Procurement maturity and IT-alignment models: overview and a case study
- PDF / 770,198 Bytes
- 12 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 21 Downloads / 216 Views
SPECIAL THEME
Procurement maturity and IT-alignment models: overview and a case study Johan Versendaal & Marjan van den Akker & Xiaochun Xing & Bastiaan de Bevere
Received: 3 October 2011 / Accepted: 15 March 2013 # Institute of Information Management, University of St. Gallen 2013
Abstract More and more firms urge their procurement departments to optimize their processes and leverage IT in order to reduce costs, increase quality and sustainability of received products and services, and shorten delivery times. Already in the nineties of the previous century Henderson and Venkatraman (IBM Systems Journal 32(1):4–16, 1993) identified business/IT-alignment as a key to organizational performance. Many maturity and IT-alignment models have since been developed, yet, specific procurement maturity models, including business/IT-alignment principles, are scarce. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of procurement maturity models that include IT-alignment. We start with a presentation of business/IT-alignment principles, detailing dimensions (areas of concern) for alignment, specifically for the procurement domain. Subsequently, maturity principles are discussed, resulting in maturity levels for the procurement domain. Finally, an in depth study of a specialized procurement model for the construction industry is presented, in which simulation techniques for testing are successfully applied. The discussed models and application justify a business/IT-alignment approach for procurement departments.
Responsible Editor: Hans-Dieter Zimmermann J. Versendaal (*) HU University of Applied Sciences, Nijenoord 1, 3552 AS Utrecht, Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] M. van den Akker Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] X. Xing Swets Information Services, Lisse, Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] B. de Bevere Information Department at Ballast Nedam, Utrecht, Netherlands e-mail: [email protected]
Keywords Procurement . Purchasing . Maturity . Business/ IT-Alignment JEL M15
Introduction The usage of IT for the procurement business function of firms has increased since the late nineties of the previous century. Numerous benefits have been promised by consultancy firms and IT vendors, like reduced procurement costs, improved product and/or service quality, shortened delivery times, improved supplier relationships and more. Quite a number of cases show that at least part of the promises proved to be right (cf. Versendaal & Brinkkemper 2003). Yet, leveraging IT for procurement to its full extent is a complex task. For example, when implementing e-procurement software, among other things, an organization needs to make projects, budget and management authorization responsibilities explicit. If such an organization is incapable of doing so, the e-procurement software cannot be optimally configured. Likewise problems have been identified as the ‘productivity paradox’ (Brynjolfsson 1993), and is among others addressed by Henderson and Venkatraman (1993) stating that with every
Data Loading...
