11.45am - By ADAM GIFFORD
Public sector paper pushers will now pay less for their paper following the signing of a $46 million a year contract between procurement services provider GSB Supplycorp and Boise Office Solutions.
GSB Supplycorp chief executive Peter Royle said the deal means a saving of $3 million a
year for GSB's 1200 public sector customers on their existing stationery and office consumables spending.
A further $2.5 million in savings is possible by adopting lower cost product and service alternatives.
The three-year contract covers 5300 office products including general stationery, computer consumables and bulk paper. Boise, formerly Blue Star Business Supply, was the incumbent supplier.
Carl Mitchell-Turner, chief executive of GSB's parent company Professional Service Brokers, said the deal applied to existing clients, including large departments like Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, and could be extended to any health sector organisations, local bodies, tertiary institutions and organisations which get more than 50 per cent of their funding from the government.
GSB was born out of the privatisation of the Government Stores Board, but is not the automatic choice of all government agencies, with some procurement managers actively campaigning against it.
GSB has invested $12 million in automating its processes and increasing the range of skills and services it can offer. Mitchell-Turner said it was able to deliver a lower price than departments could negotiate on their own behalf because of its aggregated buying and category management.
"Boise or any office products provider would have its top 1500 lines which its supply chains are optimised to deliver at the lowest cost, so if we choose the right basket, through our pricing we can encourage customers to start buying things Boise is buying at the best price," he said.
Boise general manager John Wafer said GSB is his company's largest customer. He said since buying Blue Star three years ago, Boise had reduced internal costs, improved its operational performance and exploited the wider Boise Group supply opportunities.
"The savings that we have been able to reflect in this contract are a result of that activity over the past three years," Wafer said.
