Procurement has long been governed by a set of unwritten "rules" that dictate how organizations source goods and services. These aren't the rigid compliance regulations that ensure ethical and legal standards (those remain sacrosanct).
Instead, we’re talking about the frustrating norms that make procurement a slow, cumbersome process, including the endless hours spent:
- Discovering potential suppliers
- Assessing their reliability
- Negotiating contracts from scratch, and
- Battling for the best prices
For many folks in procurement, this traditional approach feels like playing a game where the deck is stacked against you: time-consuming, resource-draining, and often resulting in suboptimal deals.
But what if you could change the rules of this game entirely? A group purchasing organization (GPO) like Una is a powerful ally that rewrites the playbook by leveraging collective buying power and pre-negotiated contracts to save you money, time, and effort.
Change the Game of Procurement: Rigged for Inefficiency
To appreciate how a GPO like Una revolutionizes procurement, it's essential to understand the outdated rules that have long dominated the field.
Picture this: Your company needs to procure office supplies, IT equipment, or specialized services like janitorial or logistics support. Under the old rules, the process unfolds like a marathon with multiple hurdles.
First, there's supplier discovery. This involves scouring databases, attending trade shows, or relying on word-of-mouth to identify potential vendors. This is a hit-or-miss endeavor that can take weeks or months, especially for niche items.
Once suppliers are identified, assessment kicks in: vetting their credentials, pricing models, delivery timelines, and compliance with your standards. This phase often requires cross-departmental input, adding layers of bureaucracy.
Then comes the negotiation. Crafting a contract from the ground up means haggling over terms, prices, and clauses, which can demand legal expertise and may drag on and on. The average procurement cycle can span 2-4 weeks for simple purchases to 6-12 months or more for complex projects, depending on risk, value, and category.
These "rules" are inefficient and costly. Businesses waste billions annually on overpriced goods due to fragmented purchasing, and the effort required diverts focus from strategic projects. In a volatile economy marked by supply chain disruptions and inflation, sticking to these norms is like playing chess with half your pieces missing.
But here's the good news: You don't have to play by these rules anymore.
Rewriting the Rules with Group Purchasing
Una changes the game by flipping the script on traditional procurement. As a GPO, we aggregate the purchasing needs of 10,000+ active member organizations, creating over $100 billion in combined buying power that individual businesses could never achieve alone. This allows Una to secure pre-negotiated contracts with top-tier suppliers across categories like office supplies, MRO, packaging, freight, and more.
The result? Members gain instant access to competitive pricing and terms without the hassle of starting from square one.
At the heart of Una's value proposition is our focus on three key savings pillars: cost, time, and effort. Let's break it down.
Cost Savings
One of the most immediate ways Una alters the rules of procurement is through substantial cost reductions. By pooling demand, we negotiate volume-based discounts with suppliers that can slash expenses by 18-22% on average, depending on the category.
Not just fleeting promotions, these savings are embedded in 2,500+ pre-negotiated contracts with best-in-class pricing that ensure stability and predictability. For instance, if your business spends heavily on shipping and logistics (common pain points amid rising fuel costs), Una's partnerships with leading carriers can deliver rates that beat anything you might secure independently.
Una levels the playing field. Members benefit from the same elite pricing as Fortune 500 companies, without needing to be one. This democratizes access to savings, making it feasible for SMBs to compete effectively. Real-world examples abound: A mid-sized retailer partnering with Una reported cutting their packaging costs by 18% in the first year, directly boosting their bottom line.
Time Savings
Time is money, and GPOs like Una excel at reclaiming it.
Traditional supplier discovery and assessment? Skipped entirely. Una's vetted network of hundreds of suppliers means you can dive straight into implementation. Pre-negotiated contracts eliminate the negotiation phase, reducing procurement timelines from months to days. Imagine onboarding a new vendor in a week or two instead of a quarter: that's the GPO difference.
For businesses juggling multiple priorities, this means faster decision-making and quicker ROI, resilience, agility, and time to launch all the strategic procurement projects you’ve never had time for.
Effort Savings
GPOs like Una have the ability to make a task (that previously seemed like a massive effort) suddenly achievable. Getting indirect and tail spend under control, for example, often sits in the “too-hard basket” for years until group purchasing changes the game.
There are plenty of other ways we save effort.
Manual, repetitive tasks are an engagement-killer in procurement: the endless emails, meetings, and paperwork that bog down teams. Una minimizes this by acting as an extension of your team, always working within your procurement strategy rather than trying to impose our own. Our 97% customer retention rate demonstrates that procurement teams LOVE our ability to save them effort.
Getting Started: How to Leverage Una and Change the Game of Procurement
Ready to rewrite the rules? Partnering with Una is straightforward. Start by assessing your spend categories to identify high-impact areas. Reach out to Una for a free consultation: we’ll look at your spend, analyze your needs, and demonstrate potential savings. From there, free membership grants access to our extensive contract portfolio, with implementation support to ensure a smooth transition.
If you're tired of playing by outdated rules, it's time to level up with Una. Contact us today.
