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UNE smoothes path to Web-based purchasing

April 01, 2005

kishor_thumb.jpgInternet-based purchasing systems can save organisations more than 10 per cent of expenditure and up to 80 per cent of transaction costs. The University of New England is conducting research that will help organisations implement such "e-procurement" systems more effectively.
As part of their project, the researchers in UNE's School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science are conducting a national survey of organisations that have implemented e-procurement. "It's the first survey of its kind in the world on such a large scale," said Kishor Vaidya, a member of the research group.
More than 50 government departments and agencies have already participated in the pilot phase of the UNE study. These include Centrelink, the NSW Department of Commerce, Standards Australia, the Australian Government Information and Management Office, Australia Post, and CSIRO. Mr Vaidya said that a Commonwealth Government body, the Australian Procurement and Construction Council, had sponsored the research and had agreed to administer the survey on behalf of the research group.

"This unique collaboration of our University with the Government is sure to generate greater response to the survey," he said.
"Most organisations spend more than 30 per cent of their income on purchasing goods and services," Mr Vaidya explained. "E-procurement can reduce administration and transaction costs which, in purchasing materials such as office supplies, are often higher than the cost of the goods
themselves.
"E-procurement, which has been available in Australia for about the past four years, is very expensive to introduce," Mr Vaidya said. (A cost of about $10 million is typical.) "Thus only large organisations can afford to implement it, and in many cases it has not met their expectations."
"Our review of e-procurement initiatives both nationally and internationally," he reported, "indicates that the root cause of this inability to meet expectations is the lack of an effective framework for assessing all the relevant conditions within an organisation leading up to its adoption of e-procurement. While technological issues are always important, we have found that the most common problems in its adoption are related to organisational and 'people' issues.
"The aim of our project is to establish a holistic model for the assessment of e-procurement, and to validate that model by means of the survey. Profit may not be the only criterion an organisation needs to consider when implementing such a system; we are looking at the whole picture, including efficiency, quality, accountability and transparency. Such a model would, among other things, enable managers to have realistic expectations."
If you have more questions about the research, contact Mr Vaidya on (02) 6773 2302 (e-mail: kishor@turing.une.edu.au).
Media contact: Kishor Vaidya, School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, UNE (02) 6773 2302 or Jim Scanlan, Public Relations, UNE (02) 6773 3049.

Posted by Lydia Roberts at April 1, 2005 11:18 AM