INVESTIGATING THE EFFECT OF PROCUREMENT COORDINATION ON SUCCESS IN SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT

Abstract

In the past decade, the growing focus that companies have imposed on purchasing and
supply chain management has put the value of procurement processes at the forefront. However,
the majority of studies also analyse IT implementation enablers given the fact that procurement
processes in industrial companies are viewed as product. Studies that explore requirements for
post adoption that promote efficiency improvements in the realms of supply chain management
remain scarce. Within this paper, impact analysis of business / IT-alignment within the
procurement context to decide how it influences the efficiency of the procurement is illustrated.
Furthermore, the effect that centralisation of supply chain control has on ensuring coordination in
procurement is discussed. A study of 176 European firms was evaluated using Partial Least
Squares (PLS) analysis to answer these questions. The observational findings confirm the
observations that cooperation with selection contributes to improved efficiency over time and in
comparison to competition, with the influence of the former being stronger than the latter.
However, researchers find that contrary to empirical data supporting the argument that a
decentralized system enables the implementation of e-procurement, centralization of the
administration of supply chain management decisions facilitates coordination in procurement.