Procurement for Housing

Procurement for Housing Marketplace is Helping Drive Efficiencies for Social Housing Providers

16th SEPTEMBER 2010, LONDON, UK - Procserve, a leading provider of eCommerce solutions, is pleased to announce that the first Social Housing Provider, Alternative Futures Group, have gone live with the use of its eMarketplace solution delivered in partnership with Procurement for Housing (PfH). The PfH Marketplace is a dedicated eMarketplace and Purchase-to-Pay solution for the social housing sector and will help these organisations gain visibility and control over spending, enabling more strategic and cost-effective purchasing decisions.

The PfH Marketplace is a first for the social housing sector. The Marketplace and electronic trading portal is immediately available for all PfH Members to access all of the consortium’s framework agreements.

Given the current Government agenda on savings and the drive for public sector to work together to quickly tackle waste and improve accountability, the availability of this eMarketplace could not be timelier. It will specifically help social housing organisations to reduce the price paid for goods and services by providing them with easy access to pre-loaded collaborative contracts, provide simple connectivity to suppliers and deliver eInvoicing capabilities. The solution will help these housing providers streamline their procurement process, enable the accurate tracking of spend and deliver efficiency savings, and hence, help meet the Government’s savings targets.

Paul Kennedy, Chief Executive of Procurement for Housing managing contractor, CEL Group, said “I view the PfH Marketplace as being the total collaborative solution for the Social Housing sector and their suppliers. Using the PfH Marketplace will enable every supplier organisation to become eEnabled very quickly and for the housing associations to have access to supplier managed catalogues. Effectively, this will allow our members to buy collaboratively from centrally provided commodity deals leading to significant efficiency savings.”

Veera Johnson, Chief Executive of Procserve said “We are delighted to be working with the social housing sector. This is a key frontline public service and to be able to provide them with a truly collaborative electronic marketplace is very exciting. Ultimately, we hope that this eMarketplace will enable social housing providers to make significant savings and reinvest more resources in providing frontline services and improving neighbourhoods.”

The PFH Marketplace is available now. For more information about the service, please contact PfH on 0845 864 5299 or by email topfhsupport@procurementforhousing.co.uk.

Media Contact:
Cora Byrne, Procserve
T: +44(0)7889 996 345
E: cora.byrne@procserve.com

Notes to Editors

About Procurement for Housing
As the only national procurement organisation dedicated to the needs of the social housing sector, PfH is an essential business tool for social landlords. The consortium generates substantial savings by harnessing the collective purchasing power of housing organisations. By reducing procurement costs, organisations can reinvest resources in front-line services and vibrant neighbourhoods. The National Housing Federation and the Chartered Institute of Housing back PfH, and their joint performance improvement subsidiary, HouseMark, monitors and assures the quality of its work.
For more information, please visit www.procurementforhousing.co.uk.

About Procserve
Procserve provides fast, flexible and secure electronic marketplaces and trading connectivity solutions. Procserve’s hosted, custom-branded solutions provide customers with the unique ability to leverage a software-as-a-service solution and maintain their own uniquely branded and configured marketplace. Customers enjoy a faster solution set up, lower cost of maintenance, and a secure environment. Procserve is part of the Oracle PartnerNetwork. Procserve also delivers Zanzibar, OPEN and xchangewales marketplaces on behalf of the UK Public Sector. For more information, please visit www.procserve.com.

Download the guide to PfH’s Marketplace to find out how you can achieve more for less through eProcurement.