With Banner all framework members are fully supported

Brief

Banner has been a contracted supplier to NEPO (North East Procurement Organisation) for over ten years.

Describing itself as ‘the home of collaborative procurement for the North East public sector’, NEPO’s main members include North East Council authorities such as Durham County Council and Newcastle City Council.

NEPO offers free associate membership to public sector bodies and charities across the UK. These include local authority councils, educational establishments, emergency services, NHS bodies, registered charities, registered social landlords and central government departments and their agencies.

As an approved framework supplier, Banner can support all members, including associate ones.

One associate member is County Durham Housing Group, one of the largest housing associations in the North East, covering 862 square miles. Comprising four different housing associations, it has four administrative offices.

When Banner responded to a request from County Durham Housing Group, we worked to meet their product needs and beyond, providing consolidated ordering, next day delivery to all sites and a dedicated point of contact for all employees.

Solution

Banner helped the Group to make considerable operational improvements, reduce time-consuming activities for their people and lower spend across their workplace supplies.

Banner met with the team at County Durham Housing Group to understand their needs and carried out a benchmarking exercise on prices across a range of workplace products including stationery, paper and toner cartridges.

This exercise demonstrated that Banner would deliver a 20% saving across these product ranges.

On talking to the Group, Banner discovered that its employees were dealing with a wide range of office products suppliers. This meant a mix of arrangements for deliveries, several invoicing and contractual arrangements and multiple suppliers for people to work with.

Because the Group is now buying all its stationery, paper and toner cartridges from Banner, it has reduced its supplier base, lowering workloads, time and costs.

Banner also ensures next day delivery to all four sites

The Group had been ordering from suppliers in a variety of ways, including by phone and online.

This was time consuming, creating extra paperwork and making it harder for the Group to consolidate ordering and easily view expenditure on one platform.

Banner recommended that all employees ordered electronically through our online ordering system, e-Supply. This enables employees to view and order goods in one process. With purchasing authorisation enabled, orders can be processed quickly and efficiently.

Moving everyone responsible for buying over to Banner’s e-commerce site has helped to streamline purchasing, save time and resources, and cut costs across the Group.

Prior to working with Banner, County Durham Housing Group employees were dealing with call centres to discuss orders.

With Banner, they have a dedicated account manager to help, day in, day out. Dedicated account management ensures that Banner fully understands this customer’s needs and can respond quickly and appropriately whenever required.

Result

• Banner would deliver a 20% saving across the product ranges
• Online ordering system, e-Supply.
• Operational improvements, reduce time-consuming activities for their people and lower spend across their workplace supplies