Aletheia Academies Trust has agreed a deal to purchase its IT hardware, consumable and peripherals through Probrand’s IT procurement platform, as the trust looks to transform the way it purchases IT equipment for more than 4,600 school and nursery pupils based across 13 sites.
Probrand Senior technical consultant, Richard Nelson, advises.
Probrand uses marketplace technology to connect buyers with over 300,000 products and services from distributors and vendors. It saves people time and money by showing live price and stock, automatic price comparison and personalised discounts often lost in the supply chain.
Probrand’s unique Affiliates feature centralises all transactions, meaning the trust can use a single log in to purchase items for all sites, access bulk discounts and obtain individualised invoices, replacing the previous system of purchasing site-by-site. This creates vast cost and time efficiencies, replacing an outdated system with different pricing structures for each school and nursery.
Probrand’s Marketplace platform and Affiliates feature benchmarks multiple quotes in one window and under one login, with self-serve quoting so that procurement and IT teams can obtain live prices when they need them, rather than waiting for an account manager or running their own manual comparisons.
Special bids can be raised and a bespoke catalogue is created, giving them a higher discount because they are purchasing in volume, rather than spending school-by-school.
Luke Dobson, IT Manager at Aletheia, said: “I love the price comparison feature of the Probrand platform as I get to see multiple quotes in one place. This cuts out the admin of chasing several suppliers and awaiting quotes.”
Ian Nethercot, MCIPS, supply chain director at Probrand, said: “Our unique Marketplace solution is so much more than just a store; it automatically connects the trust to an authorised supply chain that gives them instant access to sector specific discounts, special bid catalogues, a price comparison engine and excellent after order management by way of tracking, savings reporting and self-serve functionality. It is a real end-to-end digital procurement solution that works at both trust and individual school level.
“We know how important it is for schools and trusts to operate efficiently in today’s climate, and education procurement teams are under increasing pressure to do this while juggling a rising number of sites. We have a solution to help them with this, while gaining more visibility and ensuring they are getting the best possible price.”
Aletheia joins a growing number of education organisations who are digitalising the way they purchase IT. Earlier this year, Exeter College agreed a major six-figure deal for an entire network refresh with Probrand, following a longstanding partnership between the two organisations.