Now assisting some 10,000 K-12
special needs and low-income students, the user-friendly marketplace empowers
parents and guardians to find and purchase the best educational services for
their children. In doing so, it also helps maximize availability of scholarship
funds to enhance their learning.
Listen to the podcast. Find it on iTunes.
Get the mobile app. Read a full transcript or download a copy.
Here to share more about
how this first-of-a-kind solution actually works, are panelists Jonathan Beckham, Vice President
of Technology Strategy and Innovation at Step Up For Students in Jacksonville, Florida; Mike
Maguire, Global Vice President of New Market Development at SAP Ariba, and Katie
Swingle, a Florida Gardiner Scholarship Program recipient. The discussion is moderated by Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions.
Here are some excerpts:
For example, if Katie and her
family identify a great therapist, or a great technology tool that can help her
son, then why can’t we make those recommendations to other families in similar
situations? It becomes a sort Amazon-like buying experience -- you know, where
people who purchase one thing may be interested in purchasing other similar
things.
Gardner: It
seems to me that if this works for an autism marketplace that there are many
other flavors or variations on the theme -- whether it’s other sorts of
disabilities or learning challenges.
We’re now in an environment
with SUFS where it’s not about, “Hey, our people in human resources are using
the SAP Ariba system,” or, “The sales guy is using the SAP Ariba system.” Their
end-users are thousands of moms and dads. And those moms and dads have to have
an experience just like they’re buying from home, buying at any website. And if
it’s not much fun, if it is not that easy, it’s not going to be used -- and the
whole pyramid of results will break down.
For people who are in states
that don’t have options like we do, you need to be writing your state
representatives; you need to be telling your story just like I am. Sometimes
there’s a little bit of shame, sometimes there’s a little bit of embarrassment.
I’ll be honest. My husband still has hard time saying the word “autism.”
Here are some excerpts:
Gardner: Mike,
there’s no doubt that technology has transformed procurement. We’ve gone from
an emphasis on efficiency and spend to seeking better user experiences and more
analytics capabilities. We’re also entering a new era where we see that
businesses are trying to do “good,” in addition to doing “well.”
You had a very personal revelation
about this a few years ago. Tell us about why doing well and good can go
hand-and-hand?
Maguire: I was
thrilled to have the opportunity to work with Jonathan and the SUFS team for
both personal and professional reasons. First, I am a parent of a special needs
young adult. My wife, Carole, and I have a 19-year-old daughter, Allyson, and
we have lived with having no special needs solutions out there that help optimize
the spend for such extra things as tuition, educational supplies, and services.
 |
| Maguire |
If you go to a hospital for
surgery or you need medications, there’s always somebody there to help you with
the process. But when you go into this world of tuition reimbursement
and educational optimization, there’s no guidance for how that spend should be
effectively executed. So now, many years later in my professional life, it is
terrific to have the opportunity to use a solution like SAP
Ariba SNAP to help SUFS in their mission and open that up to parents
through the Ariba supplier network.
Gardner: Tell
us how cloud applications and the SAP Ariba business network platform are
structured and architected that lends them to this kind of marketplace-plus
benefit?
Maguire: Networks
and cloud apps at their very core are about connecting people, processes, and
information in a way that’s simple and transparent to all those who are involved
-- with the outcome of making smart choices. We’ve done this for
multinational corporations for years. They end up saving money on their bottom lines
by having good information to make smart choices. Now we’re doing the
exact same thing to optimize the bottom line for families.
Gardner:
Jonathan, at SUFS, you probably faced the same kinds of challenges that many
businesses do. They don’t want manual processes. They don’t want to be bogged
down with time-consuming approaches. They need to broaden their horizons, to
see all available assets, and then analyze things better. But were there
particular problems that you were trying to solve when it came to using marketplaces
like Ariba’s?
Optimized Opportunities
Beckham: We’re
trying to solve a lot of problems by optimizing processes for our families. It’s
very important to us that we choose a partner that provides a really great user
interface (UI) and user experience (UX). You know, we’re all about not
just optimizing our bottom line -- like you think of for traditional
corporations -- we’re about optimizing the experience.
 |
| Beckham |
Any funds or any resources
that we gain, we’re about putting those back into the families, and investing
those, and helping them to accelerate their educational path or learning goals.
So that was really something that we were looking to do and use this process
for.
Gardner: Tell
us about your organization and MyScholarShop. Was this something that depended
on electronic digital marketplaces at the outset, or was it something you have now
greatly enhanced?
Beckham: At SUFS,
we provide scholarships for low-income and special needs students in kindergarten
through grade 12. As part of that, we administer a program called an educational
savings account. That allows parents and students to customize their
learning options, to go out and buy instructional materials, to go out and buy
curriculum or use tuition fees or technology and as part of that process. It’s
largely been a reimbursement process for families. They go out, purchase services
-- using their own funds -- and then seek reimbursement.
We were then really searching
for a platform -- something to change that model for us. The number one need was
to not have to take money out of our families’ pockets. And then number
two was to connect them with high-quality providers and suppliers so they can
find better options.
Gardner: In a
business environment, it’s about matching buyers and sellers -- and then
bringing a value-add to that discussion, with collaboration. This powerfully also
enhances the ability for people who are looking to find the right place to
donate scholarships and to provide educational support. How has the network helped
on the seller side, if you will, when it comes to non-profits and charitable
organizations? Do they see this as something as beneficial, too?
Suppliers Sought, and Found
Beckham:
Absolutely. We’ve had a lot of great conversations with suppliers that have
approached us, and with some that we’ve approached directly. There are a lot of
terrific products that are out there for students with special needs that we
wanted to bring into this network. And some of them are already on the Ariba Network, which was great
for us.
But, at the same time, one of
the things that we looked for is optimizing our spend. From a reporting
standpoint, we wanted insights to help negotiate better pricing. And using the Ariba Network does that for us.
So when we engage with suppliers, we know if we can get free shipping, or
if we get discounts and better payment terms. Those are all things that we can
pass on directly to our families and to the students. We’re a non-profit. We’re
not looking to make extra money. We’re looking to reduce the cost, labor, and
the processes for our families in our program.
Gardner: Katie,
your son, Gregory, is a Florida
Gardiner Scholarship Program recipient. Tell us how you came to learn about
these services, and how they have been beneficial and impactful for you and
your family.
Swingle: As a Gardiner
Scholarship recipient, we are under the special needs side of what SUFS does.
My son is diagnosed with autism. He has been since he was three
years old. So it’s been quite a journey for us, lots of ups and downs.
 |
| Swingle |
And what we came to find
through our journey was needing the right educational environment. We needed the
right educational tools if we were going to make progress. And
unfortunately public school was just not the right option at that time, especially
in those early years when you’re trying to help them the most.
SUFS is the administrator of
our scholarship, and that’s how I became involved with them. So we
go and we spend our money on tuition, products, and different therapies for
Gregory. We pay for them. And then SUFS -- because he’s a recipient of the
scholarship -- reimburses us for those. It’s been absolutely life changing for
us.
Once we got Gregory into the
right environment, with the school that he is in, with the right
therapists, and with the right products -- it felt like everything started to
come together. All of the disappointment that we had had over and over and over
again over the years was starting to go away, and it was exciting.
I was meeting my son for the
first time -- to be quite honest. We had had so many roadblocks, and all of the
sudden this child was blossoming. And it was because we had the financial means
from SUFS and from the scholarship to put him in the right environment where he
could blossom.
And it’s been amazing ever
since then. The trajectory for my child’s life has changed. We went from a pretty
dire prognosis to … I don’t know where he’s going to be, but I know it’s going
to be great. And we’re just really excited to be a part of this on the ground
level.
Gardner: And
for those in our audience who might not be that familiar with autism, there
can be a great amount of improvement when the right processes, services, and behavioral
therapies are brought to bear. For those who don’t understand autism, it is a different
way of being “wired,” so to speak, but you can work with that. These young
folks can learn new ways to solve many problems that they might not have been
able to solve on their own. So, getting those services is huge.
Jonathan, are we just talking
about scholarships or you are also allowing families and individuals to find
the services? Are we at the point where we’re linking services in the
marketplace as well as the funding? How does it work?
Share the Wealth of Data
Beckham:
That’s a great question. At SUFS we have an amazing department called the Office
of Student Learning, and these are tried-and-true educators who have
been in classrooms, and administrators that also work with professional
development with teachers throughout the State of Florida.
As part of that, they’re
helping us to identify some of these high-quality suppliers that are available.
They’re really helping us with the SAP
Ariba’s Guided Buying capabilities to curate and customize that platform
for our individuals. So, we have great visions that we share with SAP Ariba,
and we’re very happy to have a partner that is helping to make recommendations
around the products and services.
All
of the sudden, this child was blossoming. And it was because we had the
financial means from SUFS and from the scholarship to put him in the
right environment.
Identifying those suppliers that
are high quality, whose products and services are working for our families – we
can now help make recommendations around those.
Gardner: Mike,
as we know from the business world, marketplaces can develop organically -- but
they can then go viral. So that the more buyers there are then the more sellers
come up, and the more sellers there are, the richer the environment – and the
more viable the economics become.
Are we starting to see that with
autism support services? Some of the recent studies show that somewhere close
to one in 40 boys are autistic, and perhaps one in 190 girls are autistic. We’re
talking about a fairly large portion of our society, around the world. So,
how does this work as a marketplace? And is it large enough to be sustainable?
Autism-Support Savings
Maguire: I
think it absolutely is. When we think about the Ariba Network, we’re about like-minded
people and like-minded causes optimizing their goals. And in the area of
disabilities that I’ve seen, technology is a godsend for these kids growing up
in this generation.
When
you think about technologies and connectedness -- which the Ariba Network is
all about -- in the disabled community, the use of such technologies as driverless
cars can bring new levels of freedom to this population of differently abled
people. As these children become adults, this is just going to open up to complete
independence that the prior generations never knew.
Ariba
Network is about like-minded causes optimizing their goals. In the area
of disabilities, technology is a godsend for these kids growing up in
this generation.
Maguire: An
example: I am a board member of the Massachusetts
Arc and we spend most of our time working out policy and legislation for
independent skills and options for the full spectrum of a lifespan.
When
you become 18 and you are out of the school system, you have the same exact
requirements to optimize Social Security disability payments. The same
exact challenges around an entitlement that a young adult gets at 18 years old,
probably with some help from their parents. It goes to their own account because
they are young adults.
How do
you optimize that spend, right? How do you optimize that for the
different things to make for better life skills and tools? I believe
that MyScholarShop could be extended well beyond K-12 because there’s a need
for a lifetime of spend optimization for intellectually challenged people.
Gardner: Jonathan,
this was introduced in January 2018, and your larger implementation is slated for
the 2018-2019 school year. What should we expect in the next year or two?
Beckham: The
program we’re talking about with Katie is the Gardiner Scholarship Program, and
we have about 10,000 students there. It’s about $100 million in scholarships
that we utilize. But next year we’re actually looking to bring in the Florida
Tax Credit Program as well.
These
are lower-income families, and about 100,000 students, and we’re actually at
some $630 million in spend this year. As we grow with this program, and
we look for high quality suppliers and providers, we look to bring both of
those together ultimately so that we can use all of that data, use all those
recommendations to help many, many more families.
Gardner: And
the scope beyond Florida? Is this going to be a state, regional, or national
program, too?
National Expansion
Beckham: We
already have a subsidiary in Alabama. We also work with the State of Illinois.
We’ve worked with other states in the past, and we absolutely have plans to
help provide this service and help expand this nationwide so we can help many,
many more students.
Gardner: Mike,
any more to offer in terms of how this expands beyond its base?
Maguire: One
of the things that expands is the connectedness to the network. And this is going
to unleash availabilities and capabilities for not only the people of
intellectual needs but for the elderly. I mean, we can talk about this for
every piece of the population that has a need for assistance in this space.
Gardner: Katie,
any thoughts about where you like to see it go, or how you think be people
should be aware of it?
Swingle: SUFS
and other organizations are trying to spread the word about educational choice
and education savings accounts specifically like mine, the Gardiner or the
Florida Tax Scholarship. There are states that don’t have anything at all
available to families like this. I’m so blessed to live in Florida, which has
been one of the more progressive states to offer this kind of service.
I hope the success of the
network gets people talking across the nation. They can then push their
legislators to start looking into this. I’m just a Florida mom. But there’s a
mom in California or Washington State who has no options, and I hope that she
would hear about this and be able to push her legislators to open this up to
even more families.
Gardner:
Jonathan or Mike, this also strikes me as a really great example of a
public-private cooperation -- of leveraging a little bit of what government can
offer but also financial support in a marketplace in the private sector. Let’s tease
that out a little bit.
Parent-friendly purchasing
Maguire: I
think through this a lot. Traditionally, when a company buys procurement
software, it is being justified based upon all the savings of getting rid of
maverick spend, that all spend comes under management, and that’s what the Return
on Investment (ROI) is based on.
The key piece of that ROI is adoption
by end-users. What we’re finding now as we go into the mid-market with good
partners like Premikati and SUFS is that
you can’t force adoption. But the only way you get the savings in the ROI is if
everyone is a procurement services user. And that means you need a good user
buying experience that is very natural -- and actually fun.
The
end-users are thousands of moms and dads. If their user experience is
not much fun, if it's not that easy, it's not going to be used -- and
the whole pyramid of results will break down.
Gardner: It’s like
Metcalfe's Law,
whereby the network is only as powerful as the number of the people on the
network. You have to have the right user experience in order for adoption to
take off.
Let’s go back to Jonathan to
that public-private sector issue. How does this work in terms of local
governments and also in the private sector?
Empowered Education
Beckham: This
is the way that we see educational choice throughout the country happening
right now. You see a lot of states that don’t have any options out there for
the students. You see some that are running them from the government side of
things. And then you see some that are very successful like SUFS -- legislated
to have an opportunity for these educational choice programs.
But it’s running as a very
slim non-profit. We only take 3 percent of our funds to administer our program.
We’re a very high Charity Navigator-rated
program, so we have an organization that’s really looking to empower our
families, empower our students, and use our funds the best way that we can.
And then we’re able to find
really high-quality partners like SAP Ariba to help us implement these things.
So you put all those things together and I think you have an amazing program
that really helps families.
Gardner: Katie,
on the practical matter for other parents who might be intrigued, who have a
special needs student, how might they start to prepare themselves to get ready?
Where would you say, with 20-20 hindsight, that you should begin this process?
Raise your Voice
Swingle: Let
me start with if you’re a Florida parent, or an Arizona parent, or a parent already
in a state where this is starting to move. You need to know what services your
child is going to need. If, for example, they are going to need occupational
therapy, you’re going to need to read those reviews, and read up a lot on
behavior analysis and get some ideas about what your child might need.
As any autism parent who has
shopped for products on multiple websites knows, our kids need all kinds of
products. You now have an idea of where you can buy those via learning
exchanges. You begin having an idea of what your child’s going to need with
their funds. And you can really begin getting your keywords -- occupational therapy
(OT), Applied
Behavioral Analysis (ABA) therapy, and physical therapy. You’re
going to be reading reviews on the network about them and see how they might be
able to help.
Don't be afraid to tell your story, but the people who need to hear it are your legislators, your local and state representatives.
We’ve been in this game now
for seven years and he still sometimes can’t spit it out. It’s time to spit it
out, it’s time to be honest and it’s time to tell your story. Don’t be afraid
to tell your story, but the people who need to hear it are your legislators,
your local and state representatives need to know about this.
They need to know about states
like Florida that use SAP Ariba and MyScholarShop. They need to ask, “Excuse
me? I live in California or I live in Colorado, why don’t I have this option?
Look at what this woman is getting in Florida; look at what this family has in
Arizona. I need this here and why don’t we have this?”
Put the pressure on, and don’t
be afraid. You have a voice, you’re a voter, and they are there to represent
you. Also give them some enthusiasm, let them meet your child, bring pictures.
I brought pictures of my son, I said you know, “Look this is my child, please
help me!” And if the legwork has been done by states like Florida and our
organizations like SUFS and SAP Ariba, then the legwork is done. Now get your voice
up there.
Gardner: What Katie
is pointing to is that this is a very repeatable model. Mike, we know that
doing well and doing good are very important to a lot of businesses now.
How is this not only repeatable but also has extensions to other areas of doing
well and good?
Principled Procurement
Maguire: Everyone
has a purpose and every organization has a purpose. If you don’t, then you’re
just wandering around in the woods. What are the pieces of your organization
that you really want to have an ethical and moral stand with?
And that’s why we’ve worked
with United Nations, the Global Compact for Fair and Decent Work.
We work with Made in a Free World to
stamp out human trafficking and people like Verisk
MapleCroft and EcoVadis for
sustainable and ethical supply chains.
We try to make sure that
procurement with a purpose is actually in action at SAP Ariba because we like
to oversee what’s actually happening, and we have the capability through the
network -- and through the transparency the network brings -- to actually look,
see, measure, and make some change.
Listen to the podcast. Find it on iTunes.
Get the mobile app. Read a full transcript or download a copy. Sponsor: SAP Ariba.
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