What do we mean by e-procurement? A private hospital perspective in Australia

This paper is based on an exploratory case study of four individual hospitals within a large Australian Private Health Group. Five e-procurement issues were investigated from a business perspective. Findings highlight that hospitals perceived that they had an e-procurement system but that the system merely generated a fax purchase order and faxed this directly to the supplier's facsimile machine, i.e. it was not transmitted electronically via the Internet. Findings for price reduction and practice for Direct Vs Indirect goods contradict previous research findings. Nevertheless, reducing wastage, lowering inventory and administration costs were evidently realised. Inadequate user training was a major issue during the implementation process but was later overcome by building a training centre. This paper prompts a challenge for IS/IT academics and practitioners to educate organisations on the definition and adoption of an eprocurement system to enhance benefits across the organisations.