Case Study: How Standardizing Purchasing With Staples Business Drove 17% Savings 

When the team at Claiborne Senior Living sought to standardize purchasing processes, they turned to one of the most trusted names in business — and now one of the most trusted names for senior living operators:

Staples.

The result was 17% savings across 17 communities.

“It was an automatic 17% savings — across 17 buildings, that’s significant,” says Molly Crawford, Asset Manager at Claiborne Senior Living. “Small costs really do add up.”

For Claiborne, reducing the administrative burden on community teams was an important part of the opportunity. Time spent comparing prices, searching for products and managing vendors is time that staff could otherwise spend supporting residents and families.

The results of a new case study show just how valuable a more standardized approach can be.

To change how it procured many of its essential non-clinical supplies, Claiborne partnered with Staples Business to build a more standardized procurement program. The results? Reduced costs, improved visibility and a more consistent resident experience across a growing portfolio.

Here is an overview of the game-changing partnership, and the seven key steps that Claiborne took with Staples.

Inside Clairborne’s 17% savings

Claiborne Senior Living operates a growing portfolio of independent living, assisted living and memory care communities across the Southeast. The organization is committed to delivering a consistent Claiborne experience across every location while enabling local teams to remain responsive to residents and families.

The challenge was achieving that consistency across the portfolio.

Claiborne communities had flexibility in how they operated day to day. Over time, that created variation in purchasing practices across locations, making it more difficult to manage and compare non-clinical spend across the portfolio.

As a result, individual communities took on more administrative work related to ordering, vendor management and purchasing. Claiborne lacked a shared purchasing strategy across the portfolio, with too many vendors and SKUs. Executives had limited visibility into total spend, while community teams faced an unnecessary administrative burden.

Fragmented purchasing across 17 communities made non-clinical spend difficult to track and manage. By working with Staples Business to standardize high-impact categories and consolidate ordering through a single platform, Claiborne gained clearer spend visibility, more predictable operations and 17% savings across the portfolio.

The Staples roadmap to savings, in seven steps 

The 17% savings reflected Claiborne’s broader goal: reduce purchasing complexity, improve consistency and give teams greater visibility into non-clinical spend.

Here is the seven-step roadmap that Staples helped Claiborne follow:

• Standardize high-impact purchasing categories 
• Focus first on EVS categories 
• Pilot the approach at one property before scaling  
• Expand into laundry and warewash  
• Consolidate SKUs to reduce variation  
• Centralize purchasing through a single platform  
• Leverage Staples’ national distribution network 

“When we implement change, we focus on sustainability so success isn’t tied to any one person,” Crawford says. “Standardization creates consistency and makes training easier across our communities.”

This Views article is sponsored by Staples Business, and is based on their case study with Claiborne Senior Living. To learn more about what Staples brought to Claiborne, download the full case study here.

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