Transforming Procurement in Higher Education: From Committee Rooms to Clear Decisions
At most universities and colleges, procurement is a balancing act. Faculty want the best tools and services for teaching and research. Facilities teams push for cost efficiency and durability. IT worries about security and integration. And the finance office? They need compliance and clear documentation for every dollar spent.
The result is often slow, committee-driven procurement processes where well-meaning teams struggle to get from requirements to vendor selection — especially when dealing with multiple campuses, bilingual communications, and strict funding rules. Paperfly changes this dynamic by making the RFP process as structured as your course catalog. We help higher education institutions gather input across departments, produce bilingual RFPs that vendors can actually respond to clearly, and evaluate submissions in a way that speeds up — not slows down — decision-making.
From Committee Rooms to Clear Decisions
The Real Procurement Problems on Campus
If you’ve worked on a university RFP, this probably sounds familiar:
RFP drafts get lost in email chains between faculty, facilities, and administration.
Vendors submit proposals in wildly different formats, making apples-to-apples comparisons almost impossible.
Grant-funded projects stall because requirements aren’t fully documented in compliance-ready language.
Translation of procurement documents for bilingual regions slows down the entire process.
Every delay means postponed projects, missed budget cycles, and — in some cases — lost funding.
Paperfly for Higher Education: How It Works Differently
Instead of starting from scratch every time, Paperfly gives you a repeatable, compliant framework for RFP creation and vendor evaluation that’s tailored to education.
Gather requirements from IT, facilities, academic departments, and finance in one centralized workspace — no more buried email threads.
Generate English, French, or dual-language RFPs without doubling the work.
Every RFP includes a live link to a structured response form so vendors submit in the same format — making comparisons straightforward.
Vendor proposals are scored instantly against your predefined criteria (security, accessibility, technical fit, cost, etc.). You still have full control to review every detail.
Notify all vendors of their status in one click — shortlisted, not selected, or moving to the next round.
A Real Example: Selecting Campus Security Technology
The Challenge
A university is upgrading its campus security system. Facilities needs durability and maintenance guarantees. IT demands integration with existing networks. Administration wants budget adherence and vendor stability.
The Old Way
- Multiple Word documents circulating across departments.
- Vendor proposals in incompatible formats.
- Manual scoring on spreadsheets, often inconsistent.
A shortlist ready for final review in days — not weeks — with every decision fully documented for compliance.
With Paperfly
Unified Input
Facilities, IT, and administration input requirements into a single shared draft.
Bilingual RFP Generation
The system generates a bilingual RFP, ready for posting to public procurement boards.
Structured Submissions
Vendors submit via a structured form that ensures complete answers.
Instant Auto-Grading
Auto-grading ranks vendors as proposals come in, surfacing the top matches instantly.
Why Universities and Colleges Choose Paperfly
Designed with academic procurement workflows in mind, from committee reviews to board approvals.
Eliminates the bottleneck of dual-language requirements in provinces, states, or regions where it’s mandatory.
Creates audit-ready records to satisfy both government and grant auditors.
Standardized vendor responses + auto-scoring = faster decision cycles.
Clear, structured RFPs prevent proposals that miss the mark entirely.
FAQ: Paperfly in Higher Education
Ready to Modernize Your RFP Creation & Procurement Process?
If your campus is still juggling RFP drafts in Word and scoring vendor proposals in Excel, it’s time to graduate to something smarter. Paperfly delivers clarity, compliance, and speed for every procurement project — whether it’s new lab equipment, a campus dining provider, or an enterprise LMS. Book a demo today to see how Paperfly helps higher education teams create bilingual, structured RFPs, evaluate vendors fairly, and make faster, better procurement decisions.
Save 85% of Time
Compared to manual RFP creation