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News

EqualLevel Is Featured in Government Procurement Magazine

EqualLevel is thrilled to have been featured in the June 2023 cover story of Government Procurement Magazine. Read below for an excerpt from the article:

Government Procurement Magazine Excerpt: June 2023 Edition

There is an increasing interest in small and disadvantaged business participation in public contracting; however, it’s often difficult for small local businesses to compete for government business. In El Paso, Texas, Sandy Grodin created a new office supply business from scratch-El Paso Office Products. Over the past decade, the company boasts $5 million to $6 million in annual sales with 90 percent of their sales volume from local government, K-12 school districts and colleges. With 16 employees, El Paso Office Products has become a successful certified small business. While growing the business, Grodin and his team often compete against large office supply operations and on-line platforms. However, when a large online supplier impressed the local school district with lower prices and on-line catalog, he feared if one local agency went in that direction, then others might follow, causing negative impacts to local businesses. 

Grodin learned this online platform had approached his largest customer, El Paso Independent School District (EPISD), about creating a custom marketplace. The district was impressed by the presentation and promises of low prices. However, before signing on the dotted line, EPISD connected with local vendors about the potential change. 

Grodin met with EPISD’s superintendent and purchasing team, having done his homework. In side-by-side comparisons, he demonstrated his company’s value, local economic benefits and local partnership as a powerful part of their customer service strategy. He was able to offer competitive pricing through an awarded cooperative contract. 

The school district ultimately made the decision to combine all district-approved vendor catalogs, including El Paso Office Products, into one searchable on-line site by partnering with EqualLevel, a flexible e-commerce platform. With no supplier transaction fees or incurred costs for integrating a supplier’s existing e-commerce site, the district found EqualLevel’s platform to have similar advantages as large on-line competitors, but with greater local business focus. Through a special feature, as shoppers placed items in their carts, the EqualLevel Savings Advisor (ELSA) feature suggests best value substitutions, ensuring district purchasers were making the best possible selections. 

According to EqualLevel Founder and CEO Orville Bailey, “This platform gives small businesses and distributors with limited IT capabilities the opportunity to establish a punchout catalog that integrates with most financial systems used by local governments and school districts. This increases the ability for small companies to appear in searches alongside their larger competitors to create an equal playing field.”

The full Government Procurement Magazine article can be found here.

News

EqualLevel Sponsors Ground-Breaking Black Founders Forum

In 2021, Black entrepreneurs received a record $5.1 billion in venture capital (Crunchbase). Sadly, this number still only accounted for a paltry 1.5 percent of all venture funding for the year. In 2022, with the economic downturn, total venture capital dollars dwindled and Black founders took the brunt with a disproportionately larger drop in investments. “When the U.S. economy has a cold, the Black community has pneumonia,” said Paul Judge, managing partner and co-founder of Atlanta-based Panoramic Ventures. 

PS27 Ventures Hosts Inaugural Black Founders Forum

In an effort to address the alarming trend of underfunding for Black founders, PS27 Ventures will be hosting the inaugural Black Founders Forum in Jacksonville, Florida. The goal of the forum is “to attract and inspire more people to become entrepreneurs and innovators,” said PS27 CEO Jim Stallings. 

EqualLevel Joins Industry Leaders As Bronze Sponsor

When EqualLevel co-founder Orville Bailey first learned of the Black Founders Forum, he was eager for EqualLevel to join industry leaders PwC, Deloitte, and JPMorgan Chase in sponsoring the event. “EqualLevel is passionate about supporting initiatives that provide Black founders and entrepreneurs with opportunities to overcome barriers, unlock their potential, and drive meaningful change,” said Bailey of the sponsorship. An accomplished Black founder in his own right, Bailey is deeply committed to supporting and empowering Black individuals, businesses, and entrepreneurs. Prior to EqualLevel, Bailey co-founded and served as CEO for B2eMarkets, a pioneer and market leader in enterprise eSourcing. In this role, Bailey helped raise over $60 million in venture investment. 

EqualLevel’s DEI Commitment

EqualLevel is steadfast in its commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion for its employees, clients, and the wider community. The company proudly collaborates with several Black-owned businesses through its eProcurement Marketplace and EqualLevel GO software products. EqualLevel GO, in particular, provides underrepresented suppliers with access to technology that enables their products to achieve the same visibility on eProcurement marketplaces as that of their larger competitors. The platform not only levels the playing field for disadvantaged businesses, but it also helps satisfy supplier diversity requirements for buyers. 

Bailey will join 30 founders, 40 investors, and 350 attendees at the Black Founders Forum, which coincides with Juneteenth. “Founders will learn how to build sustainable businesses that create jobs, positive returns for shareholders, and personal wealth,” said Stallings. Attendees will have the opportunity to network with Black founders and venture capitalists and attend a panel discussion on the Power of Capital. Throughout the conference participants will be able to explore the Entrepreneur and Business Partner Showcase comprising 30 Black-owned companies that will be onsite to showcase their products and services. Carla Harris, Morgan Stanley Senior Client Advisor, will deliver the keynote address, and the event will culminate with a Shark Tank-style pitch competition with five founders competing for a $250,000 venture capital investment.

For more information on the Black Founders Forum, or to get involved, go to https://ps27foundation.org/.

Related reading:

EqualLevel’s work with Black Founder Chris Ellington of GBEX

EqualLevel’s commitment to diversity, inclusion, and equity for its employees, clients, and the wider community 

EqualLevel Co-founder Orville Bailey

EqualLevel’s eProcurement Marketplace

EqualLevel’s GO product

News

Cook County Presents: “Procurement Transformation in the Windy City”

On Tuesday, August 23, 2022 representatives from Cook County, Illinois, and implementation partner Civic Initiatives will present, “Cook County: Procurement Transformation in the Windy City” at the NIGP Forum 2022 in Boston, Massachusetts. The presentation will tell the story of how they have partnered to transform the county’s procurement process. Cook County’s Chief Procurement Officer, Raffi Sarrafian, and Civic Initiatives’s Dustin Lanier, Certified Public Procurement Officer, will lead the discussion.

In the past several years, Cook County, with the help of Civic Initiatives, has launched a series of improvement projects with the goal of making their procurement process more efficient and effective. During their presentation, Sarrafian and Lanier will discuss the impetus for the project as well as their goals. They will provide examples of initiatives that have been implemented or are underway and they will discuss how partners like Civic Initiatives and EqualLevel have contributed to their procurement transformation. All the while sharing lessons that could prove helpful for other local governments considering similar innovations. Among the projects they will be discussing is Cook County’s utilization of EqualLevel’s eProcurement marketplace to automate and significantly reduce manual entry for the county’s requisitions, POs and invoices.

With a population of over 5,000,000, Cook County is the second most populous county in the U.S. The county’s 2022 operating budget is just over $8 billion. “We have close to 600 active contracts in the aggregate of a little over a billion dollars (with) somewhere around 400 million in procurement…all necessary for the daily operation of Cook County,” said Sarrafian on a recent episode of the podcast, “Public Procurement Change Agents.” Given the county’s size and volume of spend, streamlining processes could produce significant savings both in employee time and purchasing dollars.

Civic Initiatives was founded in 2010 and has provided procurement transformation assistance to entities across the U.S. The firm supports operating model reform, spend management, and procurement automation. 

“NIGP: The Institute for Public Procurement,” develops, supports and promotes the public procurement profession through research and educational programs, professional support, technical services, and advocacy initiatives that benefit members and other stakeholders. Their annual NIGP forum brings together professionals at all levels to learn from and support one another. The conference will take place August 22, 2022 to August 24, 2022 and will be held at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. Sessions will be offered both in-person as well as virtually. Industry events such as these are critical for promoting information sharing among procurement professionals across the U.S.

Click here to learn more about EqualLevel’s eProcurement software.

News

National Procurement Institute Honors EqualLevel Customers

EqualLevel is pleased to announce that five of its customers have been honored with the prestigious 2022 National Procurement Institute Achievement of Excellence in Procurement Award. 

About the NPI

The National Procurement Institute (NPI) is a non-profit organization that serves public procurement professionals. Founded in 1968, NPI is focused on leading excellence in public procurement. As stated on their website, “members of NPI represent the current and future leaders of the public procurement profession.”

About the NPI Achievement of Excellence in Procurement Award

According to NPI’s website, “In 1995, the National Procurement Institute, Inc. (NPI) established the Achievement of Excellence in Procurement® (AEP) program, designed to recognize organizational excellence in public procurement. This prestigious annual award is earned by those organizations that demonstrate excellence by obtaining a high score based on criteria designed to measure innovation, professionalism, productivity, e-procurement, and leadership attributes of the procurement organization. From nine recipients in 1996 to around 200 in the most recent years, the AEP continues to be recognized as the premier award in the public procurement profession.” 

EqualLevel congratulates the following entities we work with on this important achievement. We are proud to partner with each of these amazing organizations–their accolades are richly deserved.

NIP AEG Award Winners

News

EqualLevel Launches MyFunds for K-12 Supplemental Funds Management

As school districts began to see the importance of allocating funds for teachers for classroom supplies, EqualLevel saw the need for districts to have a tool for supplemental funds management. EqualLevel’s MyFunds solution for automates funds distribution, encourages on-contract purchasing, tracks spending, and streamlines the reconciliation and reimbursement processes leading to reduced administrative overhead. 

How MyFunds Works

MyFunds allows school districts to allocate supplemental funds directly to teachers for easy access and helps administrators track spending. Teachers can use their funds to make purchases via an online marketplace comprising approved vendors, or quickly submit reimbursement requests for purchases made out of the marketplace. With MyFunds, supplemental funds management is automated, which eliminates paper receipts and forms.

“With K-12 operating under tight budget constraints, school districts need an all-inclusive solution to manage the procure-to-pay process for all district spending. Therefore, MyFunds was designed to complement EqualLevel’s eProcurement and eInvoicing offerings,” explained Orville Bailey, EqualLevel CEO.

MyFunds Features

Transparency: MyFunds delivers line-item level transparency of every purchase and makes the audit process seamless.

Marketplace: MyFunds equips school districts with an easy-to-use marketplace consisting of products from leading K-12 suppliers. Funds used in the marketplace go further because teachers are shopping from competitively bid contracts. 

Savings: The marketplace includes AI-powered technology, called the EqualLevel Savings Advisor (ELSA), that determines the optimal cart for the items being purchased to identify savings that would otherwise be missed. 

Automated Invoice Capture: To decrease manual processes performed daily, MyFunds’ automates invoice capture as well as reconciliation with orders and receipts.

Mobile-friendly: MyFunds’ mobile-friendly feature enables online submission of reimbursement requests with receipts for purchases made outside the marketplace. 

ACH Reimbursements: MyFunds includes the option for ACH reimbursement payments, so funds are not held up while reimbursement requests are routed for approval. 

Click here to learn more about EqualLevel’s MyFunds solution.

News

Cooperative Purchasing Organization Launches eMarketplace to Simplify Procurement for Members

Cooperative Purchasing Organization MHEC, New England’s Premier Purchasing Consortium, has launched their new eMarketplace, the i-buy marketplace™. The i-buy marketplace™ simplifies purchasing for MHEC members by enabling them to buy from multiple contracts utilizing the same shopping cart and interface. With 50+ contracts in their porfolio, this significantly streamlines purchasing for members.

Many-to-many Capability

MHEC began their search for an online platform in 2020 when research indicated that its members wanted a simpler means to access and purchase from MHEC contracts. Chris Raymond, Director, Contracts and Operations, noted, “It was a difficult task to find a platform that could embrace everything that was needed. We have many contracts, many products and services, and many suppliers. We needed a purchasing platform that could enable a many-to-many capability to meet the requirements identified by our members, including systems integration. We found that with EqualLevel.”

Benefits

Michael Di Yeso, MHEC Executive Director spoke of the benefit of the i-buy marketplace™ for MHEC’s members stating, “We have over 2,100 members that range from large university systems to small local libraries, from municipal government offices to K-12 schools, all with varying levels of support for the purchasing function. Our i-buy marketplace™ delivers a powerful capability for our member organizations to target their search and purchase specifically to what they need, regardless of size, sector, location, or purchasing operations. It’s a game changer and I’m proud to offer it to our members.”

About MHEC

MHEC is a not-for-profit Group Purchasing Organization. The organization was created in 1977 to provide purchasing contracts for the state’s higher education systems. Its membership reach has since expanded to include any not-for-profit organization with an educational component located in the six New England states.

Click here to learn more about EqualLevel’s work with cooperative purchasing organizations.

News

School Districts Realize $600K in Procurement Savings with AI

Maverick spending is costing schools significantly each year. EqualLevel developed the EqualLevel Savings Advisor™ (ELSA) to thwart this overspending. ELSA combines the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to automatically identify in real-time the lowest price for an item, or the best available substitute. In 2021, EqualLevel examined spend data from twenty school district customers that utilize the EqualLevel Marketplace with ELSA and the total amount of procurement savings the districts achieved in one year was remarkable.

EqualLevel Savings Advisor

The EqualLevel Marketplace solution consolidates supplier catalogs into a single marketplace to easily comparison shop items. ELSA combines the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to automatically identify, in real-time, the lowest price for an item, or the best available substitute. This enables shoppers to quickly edit their shopping cart to accept ELSA’s recommendation, or to enter a justification for keeping their current item. Detailed reporting is available that includes the alternatives suggested, decisions made, and the savings achieved or missed.

Procurement Savings With ELSA

To measure the impact of ELSA, in 2021, EqualLevel examined the spend from twenty school district customers that utilize the EqualLevel Marketplace with ELSA. These districts were spread among five states and utilized marketplaces that were integrated with eight different ERP systems–eFinancePlus, MUNIS, Oracle, PeopleSoft, SAP, Skyward, TEAMS, and USAS.

In total, ELSA saved the twenty districts a combined $642,454 for 2021. These savings were a direct result of ELSA auditing shoppers’ carts and recommending the same or comparable products at a lower price from other approved vendors, and the shopper accepting the substitute. The savings for each district depended on their total spend, but average savings were $32,122, and the highest savings calculated from data from one of the larger school districts was $282,852. In addition, data showed that savings increase over time. As more contracts are added to the marketplace, and as the AI engine learns more about shoppers’ buying behaviors, ELSA identifies more alternatives and drives even more savings.

Most of the twenty districts achieved a return on investment for their marketplace application in the first year with their savings from ELSA alone. This does not include the savings achieved via the marketplace itself. Ensuring contract compliance, increasing productivity, and reducing manual data entry and errors all contribute to greater savings beyond those achieved with ELSA.

For K-12 school districts, EqualLevel’s marketplace solution can do more than streamline their procurement processes and ensure compliance—it can also drive significant cost savings. By incorporating real-time analysis using an AI engine for comparison shopping, the EqualLevel marketplace can prevent overspending and deliver immediate cost savings to school districts.

Click here to learn more about ELSA.

Click here to learn more about EqualLevel’s eProcurement solution.

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