The Limitations and Challenges of E-Procurement

Unfortunately, e-procurement practices have some limitations and risks such as:

-The total cost (TCO) may be too high.

-It may be subject to hacker attacks.

-It may be difficult to get suppliers to cooperate electronically.

-The system may be too complex (e.g., when it uses a traditional EDI)

-It may be difficult to have internal and external integration (sometimes it involves different standards).

The technology may change frequently.
For software issues, see e-procurement

software.org. For an example of how procurement is used in government, see NC E-Procurement (eprocurement.nc.gov). Governments frequently use reverse auctions for procurement, which we present next.

Procurement is an extremely important success factor for many companies. Therefore, it is important to learn about the future of e-procurement as well. For ideas about procurement in 2020, see Oka et al. (2011).

Efraim Turban, David King, Jae Kyu Lee, Ting-Peng Liang, Deborrah C. Turban (2015), Electronic Commerce A Managerial and Social Networks Perspective