Virtual Procurement Services: Reducing, Recovering, and Revolutionizing Clients' IT spend

Virtual Procurement Services was founded in 2009 by Scott Robins and is headquartered in Westport, CT. With around 40 employees, VPS has been recovering and reducing the cost of technology for more than a few hundred companies.

VPS has been completely aligned with the best interests of the companies that it works for as they only receive compensation when they are successful and their customers are satisfied with their work. VPS’ customer base is wide, as data center technology is a must-have requirement in all verticals. These verticals include Healthcare, Gaming/Hospitality, Finance, Pharmaceuticals, Manufacturing, and more.

In order to reduce the customer’s technology-cost, VPS uses a proprietary Predictive Analytic Tool that is built by the company. This tool is continually enhanced to optimize its effectiveness. Unlike traditional buying  services or Group Purchasing Organizations, VPS’ success is tied to combining the actual cost structures of the technology and the most effective process separately developed my manufacturer and publishers.

Without VPS, customers have been left to their own devices with little or no “real help” available.  Additionally.

Leveling the Playing Field

Over the years, customers have seen the tangible results as VPS has helped them recover millions of dollars from purchases made years earlier. Moreover, VPS has saved even more money for its customers after receiving what they thought were best and final offers. What seems to surprise the customers more than anything else, is that it was able to accomplish these savings while strengthening the relationships with the people that support them.

Right from its first client, VPS has been successful. In fact, its first client was skeptical of its offerings. But now, the client fully endorses VPS’ capabilities, integrity, and its business model. Through VPS, the client was able to increase their discount level further to 26%. The increased discount levels have yielded savings of more than $400,000for this year alone. Even today, they are still with VPS.

Yet, there are some hurdles and challenges that almost every organization faces. One of the biggest hurdles that VPS faced was engaging prospective clients in overcoming the concern about the outcomes promised by it. This includes reduction in technology purchase cost and also recovering the money

already spent, while also maintaining all existing vendor relationships. The offer was too good to be true for many customers to engage in. Another challenge that VPS came across was to ensure a cultural fit between the VPS team and the client’s team responsible for IT expenditure. The offer was too good to be true for many customers to engage in. Another challenge that VPS came across was to ensure a cultural fit between the VPS team and the client’s team responsible for IT expenditure. 

It should be noted that VPS is not sales-focused. Hence, most of its clients have come to it through referrals. Its tools and processes are unique in the market that has ensured that it is one-of-a-kind in the market. But VPS has found that the gain/share model and MSA clause stating that clients can elect not to pay any given invoice make engaging with it a truly no-risk proposition.

Only the Best

To reach this level of success, there is always a hardworking and dedicated team working towards a common goal. At VPS, the team is uniquely talented to deliver only the best. Every employee has nearly 2 decades of experience. The work that VPS does has brought real, tangible and immediate results for the customers. In fact, the recruitment process is rigorous so only the best are selected and also the employees feel that they belong here. 

In order to bring out the best, VPS has a proven training program for its Service Delivery staff. This includes a period of shadowing a more senior SD and leveraging that resource as a mentor. Once this is done, the SD staff truly becomes part of the client’s team and works to deliver what is best for them.

With these opportunities, the employees also have immense potential to grow both personally and professionally. 

For the past 8 years, VPS’ consistent history of successfully reducing the IT costs of customers has helped the company grow and develop to meet the growing needs. This has provided it with more opportunities to help number of firms and in turn help the society at large. VPS has been able to enhance the bottom lines of its clients to use the saved money to help fund other areas in the client’s organization.

For instance, with the money that VPS helped save, hiring an additional nurse or MRI machine at a healthcare provider, or ensuring that a multilocation nonprofit is leveraging the same security solution as a commercial entity and more is being achieved. The works of VPS have been tremendously rewarding. The company says that it will continue to save its clients money and doing so on behalf of new ones.

Meet the mastermind

Virtual Procurement Services was founded by Scott Robins in 2009. For the past 8 years, he has been leading a very talented team of people and is having a blast doing it. He has helped save millions of dollars for hundreds of customers by recovering money that has already been spent in and around their data centers, and by reducing the cost of their net/new technology purchases once they have negotiated what they believed to be the “best and final” proposals from their vendors.

“We measure our success by how many jobs we save.”