlights from the year, as well as a quick video from our CEO on what you can expect from UNA in 2019.

(more…)

UNA in the News: You Need a GPO According to Inc. and Entrepreneur

You’re always looking for out-of-the-box ways to innovate, improve efficiency, and reduce costs, but one solution you’ve probably never even heard of is partnering with a group purchasing organization.

According to recent Inc. and Entrepreneur articles, partnering with a GPO like UNA is a crucial, scalable, solution that will help your organization save across product categories — no budget freezing required.

Here’s why joining a GPO should be your next strategic move according to the experts.

(more…)

UNA Cares: Read to Succeed

One day in my college English 101 class, my teacher asked the room how many people had read at least nine books for fun that year. Merely three out of 30 raised their hands — myself and two others. My instructor, who had a Ph.D. in English from Cambridge University, said it was no coincidence that we were the only people who were making an A in the class.

How well and how much you read is highly correlated with how successful you’ll be not only in your education but in life. Case in point, in UNA’s headquarters of Kansas City Missouri, only 55 percent of KC school children are proficient in reading by the 3rd grade. Research shows:

“Kids who go to many Kansas City-area schools are almost as likely to drop out of high school as they are to graduate… When kids drop out, they’re more likely to earn less money, wind up on welfare, get divorced, become criminals and even die early, according to research³. With a future like that, why would anyone drop out of school? One of many reasons is that some kids can’t read.”

That’s why this month we’re highlighting Lead to Read, one of our UNA Cares nonprofit partners. Below is how they’re helping kids learn to love reading, how UNA is supporting, and how you can help.

(more…)

ASAE Guest Blog: How to Prove Your Association Membership ROI

A whopping 37% of associations are struggling to stand out. According to Membership Marketing’s 2017 benchmarking report, the top internal challenge to growing association membership is communicating value.

Sound familiar? Keep reading.

In our recent ASAE (American Society of Association Executives) guest blog, UNA’s own Anthony Clervi explains how to prove your membership return on investment (ROI) to both prospective members and your existing members.

(more…)

UNA Cares: Corporate Responsibility Back to School Project

Back to school shopping is stressful for everyone. But when you can’t afford it, it’s terrifying.

While about one-fifth of public schools require uniforms, many low-income or homeless families can’t afford them, or can only provide one set. Then, when children wear the wrong color of socks because they’re the only clean ones they have, they’re punished, even expelled.

Uniforms aren’t the only problem. The average cost of back to school supplies in 2018 is between $634 – $1,355 per child. Research shows “low-income families are 10 times more likely than high-income parents to apply for a new credit card in order to save as little as 5% on school supplies.”

That’s why this month we’re launching our Back to School Project; it’s our kickoff for UNA’s new corporate responsibility program UNA Cares. Below are all the details and how you can help.

(more…)

UNA Wins 4th Place for Top 50 Fastest-Growing Companies

Last week the Kansas City Business Journal announced their ranking for the city’s top 50-fastest growing companies. UNA was honored to be listed and thrilled to come in 4th place!

It was a poignant celebration for the local business community. The room was full of organizations who not only had impressive year-over-year revenue increases but are also leading innovation in their fields. Between us, we represented everything from design to pharmaceuticals, group purchasing to real estate.

Below are the highlights from the contest, plus some growth tips from the winning CEOs.

(more…)