Educational Consumables to Office Depot
Submitted by:
Keith K. Glatz, CPPO, FCPM, FCPA
Purchasing & Contract Manager
City of Tamarac, FL
The Southeast Florida Governmental Purchasing Cooperative recently reviewed its options for the purchase of office supplies by many of its members within the Broward County, Miami-Dade County and Palm Beach County "Tri-county" area. Many Co-op members, including the City of Tamarac, Florida, which serves as the lead agency for the Co-op for its supply needs, had been receiving many calls and inquiries from multiple vendors requesting that the Co-op re-evaluate the marketplace in light of many new agreements available through several national consortiums and other governmental agencies.
The existing Office Supply Agreement with Office Depot was set to expire on December 31, 2010, and there were no additional renewal options available. The City of Tamarac, Florida, which acts as the lead agency for the Co-Op for the procurement of office supplies, decided to test the market to see if all the claims by the many vendors in the marketplace were accurate. As a result, the Co-Op formed an Office Supply Evaluation Committee, chaired by the City of Tamarac's Purchasing & Contracts Manager and including Procurement professionals from the cities of Coral Springs, Florida, Davie, Florida and Greenacres, Florida. The Co-op, through the City of Tamarac, formally advertised and issued a Request for Information document, which required the firms in the marketplace to provide information regarding their service capabilities and pricing. The RFI requested that respondents provide pricing from their existing national consortium or state contract pricing for us to compare, since those agreements represented programs that were well-established; and had been proven to provide for significant savings.
The Co-op had collected aggregate quantity information from all of its members based on actual historic usage reports for the previous calendar year. The information was cleansed to remove unusual one-time purchases and anomalies (such as plastic whistles), and requested unit pricing for approximately 300 of the top utilized Co-op items. Five firms responded to the RFI, including all of the major players in the marketplace which included the following firms:
- Capital Office Products
- Independent Stationers
- Office Depot
- Office Max
- Staples Advantage
One of the most interesting aspects of the RFI was the pricing element. The lowest pricing for the Co-op's high use items was submitted by Office Depot, utilizing their State of Florida pricing, which was adopted by the National IPA consortium for national distribution. The aggregate pricing was approximately $23,000 lower than the next firm; and Office Depot was able to provide all of the service requirements desired by the members of the Co-Op with the highest number of items available for purchase! As a result, the members of the Evaluation Committee unanimously ranked Office Depot as the top-ranked firm!
The pricing proposed by Office Depot had using the State of Florida pricing includes discounts for traditional consumable office supply items (excluding toner) ranging from 66% off of list price for national brands, up to 79% for generic items. Other product discounts (break room supplies, cleaning supplies, toner, IT peripherals and equipment) are discounted from 30% to 72%, depending on the individual category.
Another aspect of the agreement that important to the Co-op was performance guarantee provided by Office Depot, which includes requirements for a 95% or greater, 2 business day delivery; a 98% order accuracy rate and a 99.5% or greater price accuracy rate.
Since making the award last November, the Co-op has experienced very few, if any issues, and has enjoyed the benefits of the significant savings through the State of Florida program adopted for national use by the National IPA.
Keith K. Glatz, CPPO, FCPM, FCPA
Purchasing &; Contracts Manager
City of Tamarac, FL
Thank you to Keith Glatz. For additional information and details how the State of Florida agreement with Office Depot can benefit your agency, contact your local Office Depot representative or contact National IPA at info@nationalipa.org.
