ASL is a certified provider under a range of professional framework agreements. While each agreement is different, these agreements exist to help businesses or foundations get the best possible procurement deals to enable their resources to go further.

What is a framework agreement?

A framework agreement is where a number of potential customers such as companies or organisations all team up to negotiate better terms through an umbrella agreement with one specific supplier. Public bodies, such as those in education and healthcare, tend to recognise the benefits of working under a framework agreement.

What framework agreements does ASL work with?

ASL is an approved supplier within a number of frameworks:

London Procurement Partnership

The London Procurement Partnership is a procurement hub that serves healthcare providers in and around London. By collaborating with other NHS Healthcare providers, it is hoped that the additional buying power will enable those organisations that operate within the scheme to improve patient care by driving better value for money. The LPP covers digital document solutions as well as other goods and services.

National Education Print Agreement

The National Education Print Agreement (NEPA) is a framework created by a network of higher education establishments. NEPA selects its framework providers based on their offering, expertise and experience and, with ASL being one of the top 3 suppliers of managed print in the UK, it would make sense that ASL would be a NEPA framework-approved supplier.

Education Buying

Education Buying is another collaboration for education providers, but this time designed for schools. It strives to help the education sector members it serves to save time and money by making procurement easy and bringing advanced expertise to the process.

By maximising their savings on non-staff spending, they hope to be able to reinvest more money in schools to deliver a better education for their students.

Benefits of working within a framework

When you collaborate with other organisations to create a framework, you can save big in all kinds of ways, but every framework agreement is different.

Working within a framework doesn’t just give members value for money – it also provides peace of mind. For framework members to know that their suppliers are reputable and established within the industry and that they have to meet specific KPIs to maintain their framework status is often enough to ease the stresses of an already busy load.

Frameworks also help members understand pricing schedules and have confidence that they are getting the same great rates as others in their industry.

Some framework agreements include other support services such as help desk support, hardware support, pull-printing software and support, and even onsite staff.

Because ASL are a framework-approved supplier, we work with a large number of clients within the health and education industries. This has given us a deep insight into the requirements and challenges of players within those industries and how they relate to the services that ASL provide… and we’ve developed solutions to their specific industry challenges. This knowledge and experience together, make us a great choice for other education and healthcare providers.

So, if you’d like to discuss the opportunity to collaborate with ASL – either within a new framework agreement or within one of our existing framework agreements, give us a call. Our friendly team will be happy to answer any questions you might have and help you see the benefits of using ASL for your Managed Services.  Simply reach out to us by phone or through Ava, our new intelligent assistant. We’re looking forward to talking with you.