NAEP New England Tentative Agenda

Is your procurement team a compliance gate, a cost center, or a true partner to your institution's mission? This session offers a practical framework for higher-ed procurement leaders to rebuild their teams around strategic value, not just transactions.

We'll explore how to close the talent gap, redefine what "good" looks like for your function, and finally reach the suppliers and spend that never get attention today.

Our campus recently completed a competitive RFP for our Dining Services contract. Because food is such an integral part of campus life, we wanted to ensure that the process was as collaborative as possible. We also understood that we needed to involve members of all campus communities in every step of the process. Our presentation will talk about developing the process, recruiting the committee, and setting up the multiiple interactive events needed to help with an informed decision. We will talk about the eight proposals that were received and how we utilized AI to help with score compilation and analysis. We will also present the multiple presentation points that the companies were given and how we included students at multiple steps in the process.

Higher education procurement is at the intersection of cost containment, efficiency, and campus operations. Successful stakeholder engagement leads to smoother workflows and faster processes across diverse campus communities. Panelists will share actionable insights and real-world strategies for navigating these challenges.

This session presents the University at Buffalo s experience as an early access partner in the development of Jaggaer Artificial Intelligence within the source-to-pay ecosystem. As a public research university within the SUNY system, UB operates in a highly regulated environment shaped by state procurement rules and strong expectations for transparency and compliance. UB was invited by Jaggaer to serve as an early access partner, recognizing the university s long-standing leadership in artificial intelligence and machine learning. This partnership created an opportunity to collaborate closely on testing use cases, providing real-world feedback, and helping ensure the solution reflects the realities of higher education procurement.

Advancing in procurement takes more than technical skills and contract wins. It requires visibility, strategic positioning, and a clear understanding of how decision-makers evaluate potential. This session brings together a panel of experienced procurement leaders including managers, directors, and executives with direct hiring and advancement authority to pull back the curtain on what separates professionals who plateau from those who rise. Through candid conversation and real-world perspective, panelists will share what they look for when promoting from within, how procurement professionals can build influence beyond their immediate teams, and what common missteps hold talented people back. Whether you're targeting your next title or positioning for a seat at the leadership table, this session delivers actionable insight from the people making those calls.

In this session, we will examine the advantages and limitations of AI and catalogs in accounts payable. Benefits include freeing AP staff to focus on more complex, value added work, improving operational efficiency, and reducing manual effort and errors. We will also address challenges such as fragmented processes, the continued need for human oversight, and the prevalence of hybrid approaches to invoice processing. Finally, we will review current trends and explore the future potential of AI solutions in this space.

Higher education procurement and business professionals have more career development opportunities than ever before. From certificates and professional certifications to graduate education, leadership programs, and specialized credentials, determining the right path can be challenging. This session explores the evolving landscape of certifications, credentials, and professional development opportunities available to procurement professionals in higher education Whether you are new to the profession, building specialized expertise, or preparing for a leadership role, this session will help you evaluate your options, identify the credentials that best support your aspirations, and make informed investments in your future.

What does it take to build a student worker and co-op program that actually works for your institution, your vendor partner, and the students themselves? In this joint session, procurement leaders and representatives from IST Management share an inside look at the collaborative program they've built together, offering both the inspiration and the practical roadmap for what's possible. From program design and student onboarding to day-to-day management and measuring impact, this session covers the full arc including the honest lessons learned along the way. Attendees will hear directly from both the institutional and vendor perspectives, giving a well-rounded view of how a successful co-op partnership comes together and sustains itself over time. Whether you're exploring a similar program for the first time or looking to strengthen an existing one, this session delivers real-world insight, a replicable framework, and a candid conversation about the value and the work behind building tomorrow's procurement workforce today.

"Superior Statements of Work" will be a hands-on workshop that discusses, shows and then puts into practice, how to write a detailed Statement of Work, with specific acceptance criteria, and enforceable deliverables. Participants learn how to change vague requirements into clear outcomes that align stakeholders, reduce change orders, and strengthen vendor accountability. This will be an opportunity for greater success. In this hands-on workshop, I will share examples of SOW and we will discuss why these need precise language and details with measurable deliverables, clear assumptions, and objective acceptance criteria. Participants will practice drafting a SOW using a provided template and they will leave with a better understanding of why the detail is important.

Higher education institutions are managing more technology vendors than ever before, yet many still rely on fragmented processes to evaluate risk, track compliance requirements, and govern critical supplier relationships. This session brings together procurement and IT leaders to share how one institution built and matured a collaborative IT supplier risk management program designed to improve visibility, accountability, and institutional oversight. Attendees will learn how procurement, information technology, accessibility, legal, and compliance stakeholders worked together to define what constitutes a critical IT supplier, establish governance standards, and embed risk review into the supplier and contracting lifecycle. The session will walk through the evolution of the program from manual processes and decentralized reviews to a more mature, workflow-driven model supported by the Jaggaer eProcurement platform. Using Jaggaer s Supplier Management and Contracts+ capabilities as enabling tools rather than the focus of the session itself, presenters will demonstrate how institutions can classify critical suppliers, route agreements through pre-execution IT and compliance review, centralize artifacts such as VPATs and SOC reports, and automate renewal and document expiration monitoring. In addition to discussing lessons learned, governance challenges, and change management strategies, the session will provide attendees with practical examples of workflow design, supplier communication standards, and contract language that can be adapted within their own institutional environments. The goal is to help institutions move from reactive contract oversight to a scalable, sustainable supplier risk management framework. Attendees will leave with actionable strategies, sample governance workflows, and a model contract addendum that can be adapted to support accessibility, security, privacy, and data stewardship requirements at their own institutions.

This session will highlight different ways Procurement strengthens export control compliance.

Most people use AI one prompt at a time. This session demonstrates how to move beyond prompting by creating reusable AI Skills that automate common procurement tasks. Through live demonstrations using Claude and real higher education purchasing examples, attendees will learn how to build AI workflows for contract reviews, supplier communications, document analysis, and other repetitive work. Participants will leave with practical ideas they can implement immediately, regardless of their AI experience.

Discover strategic approaches to implement and optimize auxiliary services sourcing in this session. We will outline the necessity of this category, stakeholder alignment, supplier selection and performance that drive cost savings, service quality and operational efficiency. The audience will gain a concise framework for deployment, risk mitigation, and continuous improvement, allowing for measurable financial and service outcomes across the organization.

You can walk into a budget meeting with airtight data, a fully negotiated contract, and a compelling business case, and still lose the room. Not because your work isn't excellent. Because of how you delivered it. Procurement professionals are amongst the most analytical and process-oriented people in any organization, and that strength can quietly work against them at the executive table. Over-explaining, excessive hedging, and rapid-fire detail are communication traps that signal insecurity, not competence, to the people who control budget, strategy, and influence. In this session, we'll examine four traps that routinely undermine high-performing procurement professionals, and the practical fixes that separate those who get heard from those who get overlooked: Over hedging and why qualifying every recommendation tanks your credibility before your idea lands. Over-explaining and why restating what your audience already understood signals distrust, not thoroughness. Talking too fast under pressure and why speed reads as low status, not urgency. Specs over story and why your category strategy, sourcing outcome, or contract win needs a narrative arc, not a feature list. You'll leave with a practical reset framework, "Shorter, Slower, Stronger," and concrete language substitutions you can apply immediately in your next executive briefing or stakeholder presentation.

This presentation outlines the essential protocols for Boston College employees when interacting with external vendors to ensure financial protection and institutional integrity. The guidelines emphasize early collaboration with the procurement department to maintain negotiation leverage and minimize contractual risks.