Since 2016, Dennis has led the development of procurement strategies for BCNET’s higher education members, where he has doubled service adoption and participating spend. He directs a wide array of collaborative agreements across multiple categories, manages supplier relationships and leads all procurement activities for the organization. Dennis has years of leadership in procurement and extensive buyer experience prior to joining BCNET.
Bala is an influential leader who empowers organisations to establish and achieve a bold vision through his inspirational and influential leadership style. Throughout his 30+ year career in information systems in both the public and private sector, Bala has been a transformational leader in building strategic alliances and partnerships, aligning stakeholders towards a shared vision, and driving business for positive change.
Jennifer Burns serves as the AVP Information Technology & CIO at the University of British Columbia (UBC). Jennifer is responsible for the delivery of enterprise IT services across UBC.
Bonfire empowers procurement teams through purpose-built features that support stakeholder engagement, the consolidation of information, data-based reporting and the fostering of teamwork. The strategic sourcing software allows members to leverage industry insights, benchmarks, and data analysis to make proactive and informed decisions. Bonfire offers all sourcing activities online to ensure 100% compliance, the shortening of evaluation times, and improvement of transparency.
Blackbird Security is Canada’s fastest growing provider of professional security services, operating province wide. This agreement offers highly qualified, licensed, and insured security services that align with institution requirements, including individualized transition plans and the ability to tailor solutions to fit campus needs. Supporting their workforce, Blackbird works to invest in the communities in which they operate through rural recruitment, in-house training, and ongoing development opportunities.
Exclusive to BCNET members, the TELUS Incremental Value Program (IVP) harmonizes the rates and roaming plans of current TELUS accounts at participating institutions to provide a custom-tailored program. TELUS offers unique and broad features to higher education institutions in B.C., including operator connect for MS Teams, through which members can access a simple deployment and management portal, an enterprise grade voice network, and an end-to-end solution with high quality services.
Exclusive to BCNET members, this incremental value program overlays institution’s existing Rogers corporate supply agreements to provide Roam Like Home services. Working with Rogers, members can take advantage of a dedicated enterprise support team that provide account and service support on a range of needs, from billing queries to custom reporting.
PSEA, with the support of BCNET, has contracted with HUB International West ULC for the provision of employee benefits consultant services. HUB’s B.C. based team brings to participating members significant and extensive experience in providing benefits consulting services to large, complex, multi-employer plans in both the public and private sector.
Providing peace of mind for institutions when their staff, faculty and students travel outside the country, the International SOS agreement offers emergency traveler services that includes a range of consulting and support for emergency situations. Members can take advantage of pre-negotiated discounts on multiple International SOS programs.
The Thompson Ahern Customs Brokerage agreement offers brokerage services to facilitate the import and export of various shipments, ranging from low to high value, including perishables, hazardous materials, and laboratory supplies. Members can take advantage of Thompson Ahern’s extensive experience for advice on tariff classifications, special duty relief options, new customs programs and updated information on new or pending trade agreements to ensure their institutional process are up to date.