e-PROCUREMENT ADOPTION BY SUPPLIERS
Enablers, Barriers and Critical Sucess Factors
Paulo Andrade
PT-SI, ISCTE, Avenida Jacques Delors, Portugal
Bráulio Alturas
ADETTI, ISCTE, Av. das Forças Armadas, Portugal
Keywords: e-Procurement, Collaboration, e-Commerce, B2B.
Abstract: This paper presents a current research with the aim to identify the enablers, barriers and critical success
factors for e-procurement adoption by suppliers. Any successful e-procurement system needs suppliers
disposed to trade electronically. We present a review of the actual literature about e-Procurement, with
focus on the barriers, enabler´s and CSF´s already identified. A research methodology is proposed to study
the problem, and this work will contribute to better address the issues faced by suppliers on e-procurement
implementations.
1 INTRODUCTION
E-procurement allows buyers to automate
transactions and focus on more strategic activities. It
has ben defined as “the use of electronic
technologies to streamline and enable the
procurement activities of an organizations” (OGO,
1999).
E-procurement solutions contribute to a better
organizational performance, allowing reductions in
cost and time when ordering from suppliers, and
helping to achieve a well-integrated supply chain
with the objective of reaching the market as quickly
as possible with the right products and services in
the most cost-effective manner (Hawking, Stein, &
Wyld, 2004).
Although there are many benefits in e-
procurement solutions, there also appears to be some
barriers to their successful implementation. Former
research shows that numerous companies still prefer
the traditional methods (telephone, fax and e-mail)
to communicate and exchange with business
partners. Companies need to better understand how
to implement e-procurement solutions in an efficient
and effective manner. Any successful e-procurement
system relies on suppliers that are willing and able to
trade electronically. Their co-operation is crucial to
the project's success. This degree of openness and
transparency is new to most organizations, and it
requires relevant cultural changes and high levels of
trust between the participants (Harris & Dennis,
2004).
Users of e-procurement technologies reported
that they can acquire goods over the Internet from
only 15 per cent of their supply base (Davila, Gupta,
& Palmer, 2003). A report from EU also confirms
that only 13% of EU enterprises are receiving orders
online (EU, 2005). If suppliers are not involved from
the beginning,then a low adoption rate can constrain
buyers from leveraging the full associated
capabilities from e-procurement solutions. The lack
of a critical mass of suppliers accessible through the
organization’s e-procurement system might limit the
network effect that underlie these technologies,
further delaying the acceptance and adoption of the
technology.
Suppliers need to be convinced about e-
procurement benefits. E-procurement may not
guarantee additional sales but it can provide many
other benefits like lower transaction costs and faster
payment through better invoice processing.
However, small and medium entrepises (SME´s) in
particular may experience a number of barriers that
need to be overcome. The main issues must be
addressed to achieve effective electronic trading
196
Andrade P. and Alturas B. (2009).
e-PROCUREMENT ADOPTION BY SUPPLIERS - Enablers, Barriers and Critical Sucess Factors.
In Proceedings of the International Conference on e-Business, pages 196-201
DOI: 10.5220/0002184101960201
Copyright
c
SciTePress
between companies.
2 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Supply Chain Management and
Collaboration
Supply chain management includes the planning and
management of all activities included at the sourcing
and acquisition process. According to the Council of
Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP,
2008), supply chain management encompasses the
planning and management of all activities involved
in sourcing and procurement, conversion, and all
logistics management activities. It also includes
coordination and collaboration with channel
partners, which can be suppliers, intermediaries,
third party service providers, and customers. In
essence, supply chain management integrates supply
and demand management within and across
companies.
The Web and associated technologies facilitate
the constitution of collaborative networks, which
enable collaboration and sharing of information
among companies. Collaboration may range from
intra-organizational to inter-organizational and
across the boundaries of the organization.
The procurement is an integral component of an
organization supplier relationship management
strategy, and often is the rst and major step towards
trading partner collaboration (Gilbert, 2000).
Collaboration between supply chain members also
requires the exchange of sensitive information. Teo
and Ranganathan (2004) argued that the heart of
B2B e-commerce was in inter-organizational
collaboration and it required a fundamental shift in
the organizational mindset to collaborate and engage
in effective B2B e-commerce.
2.2 e-Commerce
E-commerce is the process to buy, sell or exchange
products or services across the internet. In a business
perspective the e-commerce definition is much more
than simply buying and selling goods and services. It
also represents the collaboration with business
partners and electronic transactions between
organizations. Different models of e-commerce have
been presented in order to describe the nature of
these transactions. When all members are companies
or other organizations, the type of association is
named business-to-business (B2B). A B2B
association can be supported by the company’s
private network or have an extranet basis, taking
advantage from the internet to establish multiple
networks.
Electronic marketplaces allow collaboration and
data sharing within or across industries. They are
attractive to both the buy and sell-side organizations
for different reasons. On the buy side they provide
demand aggregation, enable quick and easy
supplier comparisons, and allow activity
reporting, strategic sourcing, and so on. On the sell
side, they provide low-cost introduction to
customers, better capacity management and efficient
inventory, production management via demand
aggregation, and analytics that help suppliers
position their product better in the market .
There are several criteria for classifying e-
marketplaces. Kaplan and Sawhnew (2000) offered a
classification based on the type of goods and the
way these goods are purchased. An e-marketplace
can either provide indirect goods that support the
business process or the direct goods used in
production. The way the buying process occurs can
fall into two categories: long term contractual
buying between two entities, or a one-time (spot)
purchase with no long term relationship between the
two parties.
It is also possible to classify the e-marketplaces
based on their degree of openness. E-marketplaces
with a high degree of openness are those accessible
to any company. At the other end of the spectrum, e-
marketplaces with a low degree of openness are
accessible only upon invitation. Based on this
distinction, Hoffman, Keedy and Roberts (2002)
recognized three main types of e-marketplaces:
public e-marketplaces, consortia and private
exchanges.
Figure 1: Main types of e-marketplaces.
E-procurement is closely related with supplier´s
selling activities. Kim and Shunk (2004) consider e-
procurement systems as various internet B2B
commerce systems, which are located at the buyer,
the supplier or at a third party, with the following
categorization:
Buyer-centric e-procurement systems;
Supplier-centric e-procurement systems;
Neutral e-marketplaces;
e-PROCUREMENT ADOPTION BY SUPPLIERS - Enablers, Barriers and Critical Sucess Factors
197
End-to-end electronic document/message
exchange systems.
It is common to distinguish direct procurement
from indirect procurement. The role of procurement
and the emerging use of large information systems
to conduct e-procurement was analyzed by Hawking
and colleagues (2004) and presented with the results
of a survey of 38 major Australian organizations.
The main results show that direct procurement is
heavily dependent upon traditional practices while
indirect procurement is more likely to use "e"
practices. Dedrick (2008) also found that the use of
electronic procurement is associated with buying
from more suppliers for custom goods but from
fewer suppliers for commodity goods. In an
efficiently functioning transparent market, few
suppliers are sufficient for commodity goods,
whereas for custom goods the need for protection
from opportunistic vendor leads to the use of more
suppliers.
2.3 e-Procurement Adoption
Companies are approaching e-procurement adoption
with different strategies. Davila and colleagues
(2003) identified two main types of companies. The
rst type is moving aggressively to adopt e-
procurement technologies, frequently experimenting
with various solutions. The second type adopts a
more conservative strategy by selectively
experimenting, typically with one technology.
(Davila, Gupta, & Palmer, 2003).
Also an increasing number of public institutions
identified electronic purchasing as a priority to e-
government. Many implemented or are
implementing e-procurement systems. The adoption
of e-procurement in public administration has a huge
impact since governments spent large amounts in
acquiring materials and services (Pereira & Alturas,
2007).
Country maturity in ICT also plays an important
role in e-procurement adoption by companies. A
report from European Union declares that e-business
activity is higher in companies belonging to
countries more advanced in their Information
Society those who are not so advanced (EU, 2005).
2.4 Enablers for Supplier Adoption
On this research, we considered enablers as the
factors identified as having a positive influence on
the adoption of e-procurement by suppliers. By
understanding the main enablers that influence
suppliers, companies can develop strategies to
leverage their adoption on e-procurement
implementation.
Suppliers need to gain conscience of the benefits
resulting from their adoption of e-procurement. For
suppliers, the adoption of e-procurement may be an
opportunity to expand their market. According to
Sharifi, Kehoe, and Hopkins (2006) they will find e-
procurement attractive because they could easily and
cost effectively reach new customers, improving
their sales. Also, on private e-marketplaces, by
making the electronic catalogue accessible in a
direct way to all employees and buyers, or using e-
hubs and e-commerce communities, the seller can
widely increase the number of selling’s (Berlak &
Weber, 2004).
The integration between the buyer and the seller
systems allows exchanging information
automatically. Therefore, it is possible for the buyer
to make an order more quickly. This will also reduce
the chance of occurring errors that are common
when an order is dependent on paper (Berlak &
Weber, 2004). Linking to a customer directly and
collaborating to ensure accurate and on-time
delivery provides better service and lower overall
procurement costs to the customer, and can result
in much more collaborative buyer-seller
relationships (Neef, 2001).
Carayannis and Popescu (2005) analyzed and
evaluated some electronic procurement projects
carried out by European Commission. They
concluded that the transparency of EU public
procurement market was improved by a systematic
use of electronic tendering. The improvements on
the transparency allow the involved stakeholders to
know how the system is intended to work, and all
potential suppliers have the same information about
procurement opportunities, award criteria, and
decisions.
In considering how e-procurement will impact
buyer-seller relationships Ellram and Zsidisin (2002)
argue that close buyer–supplier relationships have a
strong positive impact on the adoption of e-
procurement. Therefore, while e-procurement may
not deliver improved levels of trust, it has been
found that e-procurement transactions are more
likely to be established rst between partners in high
trust relationships. In addressing this issue, both
Croom (2001) and Kumar & Qian (2006) support
the view that increased use of e-procurement tend to
create more effective customer–supplier
relationships over time.
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2.5 Barriers for Supplier Adoption
For the purpose of this study, barriers are considered
as the factors not contributing to the successful
adoption of e-procurement by suppliers.
Cooperation with suppliers requires them to meet
the business criteria that organizations have set to
accept them in their networks. Since some of the
business models associated with e-procurement
technologies clearly envision the use of suppliers
with whom the buyer has not previously transacted
business, companies need to develop mechanisms
that provide the buyer with assurances that the
supplier meets or exceeds recognizable and industry
enforced standards (Davila, Gupta, & Palmer, 2003)
Buyers are concerned that e-procurement
technologies will push prices down to the point
where suppliers cannot invest in new technology or
product development, upgrade facilities, or add
additional productive capacity. Additional price
pressures can even push suppliers with a poor
understanding of their cost structure out of business
(Davila, Gupta, & Palmer, 2003)
For e-procurement technologies to succeed,
suppliers should provide sufficient catalogue choices
to satisfy the requirements of their customers.
Ideally, suppliers will provide e-catalogues in the
formats required by customers, reecting custom
pricing and/or special contractual agreements and
will send updates on a regular basis (Davila, Gupta,
& Palmer, 2003).
The majority of the companies believe that
barriers include insufficient financial support, lack
of interoperability and standards with traditional
communication. Developing standards and systems
for facilitating effective interoperability with
traditional communication systems will help the
adoption of e-procurement fairly well with minimum
investment and changes to the business processes
through reengineering (Hawking, Stein, & Wyld,
2004).
A study conducted in SME´s revealed a lack of
knowledge of e-business related benefits. For those
companies e-business adoption is an incremental
process that involves on-the-job learning. This
means that companies beginning to do some online
sales are educating their staff through experience.
Experience will accumulate and companies will
move towards more online activities as they and
their business partners become more experienced
(Archer, Wang, & Kang, 2008).
2.6 Critical Success Factors
The factors that are critical to the successful
adoption of e-procurement have been identied
based on previous experience and literature
available. This could be dened as the best practices
for the successful adoption of an e-
procurement solution.
The organizations who are implementing an e-
procurement solution should assess the impact of the
system on suppliers and their technological
promptness to implement the system at their end,
providing the services necessary for the system to
succeed. It is necessary to put together a supplier
adoption team, train the suppliers, and get them
synchronized with the organization’s
implementation (Rajkumar, 2001).
According to Davila and colleagues (2003)
providing suppliers with Internet or Intranet access
to company internal data, or integrating suppliers
applications with company information systems,
both key to supply chain management, is still
unusual. This observation reinforces the prudence
that companies must demonstrate on integrating e-
procurement technologies into existing systems and
relationships.
A study conducted in the Swiss market revealed
that the lack of supplier involvement and
infrastructure to optimize B2B processes was a
hindrance to integrate the B2B solution scenarios.
Integration solutions are not always offered
appropriate to suppliers and the majority of
companies agree that the position of the suppliers is
insufficiently considered (Tanner, Woumllfle,
Schubert, & Quade, 2008).
Some case studies in Scotland and Italy where a
supplier engagement process was developed,
documented and facilitated to ensure supplier’s
business and technical requirements were met
resulted in a high incident of supplier activity. In
contrast, the buyer centric approach adopted in
Western Australia meant that suppliers did not
understand the benets of joining the marketplace
and therefore were reluctant to join (AGIMO, 2005).
Figure 2: Enablers, Barriers and CSF for e-Procurement
Adoption by Suppliers.
e-PROCUREMENT ADOPTION BY SUPPLIERS - Enablers, Barriers and Critical Sucess Factors
199
2.7 Research Questions and
Methodology
This research will provide a better understanding of
issues affecting the suppliers within an e-
procurement implementation. The research questions
formulated were based on the enablers, barriers and
CSF´s felt by suppliers when confronted with the e-
procurement adoption.
The following research questions will be
answered:
What are the major perceived barriers to the
adoption of e-procurement by suppliers, and
how can they be addressed?
What are the major perceived enablers to the
adoption of e-procurement by suppliers, and
how can companies explore it?
What are the critical success factors to the
adoption of e-procurement by suppliers?
This effort started by reviewing the background
to the application of e-procurement, which was then
followed by various dentitions of e-procurement.
Subsequently, we made a review of the literature
available on the adoption of e-procurement by
suppliers with the objective of developing a
theoretical framework for determining the barriers
against, enablers and possible solutions for the
successful supplier adoption of e-procurement. The
questionnaire will be pilot tested by e-procurement
consultants and academics, before being sent out.
The proposed framework will be validated with the
help of empirical data collected from Portuguese
companies. Finally, based on the empirical results
and analysis, we will develop a framework for the
supplier adoption of e-procurement.
3 DISCUSSION
Based on the database that we hope to collect, we
plan to apply a quantitative approach to identify the
enablers and the barriers that influenc companies to
adopt e-procurement solutions. Besides, these
empirical evidences could be relevant for managers
of companies who seek better understanding and
predict the procurement of their products. We hope
that companies could leverage their e-procurement
implementations by engaging the maximum number
of suppliers, and to successfully collaborate on a win
to win basis.
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