Amplify Your Business Spend Management Strategies with a GPO

By Hugo Britt | October  11, 2022

If you’re new to the concept of group purchasing, you may be asking yourself where, exactly, the biggest savings can be found. The answer is no secret: the steepest discounts exist in the most popular categories with the biggest volumes of purchasing.

Una leverages over $100 billion in buying power to negotiate best-price contracts with hundreds of the nation’s top suppliers. Our team is dedicated to empowering procurement and technology professionals to make the best sourcing decisions for their organizations while saving money, time, and effort.

As a horizontal GPO, Una leverages our buying power in categories that are commonly purchased by nearly every business. Every organization, for example, spends significant amounts on key categories like IT, shipping, and office supplies. Any business, regardless of size, can take advantage of the “strength in numbers” concept and access pre-negotiated contracts with some of the nation’s top suppliers and vendors, saving big on their portion of spend.

Top category savings to amplify your business spend management strategies

GPOs aren’t just about generating cost savings. We also help organizations save time and effort by skipping lengthy supplier discovery and negotiation processes.

Below, we list some of the top categories to save in using a GPO like Una.

Technology

Una members have free access to a growing collection of technology vendors offering unprecedented savings on your IT needs.

But we get it – researching the best technology solutions for your various needs is cumbersome and more than a little overwhelming. Google searches will return thousands of options for technology vendors and pricing, making it nearly impossible to compare suppliers and ensure you’re not paying more than you need to for services.

Una gives members a platform to benchmark their current tech spend, compare services, or find better technology spend solutions from over 3,000 tech vendors.

Members can also access a data insights platform designed to help you:

  • Identify technology savings
  • Centralize and track your technology spend across more than 16 categories
  • Manage inventory and tech contracts within a single dashboard
  • Track supplier performance
  • Prevent auto-renewals and overcharges from impacting your bottom line.

The benefits? Una members have achieved:

  • 30% average savings on mobility: Members save on 5G/Next-Gen Wireless, backup and secondary connectivity, cellular devices and data plans, mobile security, and more.
  • 35% average savings on Cloud: Members save on managed services, CDN, DaaS/WaaS, multi-cloud management, object storage, Microsoft Teams, and Google Cloud.
  • 20% average savings on security: Members save on managed firewalls, compliance audits, SECaaS, UTM, DDoS migration, and more with professional services and 24/7 monitoring.
  • 25% average savings on connectivity: Members save on broadband internet services, Cloud connectivity, internet aggregation, MPLS, SD-WAN, private lines, and more.

Facilities Maintenance

When is the last time you assessed supplier performance and value for money in facilities maintenance? While many organizations will negotiate a better deal by consolidating suppliers across different offices and sites, there are much more impressive savings to be found by banding together with other organizations under the GPO umbrella.

This was the case with one of our members that runs a network of behavioral health centers. This member was purchasing items and JanSan services across several locations spanning multiple states, and indirect spend was rapidly getting out of control. A discovery call with Una identified several areas of savings including industrial supplies and facilities maintenance. The results, shared in this case study, included 20% savings on JanSan/MRO.

Some of our most popular contracts in facilities maintenance include partnerships with Cintas, HD Supply, Grainger, and Rentokil.

Travel

The pandemic and the normalization of video meetings changed the corporate travel landscape forever. “Boomerang trips” where a salesperson will fly between states for a one-hour meeting are no longer seen as good practice, and corporations are scrutinizing travel expenses more closely across the board.

As a result, volumes are down and travel costs are up, making it more difficult than ever to find significant savings when travel is necessary. Una partners with UNIGLOBE Travel Designers as a travel management company to help organizations better manage travel expenses, monitor flight status and itineraries, ensure travel compliance and best practices, and more.

Shipping and Logistics

Una members partner with us not only to enjoy deep discounts but to mitigate the risk of disruption in shipping and logistics. With global supply chains in disarray, organizations are struggling to balance service reliability and cost savings as fees continue to rise. 

Faced with rising shipping rates and surcharges, Una member Linden Square was seeking a way to reduce costs while still delivering their products. Although growing, Linden Square was still considered a small company in the eyes of a supplier, and they knew they’d be unable to negotiate and secure discounted pricing on their own.

Additionally, their team was focused on curating gifts amidst supply chain disruptions and product shortages – navigating shipping contract negotiations was not something they were equipped to handle at this point. 

Running a cost analysis based on Linden Square’s real shipping data allowed Una to present an accurate depiction of the savings they’d be able to capture by participating in our discounted shipping programs. The initial cost savings analysis showed a savings of more than 26%.

Some of our most popular contracts include partnerships with FedEx, Rapid Packaging, and TRIOSE.

Office Supplies

Every organization needs office supplies. It’s a massive (and often unruly) area of indirect spend, but the great news is that the potential savings are enormous – up to 80% in some cases. 

Una’s contracts allow you to access deep discounts, while our sourcing experts can help you gain better visibility of office supplies purchasing while bringing maverick spend under control. Some of our most popular contracts include partnerships with Office Depot, Ricoh, Guy Brown, and Herman Miller.

Better business spend management awaits

With hundreds of supplier partners and thousands of contracts ready to go, we’re confident we’ll be able to find the cost savings you’re after. Discover the purchasing solutions you need to obtain better overall business spend management within your direct and indirect procurement spend categories.

Contact the Una team to learn more.

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Do you have questions about group purchasing? Wondering how a group purchasing organization works to save you money, time, and effort? 

Una’s team of Sourcing Advisors is here to help. Contact us to learn more.

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