e-Procurement: From Strategy to Implementation

Dragging Their Feet

If all of this is going to happen, however, it certainly hasn’t happened yet. Although the few that have made the investment—companies like Federal Express, Chevron, United Technologies, Microsoft, British Telecom, and Texas Instruments—are reaping significant returns, they tend to be the exception rather than the rule. These organizations tend to be culturally progressive industry leaders with strengths in high technology and leading-edge processes. When combined with enormous purchasing budgets, they have found the potential returns on investment from e-procurement to be too compelling to ignore.

Despite the persuasive statistics and the significant returns by the early industry leaders, most companies are at best only ...