The Central Corridor Anchor Partnership (CCAP), through the leadership of partners HealthPartners and M Health Fairview, is enabling costs savings for small businesses and CCAP partners on a wide array of goods and products.
CCAP members and local small businesses are invited to utilize Premier Pricing to save on everything from office supplies to personal protective equipment to IT products.
Savings throughout your business' graphic, courtesy of Premier
Premier is a nationally recognized performance improvement organization that is committed to delivering long-term cost savings to its members. The group purchasing organization enables members to, among other services, reduce expenditures by purchasing goods and products at discounted rates. HealthPartners and M Health Fairview are making this discounted pricing opportunity available to all CCAP partners and Central Corridor small businesses.
About CCAP
CCAP is a group of colleges, universities, hospitals, and health care organizations located near the Green Line in Minneapolis–St. Paul. Once established, anchor institutions tend not to move, and therefore may play an important role in our local economies. Our health care partners include M Health Fairview, Hennepin Health, and Regions/HealthPartners, and college partners include Augsburg University, Minneapolis College, University of St. Thomas/Dougherty Family College, and St. Catherine University. Each partner organization has invested greatly in its physical infrastructure to serve its patients, students, and employees. In that sense, our partners are anchored to the health, vitality, and growth of the neighborhoods around us.
The opening of the Green Line LRT provided CCAP partners an organizing occasion to collaborate to, among other goals, spend more of our procurement dollars with Central Corridor businesses to make our organizations stronger and bring more prosperity to the Twin Cities region. Central Corridor zip codes are: 55101, 55102, 55103, 55104, 55105, 55106, 55107, 55114, 55117, 55130, 55401, 55402, 55403, 55404, 55411, 55414, 55415, 55454, and 55455.
CCAP Procurement Initiatives
In addition to the Premier group pricing opportunity, CCAP continues to work toward its goals of creating and attracting jobs to the Central Corridor by increasing the amount of local purchasing made by anchor institutions, and by creating cost savings over time for anchors through collective procurement, through the following strategies:
driving individual anchor institution purchasing to Central Corridor vendors and tracking results;
contracting with Central Corridor suppliers to provide goods/services to anchors through below-list pricing or joint contracts; and
growing or attracting suppliers to the corridor to meet anchor spend that is currently being exported out of Minnesota.
Making Discounted Pricing Widely Available through Access to Premier
Vini Manchanda, Vice President of Supply Chain Services at HealthPartners, has first-hand experience with the challenges of identifying significant purchasing opportunities with businesses within the Central Corridor.
"The primary local procurement challenge for CCAP partners, particularly healthcare partners, is that they are limited to buying goods and services that are very healthcare-centric, and may not be available within the Central Corridor," says Manchanda. "The second challenge is that some suppliers in the corridor do not possess the supply-side scale that many CCAP partners need."
Vini Manchanda, Vice President of Supply Chain Services at Health Partners
Manchanda offered a new solution for CCAP to support local businesses: rather than buying directly from Corridor businesses, CCAP could help small businesses save money by making an array of goods available to them at a discounted rate through Premier.
"We are happy to make this discounted pricing opportunity available to local small businesses and to move the needle on the prosperity of the businesses in Central Corridor," says Manchanda.
“At the macro level, this opportunity is about helping small businesses with their bottom lines by cutting their costs,” adds Ellen Watters, CCAP Partnership staff.
The Premier group pricing opportunity is available to Central Corridor small businesses free of charge. CCAP is promoting this opportunity through chambers of commerce, business associations, and small business intermediaries that work with small businesses in the Central Corridor.
Premier will track small business engagement with the pricing opportunity, which is available to Central Corridor small businesses indefinitely at this time. Premier will provide CCAP with the results.
There are no purchasing minimums, and small businesses and partners are encouraged to try Premier purchasing to determine if it works for their needs.
Early indications are positive from small business groups that have been made aware of the opportunity, with strong initial interest in trying Premier pricing.
For more information about Premier group purchasing, contact Brock Close, 440-724-064, brock_close@premierinc.com, and let him know your organization is a member of CCAP.
