PURCO SA is the purchasing consortium of the Higher Educational sector in Southern Africa. Our members include all the public universities and their allied institutions. We focus on providing maximum benefit for our members through collaborative purchasing and professional support. A group purchasing organization such as PURCO SA offers far more than the popular belief of savings on purchase prices only. Be on the look-out for a much broader value proposition. Our members benefit in the following ways: - Price and service benefits through collaborative purchasing - Sharing in best purchasing practice through networking and interacting with purchasing experts - Reductions in costly duplications in purchasing activities As a purchasing consortium, PURCO SA adds value for our members by: - Giving them access to group purchasing contracts with favorable pricing and terms that are based on the buying power and leverage of a much larger organization than a single institution. - Using a reduced number of quality suppliers with member input on identification, qualification and selection of the successful suppliers; - Reducing their staff and administrative costs inherent to the popular 'three quote system' used for repetitive buying; - Saving time for their buyers, allowing them to make their skills and resources available to attend to matters of strategic importance; - Spreading costs over a greater turnover; - Creating an opportunity for the experts that are available at different member institutions, to contribute to the structuring of a common beneficial business transaction; - Creating an environment for interchange of ideas, sharing of new developments and benchmarking of activities; - Focusing on and specializing in specific goods and services contracts that are common to the majority of our members; - Ensuring that an objective and transparent tender process is used - Offering user-friendly catalogues and auditable contracts.