E-Procurement Advances with Technological Leaps and Bounds

According to industry experts (Aberdeen Group) recent findings are that electronic procurement (e-procurement), which automates corporate purchasing processes, is one area of e-Commerce that is delivering rapid and quantifiable results.

E-procurement solutions and services are significantly increasing purchasing efficiencies and reducing costs for the acquisitions and ongoing management of business expenditures. Further Aberdeen research of early adopters of e-Procurement shows that new Internet-based service delivery models, including Application Service Providers, ASP's and Procurement Service Providers (PSP's) and e-commerce networks are speeding the adoption of e procurement in companies of all sizes.

Research further finds that such Web based delivery models are significantly reducing the time and expense of implementing e-procurement. The implications of these findings are twofold: (1) Unlike other e-commerce technologies, e-procurement is delivering results today, and (2)e-procurement adoption is set to take off, thanks to the proliferation of Internet based service delivery models.

That said; many companies have realized significant cost and process savings by using Internet-based procurement technologies to automate the acquisition and management of non-production goods and services.

Copier Expert's e-procurement software applications and services are self-service solutions that streamline and support the purchase of non-production materials like office supplies, copy equipment, maintenance, repair, and operating provisions. These items can account for 30%-60% of a company's total expenditures, yet they remain poorly controlled and costly to process at most organizations.

In fall of 2000, survey research focused on the experiences of recent users of e-Procurement systems and compared to results to similar to research previously conducted. During both research efforts, Aberdeen collected information on product selection and implementations as well as actual benefits realized by user organizations.

The results of this research strongly indicate that e-Procurement users have consistently been able to lower prices paid for goods and services, reduce administration costs, shorten acquisitions cycles, reduce the use of off-contract spending and improve inventory management. In addition, the research shows that these benefits have been extended across the spectrum of organizations in terms of company size and purchasing volumes thanks to web-hosted delivery models from ASP's, in turn cutting deployment cycles, and costs.

These new service based delivery options, coupled with their low-cost pricing models, are finally making e-Procurement available to a mass audience. Indeed, many enterprises are evaluating e-Procurement as they make their debut in e-Commerce.

With successful implementation of e-Procurement for indirect items like office supplies, research suggests that these Internet systems will expand to automate more business processes including other non-production business costs like travel and entertainment. Further predicting that these developments will help e-Procurement systems expand to include procurement of production materials as well, driving significant sales growth for e-procurement systems, and an even stronger growth within the ASP marketplace.

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