E-procurement (electronic procurement, sometimes also known as supplier exchange) is the business-to-business or business-to-consumer or business-to-government purchase and sale of supplies, work, and services through the Internet as well as other information and networking systems, such as electronic data interchange and enterprise resource planning.
E-procurement is done with a software application that includes features for supplier management and complex auctions. The new generation of e-Procurement is now on-demand or a software-as-a-service (SaaS).
The e-procurement value chain consists of indent management, eTendering, eAuctioning, vendor management, catalogue management, Purchase Order Integration, Order Status, Ship Notice, eInvoicing, ePayment, and contract management.[citation needed] Indent management is the workflow involved in the preparation of tenders. This part of the value chain is optional, with individual procuring departments defining their indenting process. In works procurement, administrative approval and technical sanction are obtained in electronic format. In goods procurement, indent generation activity is done online. The end result of the stage is taken as inputs for issuing the NIT.[citation needed]
Elements of e-procurement include request for information, request for proposal, request for quotation, RFx (the previous three together), and eRFx (software for managing RFx projects).
Public sector organisations use e-procurement for contracts to achieve benefits such as increased efficiency and cost savings (faster and cheaper) in government procurement and improved transparency (to reduce corruption) in procurement services. E-procurement in the public sector has seen rapid growth in recent years. Act 590 of Louisiana's 2008 Regular Legislative Session requires political subdivisions to make provisions for the receipt of electronic bids.
E-procurement in the public sector is emerging internationally; hence, initiatives have been implemented in Singapore, UK, USA, Malaysia, Australia and European Union.E-procurement projects are often part of the country’s larger e-Government efforts to better serve its citizens and businesses in the digital economy. For example, Singapore’s GeBIZ was implemented as one of the programmes under its e-Government masterplan
