| Date | Category |
|---|---|
| 4th March 2026 | Member Update |
Working with members and the sector to make procurement more strategic
Gemma joined the SUPC team in 2023 and was appointed Director a year later.
Her focus is to ensure SUPC has strong foundations and a member-led strategic approach. Together, she and the team have developed a new 5-year strategy and are building a continuous improvement culture that supports the evolving needs of current and future members.
Tell us more about SUPC’s 5-year strategy
We’re entering into an exciting time for the support we provide to our members. Our aim is to help them to be as strategic as possible in their procurement. To do that, this year we have articulated the pillars that underpin our work and decision-making.
While all the pillars are important, there are two in particular that are the core of what we do:
- Delivering advantageous, compliant framework agreements – with these agreements procurement teams know they will get a ready-to-go route to market for low value, high volume activity, with sustainability and responsible procurement principles already built-in. Full members also see a financial benefit through the framework levy return.
- Driving strong member and supplier relationships – successful procurement requires suppliers and institutions to work together, and at SUPC we’re helping to facilitate those relationships and drive greater value for our members.
How is the SUPC team developing to support this strategy?
SUPC is here for our members – we want them to feel heard when they tell us about the support they need and then deliver their expectations.
Our new strategy provides clarity for the whole SUPC team on our member-led direction and priorities. We have a senior team in place who can deliver efficiencies for the sector, freeing up in-house teams to focus on their strategic priorities.
The introduction of a Procurement Business Partner role means we have a team member going deeper into understanding our members and their needs: insight we’ll use to proactively develop our offering further.
What have you been able to do so far with this increased insight?
We have focussed on developing more opportunities to engage with members and provide more of the targeted support they need, such as our supplier relationship management pilot, our enhanced events calendar and new ITT templates for the Procurement Act 2023.
A compliance dashboard is also in development as a way to share the data we have about suppliers so that members can use the information to reduce their due diligence workload.
How is the collaborative model benefiting SUPC members?
With SUPC membership you get a sense of community with your peers, whether you’re an early career Category Manager or a Director of Procurement. In particular, we recognise that it can feel isolating to be leading procurement at your institution, so we have a bimonthly network meeting for Heads of Procurement to raise queries and discuss their learning – sharing challenges and solutions. We want to help them to be able to clearly articulate their worth to their institutions, at a time when the focus on non-pay spend has never been greater.
We also provide a link to sector-wide collaboration, through our involvement with UKUPC. I sit on the UKUPC Board and across the sector consortia we are working to share best practice, remove duplication and look at shared service opportunities. There is weight to what we can deliver collectively, so we’re defining a new UKUPC strategy to drive even greater value-for-money for our members.
Read more from Gemma and the SUPC team in this year’s SUPC impact report 2024/25!