We are delighted to announce that for the second consecutive year, ESPO has been awarded Supplier of the Year (over £10m annual turnover) at the Education Resources Awards 2018, which took place on 16 March 2018.   The ERAs are organised by the British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA) and aim to highlight and reward the quality and diversity of educational products, resources, services and people in the education supply sector.   This award was won based on demonstrating commitment to the following three areas.

Meeting the needs of schools today
 
Our comprehensive catalogue contains over 25,000 products which we continuously update to ensure we achieve the best value for money on items schools buy most. Through detailed procurement processes and supplier selection we aim to continually grow our product range, increase quality, and hold or reduce prices each year on our most popular items.
 
As well as great products, we provide free access to 120 framework agreements, providing quick, compliant routes to a wide range of goods and services. As School Business Managers are increasingly time poor and are expected to be experts in more fields, frameworks provide a great resource helping reduce the risks associated with procurement, as well as saving schools time and money.
 
In an increasingly commercial environment, private consultants, approaching schools to offer support with procurement for a fee, is increasing. ESPO recognises that through working closely with SBMs (for example through our Account Managers and Procurement Workshops) we can give them the knowledge and the confidence to undertake procurement exercises themselves through our frameworks. 

Outstanding customer care and an exceptional standard of service to education   ESPO employs over 350 people with five individual teams solely dedicated to customer support.  Customers can access as much support as needed, from requesting COSHH sheets, to help accessing frameworks, through to bespoke support for major refurbishment or rebuild projects   Utilising the feedback system Feefo, we are also able to track our ratings and respond to customers quickly and efficiently. We have achieved Feefo Gold Trusted Service status for the last three years (2016, 2017 and 2018) for receiving consistently high service ratings from customers.

Developing an awareness of and a responsibility towards sustainability and the environment
 
We take our impact on the environment and efforts towards sustainability seriously and have implemented a number of significant measures to minimise our effects. We have been working closely with customers to encourage them to place fewer, larger orders, helping to reduce the amount of packaging required. This coupled with other significant efficiencies adopted in route planning and fleet management has helped us to reduce our annual delivery mileage.
 
Bringing it all together
 
At ESPO we’re committed to supporting customers across our broad offering, from sourcing the right products at the best prices, helping schools save money on the things they buy most, or giving SBMs the knowledge and confidence to complete their own procurements. Through becoming a school’s procurement partner we encourage best practice procurement, reducing the risk of non-compliance, increasing value for money and eliminating wastage both in terms of time and money.