Objectives of Collaboration

• Reduce costs for services and goods through leveraged contracts 
• Improve the business terms and accompanying services with commonly used vendors 
• Minimize or eliminate duplicated efforts of our member campuses for researching and implementing new services and programs 
• Simplify the processes of purchasing, thereby reducing the effort for our members and vendors 
• Nurture an environment for campus collaboration beyond that measured in dollars

General Guidelines for Collaborative Agreements 

ICI desires a few true partnership relationships with resellers, vendors and providers of goods and services. Using this approach, our history is that many of our campuses join our consortium agreements saving the vendors significant time and effort. Most often, the vendors gain more sales and customers than they could achieve through their own efforts. 

• The agreement must be simple in language and structure. 
• The product, service or relationship should be of immediate interest to at least 10 of our 31 campuses.
• The agreement with ICI must provide better prices and services than what any single member can obtain for itself. 
• A rule of thumb is that our consortium agreement provides goods and services at prices as good or better than a large public university. 
• Some relationships will be established with a single, preferred vendor; others will be bid out. 
• There is no requirement that ICI bid its services or goods to multiple vendors or partner with more than one vendor for a good or service. 
• The collaborative program must be accessible to all members. 
• ICI actively communicates the vendor/ICI relationship to the member campuses through e-mail, listservs, periodic newsletters, meetings with groups of campuses, and its  web page that identifies the vendor with a link and logo. 
• Occasionally, ICI will forward the vendor’s marketing brochures to its members. 
• The vendor is welcome to send its material to individual campuses using the addresses listed on the ICI web page, noting the ICI/vendor relationship. 
• The financial relationship is between each member and vendor. 
• ICI does not collect funds for the vendor. 
• ICI assumes no financial responsibility for its members. 
• Participation in the agreement is voluntary for our members. 
• Our agreements typically carry no requirements to use the vendor as the sole source. 
• We recognize our partners as preferred providers and encourage our members to fully utilize our agreements. 
• The vendor will provide appropriate annual, and possibly semi-annual reports, (as required by ICI) on sales and savings or cost avoidance using consortium pricing and actual marketplace prices for comparison. The reports will contain detail by campus.
• ICI may, as necessary, require a small administrative fee to cover its costs of implementing and managing the agreement. 
• Two member complaints in a 12-month will be grounds to dissolve the partnership agreement. 
• Vendors may be asked to participate in the annual development work for ICI members through the Independent Colleges of Indiana Foundation.