Since 1916, CHAMPS Group Purchasing (GPO) has served as a center of supply chain excellence for our members all across the United States. As the director of a company with such a lengthy history, it’s easy for me to point to the secret ingredient, if you will, that has grown us into the organization we are today. That secret ingredient is service. CHAMPS has the unique opportunity to serve members that provide the services we need in our day-to-day lives, as well as the ones that provide us leisure and enjoyment. For me, it’s the honor of a lifetime to serve as a supply chain specialist for the trades that keep the Earth turning and our global economy going. Today, I’m excited to take our supply chain prowess a step further by launching our Supply Chain Solutions blog.

In this series, our CHAMPS GPO team will provide trusted insights and relevant information on the latest happenings in the group purchasing world, further amplifying our mission to support member supply chain initiatives and connect them with the suppliers and resources they need for their operations to be successful.

As with any introductory blog post, I should explain two things for anyone unfamiliar with CHAMPS GPO and the concept of a group purchasing organization as a whole: What is a GPO, and how does CHAMPS help its members?

A GPO, or group purchasing organization, leverages the purchasing power of its membership by aggregating purchasing volume to negotiate discounts with manufacturers and distributors its members use every day. Regarding how CHAMPS GPO operates, we collaborate with suppliers to identify savings for our members through contract matches, aggregations and standardization. CHAMPS supports its members’ savings goals through proficiency in client services, contract management and other perks such as our employee discount program. We take a personalized approach to ensure members have access to significant savings – CHAMPS’ members save on items from the product categories they need to be successful, including medical & surgical supplies, foodservice, IT, wireless, office supplies and facility maintenance.

But we don’t accomplish all of this alone. In 1992, CHAMPS GPO established a relationship with Premier Inc., a leading healthcare improvement company, by becoming one of Premier’s leading healthcare group purchasing affiliate sponsors. In 2014, CHAMPS Group Purchasing established a partnership with Capstone Health Alliance as an aggregation partner, combining our strengths in customer service and GPO volume to maximize our members’ bottom line and drive supply chain efficiencies. Today, CHAMPS has an ownership stake in Premier and our partnerships across organizations are stronger than ever.

To wrap things up, I’m excited to launch our blog and showcase the hardworking team that’s dedicated to serving our 19,000+ member locations across the United States. In the coming months, you’ll hear from our team of account managers on their respective classes of trade and topics of expertise. Stay tuned!

In the meantime, I invite you to contact us to learn more about a CHAMPS GPO membership or supplier relationship!