In 2018, as the result of several organizational changes which included the addition of managing oversight of the Document Production Center, Supply Chain Management and Surplus Operations, UConn’s Procurement Services department changed its name to University Business Services (UBS).
Upon the arrival of Joseph Thompson in 2021 - the University’s Chief Procurement Officer - the organization began to change its focus and move back towards dedicating its attention to the primary role the department plays within the University in an effort to significantly improve its performance in procurement-related activities, add greater value to the campus community, and provide better customer service to all of its university customers and stakeholders. In 2021, as part of this new focus, Supply Chain Management was dissolved, and Surplus Operations was transferred to Facilities Operations. In 2024, the department transferred the Document Production Center to Facilities Operations to align all printing activities (Document Production Center and Sign Services) under one umbrella. These changes have allowed the department to dedicate all its attention to procurement-related activities as it strives to become a high performing procurement organization. The department believes focusing solely on procurement has helped - and will continue to help - achieve this goal.
In light of these changes, University Business Services is changing its department name to Procurement effective immediately to reflect our core activity upon which the university heavily relies. We value all of you - our customers, stakeholders, business partners and colleagues and hope this sole focus on procurement-related activities will help us to continue to improve our effectiveness and efficiency, significantly enhance our value to you, and build stronger relationships with all our customers and stakeholders.
Lastly, we have begun the process of making all the necessary changes to replace the use of the departmental name “University Business Services” with the name “Procurement”. While our website continues to have the same look, it has been rebranded to: Home | Procurement. We ask that anyone whose current website provides a link to University Business Services, to please update your resource page to link to https://procurement.uconn.edu and change all other related references from University Business Services to Procurement. Thank you.
For more information, contact: Melanie Savino at melanie.savino@uconn.edu