ارزش یک سیستمIT تأمین الکترونیکی تجهیزات چیست؟

E-procurement is gaining in popularity in business practice and its benefits encourage its adoption for a variety of areas, including IT (Information Technology) purchases. The problem with assessing the value associated with e-procurement has been addressed by researchers and practitioners, but a clear methodology to determine the benefits related to e-procurement adoption is still missing, especially for IT. This paper defines e-procurement and identifies the six most significant drivers for e-procurement adoption, which are the pillars of the proposed value assessment methodology. The authors have also applied the developed methodology to real cases in order to verify its validity and robustness. Finally, although the developed model takes into account the peculiarities of IT purchases, it also raises more research opportunities for other purchasing categories.

In the last few years, purchasing through electronic means has rapidly become a successful and ever-growing reality. The Gartner Group reported that the total value of business to business (B2B) activities would exceed $ 7 trillion by 2009, of which North America represents $ 2.8 trillion, Europe $ 2.3 trillion and Asia $ 900 billion (Stefan, 2008). Of these B2B transactions, 24% are expected to be conducted electronically by 2009 (Stefan, 2008). Another less recent but highly relevant trend shows that the IT industry has in recent decades become a fundamental part of modern economies (Cooper and Zmud, 1990 and Jorgenson, 2001). IT investment is considered unavoidable, especially given the globalisation of markets and sourcing processes, the necessity of outsourcing to focus on core businesses and the need to exchange growing volumes of information inside and outside companies that have made IT vital for the entire global economy (Jorgenson, 2001 and Chae et al., 2005). Due to the global economic crisis, worldwide IT spending in 2009 is expected to total $ 3.2 trillion, decreasing 5.2% from expenditures of $ 3.4 trillion in 2008. However, it is forecasted that IT spending in 2010 will increase by 3.3% from 2009, reaching $3.3 trillion (Gartner Group, 2009). Along with e-procurement’s rising popularity among businesses, its benefits have become widely recognised and scholars encourage its adoption for a variety of areas (Kheng and AI-Hawamdeh, 2002, Henriksen and Mahnke, 2005 and Tatsis et al., 2006). However, IT categories have attracted less attention than other production-related and non-production related categories of e-procurement implementation. Is this due to the fewer benefits that IT has to gain from e-procurement implementation, or are there other barriers responsible? Based on such premises, the authors decided to focus on the following question: as IT spending increases among companies (Lin et al., 2005), how much value can e-procurement create in the IT purchasing process? Two groups, supply managers and companies willing to sell their goods or services through e-procurement, could be particularly interested in correctly estimating the benefits of a specific investment in e-procurement. • On the one hand, supply managers need to prove the value of the investment and convince the Chief executive officer (CEO)/Chief financial officer (CFO) or the board to approve it: it is no longer possible, in this period of worldwide economic crisis, to base the decision of an important investment simply on gut feelings. Now even the smallest investment (e.g., an e-procurement connection with a supplier) should be based on a sound business plan (Ballantine and Stray, 1998). In the past, many IT investments had a much more permissive approval process because they were strategic (“we cannot afford not to have an ERP system”), because they were trendy (“everyone has a website now”), or because there were major technological turning points (or other turning points, such as companies updating their obsolete legacy systems in anticipation of the millennium bug) (Mahmood and Mann, 1993). • Another example are companies willing to sell their goods or services through e-procurement; being able to show their customers the benefits associated with e-procurement is a good commercial weapon, and e-procurement technology can generate an advantage over competitors as well as the ability to charge higher prices or lock suppliers in a stronger relationship. A value assessment methodology would thus be a great contribution, not just from an academic point of view, but also to practitioners trying to assess the costs and benefits of a new solution for e-procurement. While it is true that in the literature one could find a number of approaches to the value assessment of information systems, few of them are devoted to electronic procurement and none focuses on e-procurement for IT categories. With these motivations, this paper presents the results of an international research project aiming at assessing the value and benefits associated with IT purchasing through e-procurement and systematically develops the methodology. First, relevant approaches to the value assessment of information systems are discussed in the literature review and contributions concerning e-procurement in particular are addressed. As a matter of fact, the literature lacks updated and publicly available methodologies and no available methodology is devoted to IT purchases. Then, the research objectives and research methodology are introduced to further clarify the aim of the paper. In the next section, the value assessment methodology is shown and its theoretical and practical contributions are discussed. Also, by means of a case study, the validity and practical use of the methodology are addressed. In the end, the conclusion recaps the advantages of the methodology and highlights limitations and future research opportunities.

As IT spending by companies increases (Lin et al., 2005), how much value can e-procurement create within the IT purchasing process? The literature review shows that there are a variety of approaches to the value assessment of information systems, but few of them are devoted to electronic procurement, and none is focused on e-procurement for IT categories. This paper concentrates on developing a value assessment methodology for e-procurement systems supporting IT purchasing processes. The six key benefits of e-procurement are fundamental elements of the methodology. Efficiency is analysed through quantitative modelling and is represented by the financial indicators order cost, administrative cost, lead time opportunity cost and opportunity cost of capital. The remaining five benefits (decentralisation, transparency, control, maverick-buying reduction, supply-base rationalisation) are related to organisational performance and assessed qualitatively. The model also identifies how factors such as architectures, functionalities, company size, industrial sector, purchasing targets, process targets and invested resources affect the end performance achievable by companies. The proposed methodology not only contributes to the value assessment theory but offers practitioners a valuable model to assess whether or not an e-procurement solution is convenient. It can also be used as a consultative approach to compare different e-procurement settings and to understand the impact of both technical solutions and organisational changes. A limitation of the model is related to the way in which financial benefits are calculated. As a matter of fact, the financial evaluation is partially based on employee salaries; a more efficient process reduces labour time requirements. However, most of the time companies cannot easily fire people; these financial figures are thus not directly related to cash flows. In reality, these people can invest their time in more value-added activities, resulting in greater value for the company. This is an assumption widely adopted by different value assessment methodologies presented in the literature, but it naturally remains an assumption. Further research might focus on alternative ways of evaluating financial performance. The evaluation also involves the impact of e-procurement functionalities. The Delphi methodology provides accurate insights into the relationships between functionality and performance; however, future applications of the model might incorporate new and more advanced functionalities. In any case, this limitation might be overcome through the flexibility of the methodology and the constant updating of the data. The developed methodology addresses e-procurement for IT categories and includes some IT peculiarities; however, the model’s logical structure could also be deployed to other purchasing categories; this might be investigated by further research as well. In conclusion, the presented value assessment methodology is useful to researchers and practitioners alike. The former might find the integration of existing models in the literature and a specific application to the IT purchase domain; the latter might use it to support themselves in decision-making processes regarding the implementation of e-procurement.