Executive Summary
The State University of New York (SUNY) operates the largest comprehensive system of Higher Education in the United States, serving more than 1.3 million students across 64 campuses. Managing procurement for such a vast, decentralized network was a monumental challenge until SUNY embraced JAGGAER eProcurement, Invoicing, Sourcing, and Contracts+. Working with JAGGAER has not only modernized and unified workflow, it has also reduced costs and fostered more collaborative relationships with suppliers.
These aren’t challenges—thanks to JAGGAER, they’re changes that will bring us to a whole new level of success.
Lori Nunziato, Director of eBusiness at SUNY
Vertical
Higher Education
Location
64 campuses across New York State
Size
1.3 million students
87,956 faculty & staff
217,000 vendors
Why JAGGAER
JAGGAER One is an intelligent source-to-pay and supplier collaboration platform, and the catalyst for enhancing human decision-making to accelerate business outcomes. SUNY leveraged JAGGAER’s eProcurement, a fully integrated, end-to-end comprehensive and configurable procurement marketplace that ensures adoption, to improve governance and eliminate maverick spending.
The Challenge: Silos, with No Centralized Visibility
At a time when 163 public universities have reported 28.5% cost inefficiency over a 10-year period (source: Studies in Higher Education), the State University of New York struggled with manual, paper-based procurement, with transactions moving desk to desk with no centralized visibility, multiple systems operating in silos, and locating purchase orders required time-consuming searches. “To not worry whose desk a paper was on, to not wonder where it’s being held up…that visibility from beginning to end was something we needed as a whole,” said Lori Nunziato, Director of eBusiness at SUNY.
With 17 campuses active on the platform, 800 contracts, 217,000 vendors, and 54,000 active users, SUNY realized they could not continue with outdated, inefficient workflows that frustrated users and hindered supplier relationships.
The Solution: Uniform Workflows, Improved Supplier Relationships
SUNY launched its transformation with a pilot of two campuses to build an adaptable onboarding process. One would take place at a large university with a diverse number of users; the second at a smaller college with lower capacity and a team used to covering a broad range of tasks. JAGGAER was selected for the project on the strength of its successful track record with Higher Education, as well as the configurability of its platform, which replaced its siloed processes with a single, easy-to-use workflow.
After the pilot was well-received by both suppliers and staff, SUNY broadly deployed JAGGAER eProcurement, which included centralized, cloud-based requisitioning and purchasing. They also added Invoicing, for real-time touchless processing and Contracts+, JAGGAER’s AI-enhanced solution for contract management and compliance tracking.
Results: Faster and More Efficient PO Issuance
The transformation delivered results that extended beyond simple ROI. With JAGGAER eProcurement, Invoicing and Contracts+, the State University of New York has been achieving:
- End-to-End Visibility: Every transaction is tracked in real time, from requisition to payment.
- Efficiency Gains: New web-based processes delivered faster requisition approvals and PO issuance.
- Transparency & Compliance: Uniform workflows across campuses boosted contract usage and spend tracking.
- Supplier Relationships: Streamlined onboarding fostered stronger supplier partnerships.
Most important, procurement and AP now collaborate without silos, successfully managing more than $400.6 million in annual spend with unprecedented visibility, control, and efficiency.
Looking ahead, SUNY plans to further optimize the platform by adding a ProcureNext team as part of a Digital Transformation project to assist with improving data reporting, training, support, enhancements of contracts and sourcing through dashboards and templates along with bringing efficiencies and automation through RPA and AI supported add ons. This will support the expansion of the platform for more campuses and departments across SUNY.
