Impact of electronic procurement on the performance of private universities in Nairobi County

Abstract

The growth of information technology has transformed the way business is conducted. The internet has revolutionized the way organizations transact externally. Procurement being a major expenditure function, e-procurement has been advocated to bring about efficiency and effectiveness in the procurement process. The study aimed to achieve two objectives; Extent to which e-procurement is practiced by the private universities within Nairobi county and the impact of e-procurement on their performance. Crosssectional survey design was employed where a census of thirteen private universities in Nairobi county formed the population. Primary data was collected from procurement personnel by use of questionnaire framed on five point likert scale. Data was analyzed and presented in form of pie charts, descriptive tables and histograms. On the extent of e-procurement implementation, the findings indicated that, private universities in Nairobi count yare practicing e-procurement at every stage of the procurement process with 80 percent having e-procurement software installed. Correlation Coefficient was calculated to determine the level of impact of e-procurement on the dimensions of performance; efficiency and dematerialization, effectiveness and customer satisfaction and transparency.The correlation coefficient was 0.87, 0.65 and 0.86 respectively indicating that; e-procurement has a strong positive impact on each of the performance dimension.E-procurement practices should be evaluated to ensure their limitations do not hinder the organization'seffectivess, effeciency, customer satisfaction and cost redution.Further study to be done on impact of e-procurement on supplier management and procurement process transparency because the respondents were neutral on this issue. The coefficient correlation was 0.65 indicating that e-procurement somehow impacted on supplier management and procurement process transparency. Other studies should also be carried out to identify the reasons why organisations are skeptical on the use of purchase cards as a way of e-procurement because respondents recorded a mean of 2.2 indicating that less that half of the universities use this mode of purchasing.