CASE STUDY | WATERMARK RETIREMENT COMMUNITIES

lthough the procurement process is important, companies shouldn’t spend an exorbitant amount of time managing it. This was the conclusion of Senior Housing management company Watermark Retirement Communities which led to a change in their purchasing

process.

Watermark manages 37 communities across the US. At each community there is a group of people making purchases for a variety of administrative, nursing, maintenance and housekeeping needs.

Prior to switching to Vroozi, Watermark had a solution for invoicing and purchasing, but the growing requirements of managing the Watermark catalog content illustrated the need for a more streamlined, simple and user friendly platform.

Previously, to submit an order, each requester needed to manually add a line item. Once the requests were approved, the requesters needed to communicate directly with vendors to complete the process. The communities and Watermark’s purchasing department were required to spend a lot of time managing the procurement process.

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Procurement Problems SolvedVROOZI CUSTOMER CASE STUDY

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”– Alicia Navarro, Purchasing Manager

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Rolling Out the New Solution

In 2014, Watermark decided to find a replacement that could streamline the entire purchasing process. Most importantly, they were looking for a solution with the capability to communicate directly with vendors, which required minimal training, was easy to use and would save the teams at Watermark communities’ time which could be better spent doing what Watermark does best: creating extraordinary communities where people thrive. This led Watermark to Vroozi.

Watermark chose Vroozi’s Procurement Platform due to its ability to quickly and easily create and manage catalogs and streamline the purchase processes. Vroozi smartOCI is an intuitive, mobile procurement platform that can be easily integrated with other software and processes. It’s 100% cloud-based and mobile enabled solution makes setup extremely simple and allows users to perform procurement tasks from anywhere. With a flat monthly subscription fee and no transaction fees, data administration costs are greatly reduced.

Watermark’s purchasing department was immediately impressed by the easy catalog loading and maintenance capability. Anyone with minimum excel knowledge can manage catalogs in the Vroozi smartOCI catalog engine. The intuitive purchasing interface gave them the confidence that Watermark communities will adopt the tool, thereby saving time and purchasing within compliance and standards.

Watermark chose a staggered approach, rolling out a few communities every month. The first group went live in December 2014 and only took about a month of setup. This approach gave Watermark the ability to test the solution and refine internal processes. When all communities adopt the program in early 2016, users will be able to access Vroozi directly from the Watermark intranet. This provides an added convenience and is yet another time saver.

Through Vroozi, Watermark is able to search for items and services much like they would on amazon.com. The shopping cart is dropped into a purchase request with all the requester default values. Submitted requests are routed to the community executive director for approval. Once approved, the requests are automatically converted to purchase orders and electronically sent to vendors. The entire process can be done on a laptop, tablet, or smartphone. For more expensive purchases, there are multi-level approvals up to the CEO of Watermark Retirement Communities.

The Bottom Line: ROI of Procurement Perfection

Because the system is easy to adopt by the communities, they are already seeing improvement to

CASE STUDY | WATERMARK RETIREMENT COMMUNITIES | 3

ROI through the increased use of Watermarks negotiated pricing. Both the Watermark management team and individual communities have been very pleased with the Vroozi Procurement Platform. They currently work with two main GPOs, 9 vendor catalogs and 1 punch out, covering categories such as medical supplies, carpet and floor care, linens, uniforms, building maintenance supplies, chemicals and janitorial supplies. While free text form is allowed for one-off irregular purchases, they are hoping to increase more catalog content to cover configurable items, such as beds and mattresses.

With Vroozi, Watermark was able to put aside their old, manual procurement workflows. From now on, the only manual process required for the community is when they receive the items they order. It’s that simple.

Through Vroozi, we’re now able to run a variety of informative reports, closely examine details and scrutinize spending to easily determine if communities are fully leveraging the negotiated pricing opportunities. With this information we’re able to calculate accurate cost-per-resident day information across all product categories to create benchmarks for further improvement.

– Dean Eliason, Director of Purchasing

Watermark Business Highlights• Resource Center Headquartered in Tucson, AZ

• Manages 37 communities coast to coast

• Watermark manages all types of communities including CCRCs, independent living, assisted living, and memory care communities, plus Medicare-certified rehabilitation and skilled nursing neighborhoods.

Vroozi Solutions• SmartOCI Catalog Management

• Vroozi Procurement Platform

Key Business Results• Easy catalog loading and maintenance

capabilities.

• User-friendly purchase experience means associates can submit requests with minimal training.

• Intuitive purchase experience ensures adoption and compliance with standards.

• Mobile procurement allows communities to search and request items from anywhere.

• Automatic requester default values and multi-level approval processes make purchase approval a breeze.

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