Beginning this month, PURCHASING Magazine is publishing a series of stories on best practices in IT procurement. Developed with the help of the IT Procurement Working Group of the Society for Information Management, the stories look at such IT procurement best practices as contract management, tracking and reporting cost savings, e-procurement and IT staff augmentation (consolidating/centralizing use of IT consultants). The story that follows presents "setting up and managing an IT procurement operation" best practices developed at Ameritrade, Alcoa and Harrah's Entertainment.

Setting up and managing an IT procurement operation brings out the very best that purchasing professionals have to offer: skill and expertise at working with internal customers to develop requirements, evaluating and selecting suppliers with capability to meet them, and managing relationships with these suppliers to streamline buying processes and control costs.

Top management at organizations that recognize the value purchasing adds to IT procurement has enlisted individuals with the support of both IT and purchasing to manage operations devoted solely to the buying of technology goods and services. (In most cases, the two functions are working together toward a common goal: managing IT procurement costs.) These IT procurement pros have staffed their operations with individuals whose backgrounds are varied, but include extensive experience in purchasing, IT or law. They've identified and consolidated the IT spend and set up processes to strategically source IT goods and services. They've collaborated on standards and developed online requisitioning processes for internal customers to place orders with preferred suppliers. The result: untold cost-savings benefits to the organization.