E-procurement and human moments, and its impact on smaller industrial distributors

Alan D. Smith

International Journal of Procurement Management, 2011, vol. 4, issue 5, 483-512

Abstract: The emergence of web-enabled customers in industrial distribution is particularly a major force with smaller distributors, causing management to rethink their overall business strategy in more price sensitive marketplace. An empirical study was preformed using multiple linear regression and data-reduction analyses to test these trends among age, experience, product selection, destruction of face-to-face interactions, and technological sophistication. There was significant evidence to support the adoption of e-procurement applications with smaller industrial distributors, especially in the current highly competitive and economically challenging environments. Although a low-cost strategy is not considered a sustainable approach, since premium pricing strategies among retaining existing customers usually nets greater profit margins, the low-cost approach is being rapidly forced upon them, with adopting e-procurement technologies as the potential solution.

Keywords: corporate strategy; customer relationship management; CRM; empirical; e-procurement; industrial distribution; inventory; human moment; marketing; operational effectiveness; electronic procurement; online procurement; small distributors; small firms; procurement technologies. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=42169 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ids:ijpman:v:4:y:2011:i:5:p:483-512

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Journal of Procurement Management from Inderscience Enterprises Ltd
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sarah Parker ().