Webcast Recap: Effectively Managing Supplier Contracts with The University of Chicago Medicine

This week we had the pleasure of seeing Ivalua customer, The University of Chicago Medicine, in an essential webinar with SIG on managing supplier contracts with technology.

The University of Chicago Medicine and Biological Sciences, one of the nation’s leading academic medical institutions, has been at the forefront of medical care since 1927, when it first opened to patients. Today, it comprises the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine; the University of Chicago Biological Sciences Division, a section committed to scientific discovery; and the University of Chicago Medical Center, consistently ranked among the best hospitals in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Twelve Nobel Prize winners in physiology or medicine have been affiliated with the University of Chicago Medicine.

The University of Chicago medicine is a 617-bed adult and pediatric hospital with an operating income of $1.5B. It’s 800+ faculty is among the Top 5 U.S. medical schools know for generating federal dollars per faculty.

David Spence, Sourcing and Diversity Manager at The University of Chicago Medicine talked about improving the organization’s contract lifecycle management, fostering a culture of collaboration with suppliers and sourcing staff, and boosting compliance to policies and regulations. 

Enjoy highlights from the webcast below!

Q: In terms of supplier adoption, was training provided by UCM to its suppliers or was it so intuitive that no training was required?
David Spence: We did not provide a formal training to our suppliers. When our suppliers log into the Ivalua system, we have standard work that they see on the info page. Suppliers do have the ability to go in and download a pdf that walks them through how to upload documents and how to submit back to UCM. We never really had to provide a formal training. There are cases where the supplier needs help, in which case one of our sourcing leaders will walk them through the process. Overall, it has been pretty intuitive and it hasn’t created a lot of work from a training point of view.

Q: Did your company self implement Ivalua professional services or use a  third party service?
DS: We implemented on our own. We had a project manager from Ivalua, myself, and a project manager from our IT department. That was one of the nice things we liked, it didn’t require a ton of resources or external help. It keeps implementation costs at a minimum and seemed to work out pretty well.

Q: What will be your next steps after the implementation?
DS: For our next steps after implementation, we need to figure out who is the main administrator of the program. Additionally, we want to move this program out to other departments internally. We want Ivalua to act as our central repository. One of the things I like about this is that it allows each department to have individual drawers that are locked down, employees of their department can only see contracts for their department. For example, finance can’t look at physician contracts, and marketing can’t look at finance contracts. This provides a sense of confidentiality and we can make sure everyone has the right permissions.

We hope to catch you in our next webcast! For additional information, please feel free to check out our Resources page.