The Financial Sustainability Action Plan’s first Exploration Committee invites everyone at UC Davis to tour a showcase of strategic sourcing ideas that could generate millions of dollars annually for investment in the university’s core mission.

The committee encourages feedback. The showcase is available online (with a series of one-minute videos), and will be the subject of a forum (with refreshments) this Friday morning (Jan. 15). See details below.

The Financial Sustainability Action Plan, or FSAP, is the university’s roadmap to generate $250 million annually by 2025 from four key sources — new revenues, cost efficiencies, research growth, and fundraising — to invest in faculty, research, academic programs and support.

The campus is using six-month “exploration” cycles to identify FSAP funds; a new Exploration Committee will be appointed for each cycle, and each cycle will have a different theme.

In addressing strategic sourcing — to drive down the costs of goods and services — the first committee came up with ideas that have the potential to provide $10 million to $15 million annually in investable dollars.

Under the proposals, the university would work to:

• Take advantage of opportunities to make bulk purchases to drive deeper discounts.
• Develop common procedures to ensure that all eligible purchases are capturing prenegotiated discounts through existing vendor agreements.
• Better harness rebate programs to capture all opportunities to generate rebates for purchases made on behalf of the university.
• Explore the use of self-funded maintenance programs to offset expensive research equipment service contracts.
• Implement processes to capture additional savings from inbound and outbound shipping.

Learn more and give feedback

The virtual showcase is here and includes email links for feedback under each video.

The committee also welcomes feedback at the Friday forum, scheduled from 10 to noon in the multipurpose room at the Student Community Center. Various ideas will be discussed in 15-minute sessions — and you can attend one or more. Online registration is underway (space is limited).

The best ideas will be presented to campus leaders for consideration and prioritization, and the ideas with the best potential for saving or generating new funds will be pursued further.

“Please review the ideas generated from our first Exploration Committee and help us understand how we can improve upon our analysis,” said Hampton Sublett, program manager for FSAP.

The next exploration cycle will start in March; the theme is yet to be determined. Anyone interested in suggesting a theme and/or participating is invited to contact Sublett by email.  

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