SciQuest Powers eMarket Center for WSCA - NASPO Cooperative Purchasing Organization

Updated

SciQuest Powers eMarket Center for WSCA - NASPO Cooperative Purchasing Organization

Participating States Combine Purchase Power for Collaborative Spending, Cost Reductions

CARY, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- SciQuest (NAS: SQI) today announced that the company's leading cloud-based business automation solutions are powering the newly established WSCA-NASPO eMarket Center, an electronic commerce solution for the WSCA-NASPO Cooperative Purchasing Organization, as the platform for its multi-state purchasing consortium. Last year, the National Association of State Procurement Officials (NASPO) formed a subsidiary entity, the WSCA-NASPO Cooperative Purchasing Organization, LLC to manage its national cooperative purchasing program. Participating WSCA-NASPO states and entities are using the eMarket Center to capitalize on discounted cooperative contracts already in place. The eMarket Center not only centralizes the WSCA-NASPO contractors' catalogs and provides visibility to contractors' Master Agreements; it also allows states and entities to have tremendous transparency into spending practices.


The eMarket Center streamlines the overall purchasing process. As a result, states are able to significantly improve contract compliance and access to readily available contract items, thereby driving greater contract usage.

The eMarket Center was pilot tested by the states of Utah and Nevada; these states were also the first states to go live in June of 2012. Since going live last year, several other states have enrolled to utilize the eMarket Center: Maine, Arkansas, Montana, New Mexico and Oklahoma. Maine went live in January of 2013 and the other four state's State eMarket Center Coordinators are being trained to go live in staged rollouts during the next several months. Along with direct state interest, several entities who currently utilize SciQuest have requested to inherit the WSCA-NASPO cooperative contractor's catalogs via the eMarket Center directly in their own SciQuest solution, thus greatly increasing the user adoption and visibility of the WSCA-NASPO cooperative contracts. This inheritance model represents a best-in-class deployment model for the cooperative while helping WSCA-NASPO realize a continually rising return on their eMarket Center investment.

"The eMarket Center will fundamentally improve the way many of our states buy from our cooperative contracts," said Doug Richins, WSCA-NASPO CEO. "Purchasing is a significant function in the government sector. Now instead of spending hour after hour on hundreds of sites looking for the best deals, procurement officials have a single, user-friendly destination and can make quicker, more efficient and cost-effective decisions. With more effective and efficient assess to our cooperative contracts, States and other public sector organizations will see direct benefits."

Access to the eMarket Center provides state procurement officials with transparency into all WSCA-NASPO Cooperative contracts, ensuring significant cost savings resulting from combined purchasing power. Users can also reliably track spend electronically instead of waiting for vendor quarterly sales reports. The eMarket Center has been a great step forward for WSCA-NASPO and their continued efforts to support best practices in terms of procurement and contract utilization.

For more information on the WSCA-NASPO eMarket Center, please visit www.emarketcenter.org.

About WSCA-NASPO Cooperative Purchasing Organization

The National Association of State Procurement Officials (NASPO) has formed a subsidiary entity, the WSCA-NASPO Cooperative Purchasing Organization (WSCA-NASPO), LLC to manage its national cooperative purchasing program. The LLC was formed in October of 2012 and began operating officially on January 1, 2013.

A 21-member Management Board has been appointed to oversee the operations and activities of the new organization.

Since 1993, the Western States Contracting Alliance (WSCA) served as the primary cooperative purchasing arm of NASPO and encouraged, fostered, and guided participating members to work collaboratively in an effort to create true procurement cooperatives. WSCA-NASPO represents a unified, nationally-focused cooperative purchasing program that will leverage the collective expertise and experience of WSCA and NASPO, aggregate the demand of all 50 states, the District of Columbia and the five organized territories, and their political subdivisions and other eligible entities, and help spur innovation and competition in the marketplace.

All authorized governmental entities in any state are welcome to use WSCA-NASPO cooperative contracts with the approval of that state's State Chief Procurement Official. Cooperative purchasing benefits states as well as cities, counties, public schools, institutions of higher education and other eligible entities.

About SciQuest

With a reputation for deep domain knowledge, a solid customer-driven portfolio, and industry-leading customer satisfaction, SciQuest (NAS: SQI) is the largest public provider of cloud-based business automation solutions that turn spending into a source of savings. SciQuest solutions enable greater visibility and compliance organization-wide to help you gain control, optimize efficiencies, and reduce spend. These cloud-based solutions are easier to implement and proven to deliver measurable, sustainable value with SciQuest's high-touch support, analysis and automation.

To join the conversation, please visit our blog, The Open Kitchen - or follow us on Twitter @SciQuest.



SciQuest Media contact:
SciQuest, Inc.
Michelle Perkins, 919-659-2228
mperkins@sciquest.com
or
fama PR for SciQuest
Dan Gaffney, 617-986-5036
sciquest@famapr.com
or
SciQuest Investor contact:
SciQuest, Inc.
Jamie Andelman, 919-659-2322
jandelman@sciquest.com

KEYWORDS: United States North America North Carolina

INDUSTRY KEYWORDS:

The article SciQuest Powers eMarket Center for WSCA - NASPO Cooperative Purchasing Organization originally appeared on Fool.com.

Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright © 1995 - 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Advertisement