| I worked at a more research-y branch of my school so we did things a bit differently than everyone else, but I'm going to try to sum this up in a way that I think applies to everything. 1) We have purchasing limits that are strictly enforced via method of payment. For instance we couldn't spend more than $5k per purchasing-card transaction, and no line item could be above $3k. I'm not sure if that applied to physical assets only because that $3k mark was where we had to sticker inventory. Beyond $5k we had to make a departmental purchase order, and beyond $10k(?) we needed a longer PO form (more approvals). 2) We preferred long established vendors, particularly those who were registered with the school. That cuts down on paperwork should we have to go with a DPO. We'll add a new vendor if it's worth it.
Anecdote: A friend of mine helped get a T-shirt vendor on to the approved list. The vendor gave his club ~$5k in discounts for helping him get on the list, so it was obviously worth more than $5k being on the list (There's only 3 or so approved shirt vendors). 3) We're concerned about product licensing. If you're what amounts to an impulse buy, we'll buy it regardless if we think it'll save us more than your product is worth. $100 license for a research scientist making $65,000? Done if he stops complaining to us. Granted, we had a bit more money than the rest of the school departments. If you're established, we know we can upgrade later or get support. If you're not established, we either want it to be cheap in case we have to implement something else later, or we want source code, etc so we can maintain it ourselves if you go bust. That takes the pain away (slightly) of you disappearing. |