Electronic Procurement Adoption: the Case of Kenya Ports Authority
Abstract
The supply chain of any organization is a vital component of the whole business cycle.
The maritime sector and KPA in particular is not an exception to this regard. This sector
offers employment both directly and indirectly to a vast majority of residents in the entire
eastern and central African region. The increasing significance of technology in the
supply chain is of paramount importance to the performance of any organization.
The overall objective of the study was to determine the factors that influenced the
adoption of e-procurement at KPA and its associated benefits and challenges. This study
was guided by various theoretical reviews. This was a case study research. The study had
a total population of 94 procurement personnel at KPA.
The study used primary data which was collected using questionnaires and interview
guide. Descriptive and factor analysis was used to analyze the quantitative data while
content analysis was used to analyze the qualitative data. The study found out that value
for money and reduction of corruption and corrupt practices as among the driving factors
for e-procurement adoption at KPA. The benefits include enhanced transactional speed,
overall process cost reduction, shorter procurement cycle times, ease of process
monitoring and audit as among the benefits while the sharing of passwords among
suppliers and their resistance to learn and embrace new technology as among the greatest
challenges.
In light of the findings, the study recommends that since KPA has successfully adopted eprocurement,
there is need to focus on web security issues, web uptime tracking and
supplier (external users) password control measures as these seem to be the major
challenges prohibiting the organization from fully achieving its goals. E-procurement
adoption at KPA has enabled the organization to redesign and improve business work
processes radically but there is still need for initiatives that emphasize incremental
improvement in the whole e-procurement process and output to cope with changes in the
ever changing business environment.
Publisher
University of Nairobi
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United StatesUsage Rights
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/Collections
The following license files are associated with this item: