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Sept. 5, 2003
GW Awards New Mail Services Contract
Agreement with Pitney Bowes More Robust, Hands-On
By Thomas
Kohout
Pitney Bowes Management Services has been awarded a new three-year contract
as The George Washington University’s mail services provider. The
new management agreement reflects GW’s commitment to improving the
quality of services offered throughout the University, and responds to
concerns identified during the University’s gap survey of business
services conducted last year.
The new agreement establishes a more robust, hands-on management plan
for GW and Pitney Bowes. The details of the contract outline specific
performance objectives as well as initiate a schedule of regular monthly,
quarterly and annual meetings to review Pitney’s performance results,
hear any comments or concerns from the University community and review
the status of any current projects or initiatives.
“What came out of the process was a better way to manage Pitney Bowes,”
said Nancy Haaga, director of auxiliary and institutional services. “We
designed a comprehensive contract management approach. It’s a more
formalized approach that binds Pitney Bowes to track and report its performance
results on a more frequent basis.”
The new contract establishes firm guidelines and expectations for all
aspects of mail processing down to the precise time when staff have to
pick up and deliver the mail. The agreement also requires Pitney to provide
its technological expertise to foster improvements in service, such as
developing methods to reduce undeliverable mail, create a mail services
information Web site and launch a Listserv among its many university clients
— currently 19 universities in the eastern region and several more
customer locations nationwide. Clients in the DC area will meet and explore
what works on their campuses, share best practices, and develop solutions
to identified problem areas.
To help initiate these and other requirements of the management agreement,
Pitney is currently looking to add to its on-site management team.
“We are confident these new requirements will help us raise the bar
on our performance,” said Jim Miller, senior account manager for
Pitney Bowes. “We are always flexible to exceed our clients needs,
so whatever is requested, we can generally accommodate it.”
An advisory council representing various parts of the University —
auxiliary services, Pitney Bowes, supply chain, Student Association, Residence
Hall Association, Mount Vernon Campus, Medical Center, Community Living
and Learning Center, academic affairs, and, when necessary, facilities
management — will meet monthly starting in October to review Pitney’s
progress. Once it appears services are moving smoothly, the council will
scale back its meetings to a quarterly format.
Haaga explained the council’s mission will be to “review the
accomplishments of mail services, review the performance reports, hear
any comments or concerns from the team members (because their obligations
will be to listen to what’s going on in their areas) and review the
status of current projects or initiatives.”
A key feature of the new contract is a requirement that Pitney Bowes develop
a site action implementation log, an electronic spreadsheet charting the
progress of each assigned project or task. From the moment a project is
assigned it will be logged and closely monitored as it moves from scheduling
through completion. Development of the log will enable Pitney Bowes to
produce a list of issues it’s dealing with, examine what work has
been accomplished and determine what jobs are in progress. The hope is
that by requiring Pitney to submit a performance scorecard it will provide
the University with the data to uncover any trouble spots in time to bring
about problem resolution.
“It’s a good road map of where we’ve come from, what we’ve
accomplished and where we’re headed,” Haaga said. “At the
end of each year we can look back at the log and say, ‘Wow, Pitney
Bowes successfully completed everything they were assigned to do and everything
was completed timely, or not.’ ”
To reach this agreement, Pitney participated in a competitive bid process,
which included a review of bids, a presentation of services, site visits,
client interviews and a round of questions from the evaluation team. The
University solicited bids from seven integrated mail and document management
companies, and three submitted competitive bids.
In the final analysis the committee agreed Pitney Bowes had a great depth
and breadth of mail industry experience.
“I wouldn’t say demanding, I would call it thorough,” Miller
said of the University’s bidding process. “[GW] has the right
to demand the best and [its] process was as rigorous as it should be.
There was obviously much more competition during this contract renewal
than in years past, however, a fair process was followed by GW to review
all bidders’ responses. In the end, we are 100 percent confident
GW made the right decision in retaining the services of Pitney Bowes.
“We also learned what was on [the University’s] mind, which
was very important to us as we developed our solutions.”
“I think there is always room for improvement,” Haaga added,
“but they have done a great job here and I think this contract award
is a true recognition of that by the senior management of the University.”
Send feedback to: bygeorge@gwu.edu
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