Deepika Nathany
In an era where institutions are constantly exploring ways to become more agile and cost-efficient, digital transformation in procurement has become a central strategy, especially within higher education. Traditionally, universities operate in silos, with distinct processes and legacy systems slowing down collaboration and cost savings. But when three separate universities came together to form a pioneering consortium, it marked a shift in how procurement could function at scale, through shared goals, smart automation, and integrated enterprise systems.
At the heart of this initiative was Deepika Nathany, a digital transformation leader who played a critical role in operationalizing the vision behind the consortium. The effort wasn't just about implementing software; it was about rethinking procurement as a joint value driver. "This consortium was one of a kind," Deepika recalls. "Aligning three universities, each with different processes and cultures, required extensive change management and a deep understanding of both technology and organizational behavior." Her role involved collaborating with university Deans and Financial Controllers to build harmonized procurement workflows and design robust automations that honored individual privacy while enabling collective bargaining. The success of this endeavor led to her promotion to Senior Manager, as the project's methodologies were widely recognized and adopted as case studies.
Supplier onboarding time was cut from seven days to just three, a transformation enabled by the introduction of a self-serve onboarding model that reduced human error and improved operational efficiency by 8%. A centralized Request for Quote (RFQ) process facilitated vendor negotiations across all three universities, using collective volume to reduce operational spend by 18% and annual expenses by nearly 4%. Approval workflows, once plagued by manual bottlenecks, were optimized to cut decision cycle time from five days to three.
Key to these achievements was her ability to navigate complex technical and organizational challenges. Convincing each institution to align under a shared system while retaining data privacy and governance autonomy required diplomatic acumen and strategic foresight. "I had to demonstrate how individual institutions could retain their identities and still benefit from shared procurement advantages," she notes. The integration of electronic data interchange (EDI) for vendor communications was another breakthrough made more difficult by the unique endpoint configurations and validation processes for each university. But by testing and standardizing these configurations, she helped eliminate communication lags and error-prone manual exchanges.
Beyond the numbers, her thought leadership in the field is well established. In 2019, she published Connected ERP: Integrating Enterprise Systems for Enhanced Business Performance and Digital Transformation: Navigating through the Clouds, both of which explore how enterprise integration and automation drive organizational performance. Her insights today point toward the next frontier: connected ERP systems. "By linking procurement directly with ERP," she explains, "organizations can automate not only the ordering and approval process, but also ensure real-time accounting and financial accuracy. That's where efficiency meets compliance."
As higher education institutions continue to explore consortia as a model for shared success, the work of professionals like Deepika Nathany provides a roadmap for what's possible when innovation is applied at the intersection of policy, process, and technology. Through automation, collaboration, and digital foresight, she has shown that even the most traditional institutions can unlock transformation.
