A Budget Transformation update: Increasing operational excellence through our Next-Gen Procurement initiative

Dear colleagues,

During last month’s Faculty Senate Open Forum, we shared a great deal of information about the university’s Budget Transformation initiative — including our plan to operationalize the new “levers” being designed through our budget governance process.

These levers are being built to capitalize on future growth, empowering and advancing our Next-Gen K-State vision and goals.

One of the new Budget Transformation levers we shared requires us to tackle several operational excellence projects, with one of those projects prioritized to begin immediately: Standardizing our institutional purchasing activities through the Next-Gen Procurement initiative.

About the Next-Gen Procurement initiative

The Next-Gen Procurement initiative sets the stage for streamlined purchasing, contracting and payment activities for users across the institution.

• Financial forms currently sitting across disparate platforms will be strategically migrated into two existing university systems. Through a planned, coordinated communication and collaboration effort with business and financial staff across the university over the next several months, forms are expected to be seamlessly migrated by the beginning of FY27.
• Of even greater note, users will be able to manage bids, contracts, purchase orders and invoices within a single, intuitive cloud-based system — one that will also include a universitywide marketplace for common goods and services. This comprehensive system is intended to be in place by early 2027.

Ultimately, these efforts will increase user efficiency and simplify existing workflows. In particular, the universitywide marketplace will:

• Provide a guided user experience with access to more than 25 university-contracted suppliers.
• Support a more expedient procurement for most low-dollar commodities due to an estimated 50% reduction in administrative touchpoints.

Taken together, these efforts will result in the decommissioning of six disparate university systems in favor of a more efficient, consolidated tech suite, enhancing transparency across our overall institutional purchasing process.

Procurement system, marketplace implementation teams and project timeline

A project advisory committee and dedicated implementation team have been established to oversee and advance the project, which will kick off with a needs assessment this month. As the needs assessment progresses, the university community can expect continued engagement through the formation of working groups and facilitated Q&A sessions to keep everyone up to date. Ultimately, our goal is to stand up a system launch with a pilot group near the end of the calendar year, allowing time for adjustments and optimization before a full system implementation in early 2027.

Updates regarding the project timeline, training and transition process will be shared in K-State Today and on the Next-Gen Procurement initiative webpage.

Empowering K-State’s workforce with a more streamlined purchasing process is just one way we are committed to helping you work smarter, not harder. When we reduce administrative touchpoints, consolidate systems and steward our purchasing tech suite more efficiently, we create more space and opportunity for you to do all the things you love that drive this institution forward.

Thank you for your continued partnership on this transformative journey. Together, we are strengthening our operational foundation in support of our Next-Gen K-State vision and goals.

Go ‘Cats!

Jesse Perez Mendez
Provost and executive vice president

Ethan Erickson
Vice president for administration and finance