A Future Vision for Procurement Software Use in Procurement Organisations

Kadowaki, Rintaro (2018) A Future Vision for Procurement Software Use in Procurement Organisations. [Dissertation (University of Nottingham only)]

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Abstract

Background – The role of procurement has been evolving towards strategic initiatives from administrative tasks as companies have become more aware of its importance, and procurement organisation has expanded its responsibilities in a company over decades. Along with the transition and expansion, software functionalities that support procurement function has advanced as well. Recently, the advancement of information technologies is remarkable such as artificial intelligence and robotic process automation (RPA). Under those circumstances, it can be assumed expectations for procurement software functionalities in leading procurement organisations have been evolving as well. As the research of such situation focuses on ongoing phenomenon, there is not much academic literature in this area yet.

Purpose – This research aims at capturing the future vision of procurement software use in today’s procurement organisations.

Method – Qualitative research has been designed for this research as it allows for exploring the subject, developing insights, and identifying certain patterns in the collected descriptive data. The data is collected through semi-structured interviews with four manager-class employees who have the depth of procurement experiences from different leading companies. Then thematic analysis is employed to analyse the qualitative data because it allows for systematic exploration and flexible interpretation of those data.

Findings – This research reveals that today’s procurement organisations are ultimately looking for intelligent functionalities in one single procurement platform than can even perform strategic tasks that require human intelligence. Despite the fact that such functionalities are not available yet, the research finds ongoing collaboration of software vendors and manufacturers to develop such future functionalities. In addition, this research reveals that the maturity of procurement process can influence the company’s expectations for future software functionalities.

Keywords – Manufacturers, Software Vendors, Strategic Initiatives, Sourcing Strategies, Platform Information Systems, Process Maturity

Item Type: Dissertation (University of Nottingham only)
Depositing User: KADOWAKI, RINTARO
Date Deposited: 21 Nov 2022 16:11
Last Modified: 21 Nov 2022 16:11
URI: https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/id/eprint/54704

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