Tejari and E-procurement: Moving to Paperless Business Processes

Abstract

Purchasing departments have not traditionally been thought of as sources of business innovation, but much has happened in the world of procurement over the past few years. Solution providers have helped both buyers and suppliers move from traditional paper-based business processes to the basic procurement transaction functionality offered by enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications and on to web-based e-procurement applications. Tejari, a leader in the Business- to-Business marketplace in the Middle East, has helped several companies make this transition. This paper will discuss the traditional procurement process, and then explain the e-procurement components, followed by a review of the Tejari e-procurement model and finally a discussion of implementation issues, costs and benefits for the purchasing activities of two of Tejari’s clients.