E-Procurement and the U.S. Military

The Department of Defense (DoD) is calling for "transformation" in both how it fights and the acquisition processes that support the war fighters. Meanwhile, companies worldwide are undergoing transformation as they harness the power of Internet-enabled tools. One significant aspect of industry's transformation is electronic or e-procurement. E-procurement consists of multiple electronic facets, including catalogs, bidding, English auctions, reverse auctions, market exchanges, and paperless "end-to-end" systems. To varying degrees, these different aspects of e-procurement allow for simpler and faster ordering, reduced paperwork, easy on-line comparison, fewer human errors, and ultimately, lower costs. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the progress of the U.S. military with e-procurement. A qualitative case study of the IBM Corporation is used as an example for comparison with the military. In addition, numerous interviews were conducted with e-procurement program managers in both the government and private industry. Assessments were also made based on recent articles in the business press. Through process teams, the DoD should continue to thoroughly study procurement processes, particularly the "bottlenecks" in the current systems. However, a major cultural change will be required as highly bureaucratic, paper-filled processes become electronic. As such, the highest leaders within DoD will have to fully embrace e-procurement in order to make the organizational changes and financial investments that are required to capitalize on this new way of transacting business in the twenty-first century.This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

• | Author: David M. Doe
• | Publisher: Biblioscholar
• | Publication Date: Nov 09, 2012
• | Number of Pages: 48 pages
• | Binding: Paperback or Softback
• | ISBN-10: 1288256957
• | ISBN-13: 9781288256952