Creating Pathways for Streamlined Procurement
With a diverse background in procurement, higher education, software development, project management, and across multiple industries and markets, Walter Lewis brought a well-rounded perspective to the Edge team when he joined in 2018. As Procurement Agent, Lewis took charge of managing the full procurement life cycle for EdgeMarket. In this role, he establishes and refines purchasing methods and documentation in compliance with applicable laws, regulations, and policies, as well as locating and investigating reputable suppliers.
“After graduating from college, I worked for British Petroleum (BP) in the computer department running programs that make calculations for soil, strata, and rock, to determine how much oil they expect to extract in particular areas,” explains Lewis. “After a year, I joined the business equipment company, Olivetti, as they launched their computer division where I designed and wrote programs as a software engineer. Later I joined Crown House Engineering, a national electrical heating and ventilation company, and wrote programs for their accounting system, invoices, collections, and general ledger. When I came on, I was a software engineer, and after five years, I was manager of the computing section.”
Following a move to Jamaica, Lewis worked at the Reynolds Metal Company running their computer division in an administrative building in the middle of an aluminum mine. “After my three-year contract, I moved into banking with a role at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce in London,” says Lewis. “Over five years, I worked as a business analyst and software developer and then moved to the oldest bank in the world, Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS). I rose through the ranks during my fifteen years with the company and was tasked in 1993 to open a new branch in Manhattan. This brought me to America and later introduced me to the education sector where I worked for The State University of New York (SUNY) for over eleven years. This trajectory brought me to my current position at Edge where I can share the insights and experience I’ve gained along the way.” Lewis’s procurement experience includes working for vendors and responding to RFPs and requestors in issuing procurement requests.
“In the beginning, our primary objective was to create the most effective procurement process and we spent several months discussing various methodologies. We finally settled on a supply chain model which allows us to rapidly move through the procurement process. We built a process that enables us to fast-track procurements and inherent in this process are the foundations that include building blocks like standards for documentation, how state laws are incorporated, different ways we use partnerships, and the development of a foundation library.”
“We wanted to anticipate future needs and act on this knowledge in developing procurements. In doing so, we had to make sure what we were doing was going to be relevant to members. For example, for the enterprise resource planning (ERP) procurement in 2018, we had a long list of requirements in the RFP that was sent out to vendors. We have since evolved in a couple of ways. EdgeMarket procurements are now completely electronic. Our early procurements had ‘lists of requirements’, and today we are using the Higher Education Reference Model (HERM) as a basis for new comprehensive procurements. This enables us to cover a larger set of areas, with multiple products or services in a single procurement. The tools we use now help us determine where the market is going. In the past year, I’ve been utilizing AI as a helpful tool to research and inform future direction. Previously this was a manual exercise and this new method has resulted in a massive reduction in our procurement cycle times.”
EdgeMarket RFP Process
Edge continues to improve the procurement process by exploring how various tools, templates, programs, and human decision-making can impact each stage of the life cycle. “Human interaction helps us to adapt, and we learn from past experiences,” says Lewis. “We adjust our behavior and refine our decision-making processes, and this type of adaptability has been a constant throughout human history. Progress is achieved by learning from our mistakes and by adopting new technologies—and we certainly have done that in EdgeMarket.”
The EdgeMarket RFP process is comprised of three stages, including planning, procurement, and evaluation and award, and is built on a foundation of compliance, standardized templates, platforms, and clear processes. To ensure alignment with New Jersey Procurement Law, the RFP structure, documents, and language are initially developed in collaboration with external procurement counsel. All templates are also reviewed by outside counsel to maintain compliance throughout the process. EdgeMarket uses the popular public sector bid management platform, BidNet, for all procurements and to help vendors expand their visibility to the broad array of bid opportunities from an extensive number of agencies. For easy RFP response collection and evaluation, Edge also uses the platform, DecisionDirector, for more complex requirements. This platform transforms vendor responses into individual fields of data within a secure system, helping to streamline the evaluation process with greater efficiency and control.
Simplified Purchasing
To further streamline and accelerate procurement for members, Edge has developed the Technology Contract for Hardware and Software (TeCHS) procurement. As one of the most comprehensive technology and services purchase vehicles available in the country, TeCHS provides access to a large variety of product offerings, including data centers, security, cloud solutions, and end-user compute (EUC). “This comprehensive catalog has an enormous scope and brings great value,” says Lewis. “The TeCHS catalog is administered by SHI and along with providing easy access through EdgeMarket, members can connect directly with highly experienced experts. SHI also has an innovation center which allows organizations to do a complete setup or test out new ideas before bringing them to their campus.”
Lewis says members can count on safe and reliable procurements and that Edge uses a rigorous public bidding process to ensure that all procurements are audit-proof. “Members can feel confident knowing each contract is going to comply with all regulations and standards. By leveraging an EdgeMarket contract, purchasing is also greatly simplified because participants can work directly with vendors—helping members to accelerate their purchasing.”
Growing EdgeMarket’s Impact and Services
To keep EdgeMarket aligned with members’ evolving needs, Edge actively researches emerging trends and monitors market shifts to ensure its products and solutions remain relevant and future focused. “Going forward, AI is going to have a great impact on procurements,” says Lewis. “While we don’t fully know how this advanced technology will influence the procurement process, we’re keeping our eyes on how it is being used and developed. AI will make a tremendous difference in the educational sphere and bring new opportunities to colleges and universities. We aim to find ways to use AI that allows us to be more efficient and expand our capabilities for member institutions.”
“The supply chain model enables EdgeMarket to build, review, open to vendors, issue addenda, close, and evaluate each procurement efficiently. We also issue awards and complete contract negotiations, as well as incorporate lessons learned back into our processes. So even though Edge is a small co-op, we are nimble and deliver top-notch quality. We are now in a position where we consider ourselves one of the top co-ops in the nation.”
Lewis says research revealed that many members had an important need for IT professional services. “Along with network engineering, operations, installation, and configuration, many members wanted to move to the Cloud. Edge now has contracts with several vendors who can assist these institutions with cloud migration, including master data management and data warehouse services. EdgeMarket also has contracted vendors who can support and provide software selection services, physical learning spaces, enterprise resource planning (ERP), and customer relationship management (CRM) implementations, upgrades, and integrations.”
To continue to grow EdgeMarket’s impact and expand its services, Edge is shining a light on the higher education ecosystem and finding products and services that can help strengthen institutional operations and drive business efficiency. “Our higher education ecosystem RFP explores the functional in-school perspective, as well as institutional business outcomes,” explains Lewis. “We’re using the HERM to serve as the foundation and functional scope of the next iteration of our procurements. The Higher Education Business Capability Model (BCM) in particular will allow us to develop more effective strategies and determine how we can help institutions identify the technology and resources that will allow them to meet the demands of their business environments successfully.”
Discover how EdgeMarket streamlines procurement while delivering impactful solutions. Visit edgemarket.njedge.net/home to explore what’s possible for your organization.
“Edge uses a rigorous public bidding process to ensure that all procurements are audit-proof. Members can feel confident knowing each contract is going to comply with all regulations and standards. By leveraging an EdgeMarket contract, purchasing is also greatly simplified because participants can work directly with vendors—helping members to accelerate their purchasing.”