Elements and Participants in E-Procurement Supply Chain Management - Research Paper Example

The paper "Elements and Participants in E-Procurement Supply Chain Management" is a good example of a business research paper. This chapter deals with the issues relating to e-procurement in supply chain management. In this regard, elements of e-procurement such as partner relationships and supply chain integration will be examined. Partner relationships will be further discussed as e- sourcing, e- design, e- negotiation and re-evaluation. Supply chain integration will be further divided into internal integration, external integration, cooperation and coordination.

With regard to this, several definitions of e-procurement are available. However, one of the most comprehensive of these is that e-procurement represents the business to business purchasing practice that uses electronic commerce to determine potential supply sources, purchase services and goods, transfer payments and interact with suppliers. The contemporary business environment has become highly competitive. In addition, it demands the effective employment of e-procurement, and this has become indispensable for firms.

As such, e-procurement has to be envisaged by those who take decisions regarding supply and purchase management. There are several benefits to be derived from e-procurement, such as enhanced collaboration between suppliers and buyers, diminished personnel needs, better coordination, reduced transaction costs, shorter procurement cycles, lower inventory levels and enhanced transparency.

In addition, e-procurement admits of several meanings, such as Internet shopping and collaborative initiatives that transpire in virtual meetings. In the words of some scholars, e-procurement includes purchasing solutions that are dependent upon web technology, and which have as their object the simplification of commercial transactions between and within organisations. It also includes information technology solutions for handling, logistics, payment, and ordering systems.

Other scholars have described it as the employment of Internet technology in the purchasing process. Some of the forms of e-procurement are e-ordering, web-based ERP, e-sourcing and e-informing. E-sourcing makes it possible to identify new suppliers for specific classes of purchasing necessities employing Internet technologies across spatial boundaries. As such, e-sourcing engenders greater flexibility in decision making and brings about a reduction in prices.

Elements and Participants in E-Procurement Supply Chain Management

On occasion, e-procurement is termed as supplier exchange. It constitutes business to business, business to consumer or business to government sale and purchase of services, work and supplies over the Internet and other information and networking systems. The latter include Enterprise Resource Planning and Electronic Data Interchange. The e-procurement web sites permit qualified and registered users to identify the buyers or sellers of goods and services. These buyers or sellers could either specify costs or invite bids.

A proportion of the buying and selling can be automated due to the e-procurement software. The participating companies entertain the expectation that they will be in a position to control inventories in a more effective manner, diminish purchasing agent overhead and improve manufacturing cycles. It has been widely estimated that e-procurement will be integrated into the purchase to pay value chain.

As a consequence, e-procurement can be understood as the linking and integration of inter-organisational business systems and processes with automation in repositioning, management of approval purchase order and accounting processes via Internet-based protocol. The primary components of e-procurement are illustrated in the diagram appended below.