الگوهای جذب در استفاده از نوآوری های تأمین تجهیزات الکترونیکی: تجزیه و تحلیل خوشه ای

Electronic procurement innovations (EPI) have been adopted by many firms as a means of improving their procurement efficiency and effectiveness, but little research has been conducted to determine whether the assimilation of EPI really increases procurement productivity and which factors influence its assimilation. Drawing on data from 166 firms, we conducted an exploratory study to address these questions, using cluster analysis that revealed four different clusters or patterns of EPI assimilation: none, focused niche, asymmetric, and broad-based deployment. The level of EPI assimilation was closely related to procurement productivity. Greater levels of EPI assimilation were associated with higher levels of top management support and greater IT sophistication. Also, interesting patterns emerged between the various elements of EPI infrastructure capability, specifically flexibility and comprehensiveness of standards, EPI security, and the level of EPI assimilation.

As companies strive to provide more value to customer by improving site performance and reducing costs, they are also turning their attention to the procurement process [34]. This process, which serves as the interface between an organization and its suppliers, used to be viewed as having little strategic importance [39], [44] and [56]. Many purchasing departments were viewed as merely “buying” or “shipping” units. In addition, their function was inefficient [47], e.g., nearly 95% of the non-production goods, which account for a third or more of a corporation's expenditures, are still acquired using paper-based processes [18]. The lack of efficiency is so bad that many companies spend far more on managing the procurement cycle than on the goods actually purchased [6]; e.g., on average it costs $ 107 to process a paper-based purchase order with an average cycle time of 7.3 days from order to fulfillment [10]. IT provides a means to improve the procurement process by providing a digital infrastructure for collaboration [51]. General Electric (GE) in the USA is a company which is realizing benefits by using the Internet. Its trading process network (TPN) is an online business community that allows it to transact over $ 1 billion worth of business with more than 1400 suppliers around the world. TPN simplifies the old time-consuming contract bidding and award processes. Unlike industry giants, most companies are using off-the-shelf solutions to facilitate their procurement process. Electronic procurement tools are targeted at procurement related activities that enable organizations to integrate processes with suppliers and yield benefits for participants in the value chain [11] and [13]. Benefits associated with investment in electronic procurement tools are supposed to include increased information visibility and reduced search time. However, these possible benefits cannot guarantee performance gains: a link should be established between technology adoption for different facets of the procurement process, how these facets are facilitated by technology, and performance improvement. Since there has been no prior research on the usage patterns of EPIs across buyer organizations, we decided to conduct a survey to discover distinct usage patterns and investigate their relationship to procurement productivity and its technical and managerial enablers. Towards this end, we addressed the following three questions: (1) What distinct EPI usage patterns can be observed by examining different levels of EPI assimilation across key EPI innovations? (2) How do different EPI usage patterns relate to procurement productivity? (3) How do IT-enabled process innovation enablers, specifically top management support, IT sophistication, and EPI infrastructure, influence EPI assimilation?

The value of electronic procurement innovations has been touted in the business world, but little research has been performed to investigate the benefit of these innovations. In our study, we explored the relationship between EPI assimilation patterns and procurement performance. We found empirical evidence that EPI usage patterns that increased digital interaction with suppliers and increased digitalization of core procurement transactions lead to higher procurement productivity. Further exploration of the factors revealed that top management support, IT sophistication, and EPI infrastructure capability were, as might be expected, needed for EPI assimilation. Establishing a secure digital infrastructure may be a pre-condition to the assimilation of EPIs. Developing flexible and comprehensive standards for digital interaction with suppliers apparently promotes higher levels of deployment of catalog management, order management and fulfillment, and reverse auctions, while tight standards that adhere to institutional regulatory requirements facilitate the deployment of electronic payment and settlement.