Welcome to Procurement
The Procurement function within the RCUK Shared Services Centre Ltd (the SSC) delivers an end to end integrated procurement service that provides The Research Councils and SSC employees with the products and services that they require to function as entities.
The primary ethos of the Procurement function is to implement sourcing solutions that deliver enhanced value and benefits to the Research Councils. This ultimately reduces the administrative burden and creates opportunities for benefits to enable more money to be returned to the research programmes.
The function is targeted with the delivery of significant benefits over 10 years which will largely be achieved through the implementation of a category management methodology supported by the Oracle system to run supplier product catalogues.
When sourcing, Procurement has the explicit purpose of maximising the synergies within the seven Research Councils. Where common requirements exist cross-council, options are developed in parallel with representative customer specialists and subsequent solution(s) implemented to drive improved value and benefit.
Procurement provides a wide range of services and dedicated Category Managers to support specialist and niche requirements such as Research consumables, Antarctic field equipment, complex research equipment and leading edge information technology. Procurement consists of a group of professionals who manage and deliver customer needs prioritisation, solution evaluations, sourcing, supplier performance and relationship management. There is also a regional account management team who support the procurement across the 100+ Council sites situated around the UK.
RCUK SSC Limited and the Research Councils are a partnership that will continually work to provide the best value procurement solutions for anything from staples to specialist research ships.