'Challenge Gary' Initiative
Date: 09 Jan 2012
Not convinced the Buying Group can save your practice money? Well why not challenge our procurement consultant Gary Burns to do just that!
The LMC Buying Groups Federation's initiative - 'Challenge Gary' - aims to show member practices how much money they could save just by swapping to buying group suppliers.
In 2011 alone, Gary demonstrated £250,000 in potential savings to practices who took part in the Challenge Gary analysis.
The initiative offers member practices a free cost analysis which demonstrates how much they could save and if Gary can’t save your practice money we will enter you into a free prize draw to win £50 of M&S vouchers.
All people have to do is email Gary and detail which areas you want him to analyse (e.g. office supplies, medical consumables, utilities etc) and he will work out how much you could save by switching to our suppliers.*
Example: This mid-sized practice asked Gary Burns to analyse their spend in five areas:
| Product/Service | Buying Group Saving | Annual Saving | Buying Group Supplier |
| Office Stationery | 18% | £535 | Whittaker Office Solutions |
| Medical Consumables | 15% | £705 | MidMeds |
| Equipment Calibration | 43% | £387 | TAG Medical |
| Electricity | 43% | £2,472 | Untied Utilities |
| Gas | 21% | £302 | Untied Utilities |
TOTAL SAVINGS: £4,401
* Practices are under no obligation to buy from the suppliers we recommend. But we would urge practices not to use our deals as a bargaining ploy to obtain better terms from rival suppliers as in the long run this is self defeating. By sticking together and adopting the deals the Buying Group has negotiated, all practices stand to benefit more in future as our collective bargaining power, and our value as a client group, increases year on year. Remember, we are saving you time and effort as well as money by doing the 'shopping around' for you.