Bursarnet's objective is to help schools operate more leanly, via a two-pronged approach:
1/ See the wood from the trees: are there material improvements to be made? If so, where?
Schools buy a lot of stuff, in a very decentralised way, with responsibility for spend spread across many budget holders. A school may have as many active suppliers as it does pupils on the campus. This makes it hard to control, and not easy to identify where the material opportunities lie to operate more efficiently. There's no point in worrying about the price of pens if you're overpaying on the catering!
Our approach is to start with a top-down review of all areas of operational spend (except teacher pay) and to identify those areas where a school is apparently over-spending by comparison with similar schools. This Operational Benchmarking Review is a 1 week assignment, focussing on data at a very granular level across 30 different KPIs. The output draws attention to those KPIs where the most material gains can be made, and quantifies the opportunities of doing so. This ensures our school clients have the evidence to focus on the areas mostly likely to yield material benefits.
2/ A network of trusted partners who have a history of stripping out excess cost.
Over time we have been asked to help implement many of the key cost-saving opportunities identified in the Operational Benchmarking Review process. This has enabled us to build a network of trusted partners who can be relied upon to bring their expertise to the benefit of our school clients.
In addition, with over 600 member schools now, we have been able to produce some tailor-made pre-negotiated arrangements for the benefit of school clients. These will save you both time and money!