Case Study: University of Sunderland achieves better IT procurement value with KnowledgeBus

University of Sunderland - Customer Case Study

University of Sunderland, a large higher education institution in the North East of England with over 17,000 students and a centralized IT spend exceeding £2M annually, needed to achieve sustained best value on every IT purchase. Although it had formalized centralized procurement, the university still lacked confidence that it was consistently getting the best price from suppliers.

To address this, University of Sunderland implemented KnowledgeBus, a CIPS-accredited online IT buyers’ tool that provides live trade guide pricing, stock information, and market comparisons across more than 150,000 products. KnowledgeBus helped the university identify margins of up to 33% on some purchases, challenge suppliers more effectively, and make smarter buying decisions, stretching budget further, improving product selection, and speeding up procurement with validated benchmark prices and automated RFQs.

University of Sunderland

Dave Hartis

IT Department Coordinater