Exploring Major Challenges and Their Solutions in E-Procurement : Perspectives in Optimizing e-Procurement

E-procurement is one of the critical activities in supply chain management. In this book, some important issues in e-procurement is explored. The first theme focuses on supplier pre-qualification. Numerous studies have used different evaluation criteria. In this study, we identified and estimated the importance of the major supplier evaluation criteria. 107 buyer firms have been studied across 12 industries. The next step in procurement management is identifying the more suitable suppliers. Subsequently decision support models has been proposed for supplier selection. Theories of Analytic Hierarchy Process, Delphi, Group Decision Making, Fuzzy Set Theory and Mathematical Programming has been used while studying 45 supplier firms This paves the way for the consolidation of the supplier base. So how supplier consolidation can benefit a firm, has been explored next. We discuss how the buyer-supplier network structure and size undergo changes with greater adoption of e-procurement, from the viewpoint of transaction cost economics. Then we explore the dynamics on non-contractible value co-creation. Case studies have been used to validate discussions.