Case

Online, Social Media, and Mobile Marketing: E- Procurement and Mobile-Procurement

Gone are the days of tedious, paper-laden, labor-intensive B-to-B procurement duties. E-procurement is changing the way buyers and sellers do business, specifically via mobile procurement that offers cloud-based platforms that reduce the search, order, and approval cycle. Most large companies have adopted some form of e-procurement. A recent study found that almost 70 percent of companies utilize some form of e-procurement, mobile procurement, or supply chain management applications. A leading industry platform, Coupa, provides a suite of cloud-based applications for finance, including accounts payable, sourcing, procurement, and expense management that allows customers full functionality from their mobile devices. Employees now enjoy the flexibility and time savings of viewing, approving, or denying requisitions, purchase orders, and invoices. One of Coupa’s large retail clients claimed a reduction from 10 days to only 5 hours in its requisition-approval-process cycle by implementing Coupa’s mobile procurement platform. Talk about savings! Visit www.coupa.com/software/procurement/ to learn more about how this company is revolutionizing the e-procurement and mobile procurement environments.

Answer Questions

1. Discuss the advantages of e-procurement to both buyers and sellers. What are the disadvantages?
2. Research mobile procurement and discuss the roles in the buying center that are impacted most by this technology