Case Study: Western Washington University achieves sustainability, supplier diversity, and streamlined procurement with ESM Solutions

Western Washington University drives sustainability and diversity CUSTOMER SUCCESS Influencing buyer behavior to support University values

Western Washington University, a public master's-granting institution with about 16,000 students, faced slow, paper-based procurement, limited spend visibility, inconsistent purchasing practices and insufficient oversight of p-cards — all while wanting to align purchasing with campus values like sustainability, inclusivity and supplier diversity. In 2014 the university licensed ESM Purchase and ESM Contract, Enterprise Edition from ESM Solutions to modernize and standardize its procurement processes.

ESM Solutions implemented standardized workflows and approvals, supplier indicators to flag minority- and women-owned businesses, punchout/catalog capabilities (including an internal catalog for central services), and pandemic-era features to capture secure “ship to home” requests. The changes delivered clearer spend visibility, stronger accountability, more accurate reporting on diversity spend, elevated the procurement team’s role, enabled monthly promotion of local vendors, centralized bulk purchasing and reduced delivery trips — including the ability to process about 140 home-shipping requests during COVID-19.

Western Washington University

Andrea Rodgers

associate director of business services