Impact of E-Procurement on Supply Chain Performance: A Study of Pharmaceutical Industry in Twin Cities of Pakistan

Abstract

The rapid development in technology has resulted in increasing use of buying and selling through internet. The traditional procurement system is becoming obsolete where tender had to be printed on newspapers and a lot of paperwork was required. This process was very time consuming. With the introduction of electronic procurement linkage between customer and supplier has become very easy. This in turn saves businesses a lot of cost. It begins in the 1980s with the development of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI). The purchase orders were received through email. Now the process is simplified as companies have their own ERP systems developed for e-planning, then afterwards when information is gathered the e-tender portal on their websites lets suppliers to show case the financial and technical request for proposals to get the tender, when the bids are placed this is where e-sourcing is done, as we receive a pool of suppliers to choose from whom we would be doing business with. The supplier selection is done based on contracts and pre-qualification fulfillment. This is turn smoothen the processes and saves time improving the supply chain performance of firms. In this research work e-planning, e-sourcing, e-tendering, and e-supplier selection are the independent variables of study. Supply chain performance is the dependent variable of the study. For the analysis purposes, the nature of the relationship is considered deductive, as the study aim the study aim to evaluate how e-procurement practices affect performance of the supply chain of pharmaceutical industry in twin cities of Pakistan. In addition, the research type is quantitative, as the questionnaires are being filled by the participants. This data then went through multiple tests including Reliability test, Correlation test and Regression test, with the help of SPSS software to analyze the impact of variables. Other than collecting primary data, secondary data has also been analyzed in the form of existing literature on these specific topics, with the help of different journals and articles.