Message from the Chairman: Chris Liebenberg | Annual Report 2022

For the past 44 years our success has been a result of collaboration and cooperation between our Members.

In 1978, a small group of like-minded university procurement managers came together in the spirit of collaboration to form what is now PURCO SA.

Today, 44 years since its formation, our Consortium’s Members include every one of our public Universities, almost half of our TVET Colleges, and more than a dozen associated learning, research and standards bodies across South Africa and Namibia.

Since the first meeting, collaboration and cooperation have been our primary focus, delivering significant benefits to all the Consortium’s Members. And after nearly half a century we continue to promote collaboration with the ultimate objective of helping the Students we serve.

TWO R2 BILLION RAND BREAKTHROUGHS

PURCO SA and our partners have much to be proud of.

In the past financial year more than R2 billion was transacted through contracts negotiated by PURCO SA.

And since 2010 we have delivered savings and rebates to Members beyond R2 billion.

This pair of R2 billion milestones is significant. As procurement and finance professionals we are acutely aware of the financial constraints faced by the higher education sector, both locally and abroad. Recent surveys and summits emphasise the challenges of financing, capacity and collaboration that occupy the minds of higher education leadership.

In this context the work done by PURCO SA, in collaboration with our Members, stands proud.

Together, we make a significant contribution to our sector and our institutions. The R2 billion in savings and cash rebates achieved since 2010 is a direct consequence of our joint commitment to collaboration and cooperation. That said, over the years PURCO SA has grown in significance to become far more than just an effective mechanism to secure better prices and savings.

Our five core business segments help capacitate Members by providing a professional resource for processing tenders, negotiating and managing contracts, offering consultancy services, delivering professional development, and facilitating access to student academic information.

Our education system is well served by the pillars of quality, professionalism, technology, good governance and integrity that PURCO SA works to deliver.

PURCO SA is far more than simply an effective mechanism to secure better prices and savings.

After 44 years of serving higher education, we celebrate two R2 billion breakthroughs.

COLLABORATION
In the past year PURCO SA recorded R2.22 billion in procurement transactions through our negotiated contracts - a 21 percent annual increase.

On a cumulative basis since 2010, Members have spent more than R17 billion through PURCO SA contracts.

Our Members broke through the R1 billion spend level in 2014, and if we kept growing at the 12.94% compound annual growth rate trajectory we will reach R3 billion by 2025.

SAVINGS
PURCO SA has proven itself as an efficient and trustworthy custodian of public finances.

Our core competency still lies in saving our Members money, and those savings ramp up every year. We achieved our first Billion Rand in savings in 2018 – eight years since we started recording the statistics in 2010.

With R59 million in rebates and R272 million in savings returned to Members this year, it has taken only a further four years – half the initial 8 years - to double cumulative saving to over R2 billion.

TECHNOLOGY
The past two years have forced the global higher education community to review many aspects of our operations. This has included assessing the degree to which digital technology is disrupting our institutions, while taking advantage of the circumstances to become more efficient digital universities and colleges*.

The PURCO SA Online Tender System is one example of how PURCO SA is leveraging technology to drive efficiencies and reduce costs.

When Covid-19 challenged PURCO SA to help our Members procure critical supplies without being able to engage physically, we quickly upgraded our Online Tender System to enable bidders to submit their bid documents online.

That initial basic system was totally redesigned in early 2022 and is currently undergoing a third development iteration. Since its inception the system has facilitated the submission of more than 1000 online tender bids, some with bid packs reaching almost a gigabyte in size.

ANNUAL CONFERENCE
Collaborating on tenders and contracts is not the only way in which our Member Institutions work together. After two years of not being able to convene in person there was tangible excitement as we prepared for our first Conference after the pandemic. Hosted at the Sandton Convention Centre shortly after the end of the financial year, the event saw the highest number of delegates and exhibitors ever coming together to learn, network and do business.

The 2022 Conference and Exhibition set new benchmarks for collaborative value with 36 conference sessions and more than 600 attendees over the 4-day event.

QUALITY
One reason for PURCO SA’s success is its commitment to quality improvement, reconfirmed by the renewal of its ISO 9001:2015 certification. I am delighted by the Consortium’s ongoing drive to be a beacon of professionalism and good governance, and I hope those characteristics will continue to influence our sector.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR IMPACT
I must acknowledge the PURCO SA team for their consistent and valuable support, and thank our Members and Suppliers for your trust and participation, and for channeling more of your transactions through the Consortium’s contracts.

In our pressured daily work it is easy to forget how what we do makes a difference in the lives of our ultimate beneficiaries: our students.

Last year we introduced the PURCO SA Student Impact Barometer as a simple tool to illustrate the point and remind us of the impact we make. The Barometer calculates how many students could have been funded if all savings and rebates derived from the work PURCO SA does was attributed to student fees.

Assuming an average first-year cost per student of R43 094** the 2022 Impact Barometer reflects that our work could hypothetically have funded 6 704 first-year students in 2021-2022, and 57 499 students since 2010.

This is a considerable and worthy impact, and I thank you most sincerely for your contribution to the future of our students and our country.

Chris Liebenberg
PURCO SA Chairman
Senior Director of Finance
University of the Free State