08 December 2014 
Matt Sisson, Projects and Membership Manager
The success of a recent procurement exercise at Coventry makes for an interesting and inspiring read. Working to meet the challenge of delivering value for money to students, in 2012 Coventry launched a campaign to provide key course textbooks for free to 3,000 first-year undergraduates. The procurement department was central to delivering the project, the scale of which (22,000 textbooks in total) presented some significant challenges.
As well as price, the tender was structured to encourage innovation, and the successful bidder ended up not just providing the books, but also a customised barcoding system and staff to ensure effective distribution, reducing waiting times and errors. Other challenges included fluctuating student numbers up until the first day of term, which the procurement department met by regular reviewing faculty needs, and arranging free returns with the supplier. The successful project also had knock-on effects to other areas of the Universty. Michael Duffy, procurement manager at Coventry explains:
“By week two of term more than 90% of textbooks had been placed correctly. This ensured that most students were able to begin with their textbooks, allowing them to make a fast start to their study and enhancing their chances of successfully completing the first year of their degree. As our university lecturers could be confident that the students already had their textbooks, the lecturers were able to tailor their plans and set work knowing the students had the material to complete this."
"The university conducted surveys with the students involved to monitor the students’ experience of the distribution. The results were very positive with a 97.2% approval rating”.
The success of the project meant that Coventry extended their free textbook scheme to second-year students in September 2013, and to all Coventry University undergraduates in 2014. The project has contributed to the University’s improvement in the National Student Satisfaction Survey from 86% in 2012 to 91% in 2014.
