We hosted another webinar for AUDE members last week - the third in the series - welcoming more than 80 facilities managers and estates and procurement professionals from across the Higher Education sector.

Led by Karl Cundill , Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer at Litmus FM, the session explored procurement best practice and the growing importance of ensuring procurement maturity in delivering value, reducing risk, and aligning estates strategy with wider institutional goals.

“Procurement in higher education isn’t just about buying services,” Karl explained. “It plays a strategic role in asset performance, compliance, service reliability and financial sustainability.”

A key focus of thesession was the importance of achieving accurate asset registers as the key foundation of tender readiness. Karl highlighted how the provision of robust asset data enables estates teams to develop clear, outcome-focused specifications that reflect operational need - reducing ambiguity, strengthening contractor engagement, and improving long-term contract performance.

Karl emphasised that assetdata should not be viewed as a static compliance document, but as strategic intelligence. He shared: “You can’t procure effectively if you don’t truly understand what you own, what you have to maintain, its condition, or its risk profile. Accurate asset registers are the starting point for building specifications that genuinely reflect the operational requirements.”

The webinar also covered:

• Translating asset data into meaningful service requirements
• Best practice in tender engagement
• Critical mobilisation components
• Common procurement pitfalls - and how to avoid them

With Higher Education environments constantly evolving - from regulatory updates to shifts in campus utilisation and sustainability targets - attendees were encouraged to view procurement as a continuous improvement cycle. Therefore, a resilient procurement strategy must be agile and forward-looking, and able to adapt within a changing environment.

As a trusted partner of AUDE, we’re proud to deliver this ongoing webinar series, sharing practical expertise drawn from our extensive experience supporting the Higher Education sector.

To learn more about strengthening procurement maturity within University estates, feelfree to get in touch with our team here.

The Litmus FM team