Modalities and Importance of Electronic Procurement

Growth of Internet usage for commercial purposes is the obvious trend in modern economy. As a commercial medium, Internet brings new opportunities and treats for each market participants. In means of logistics, companies can utilize opportunities of Internet in two ways. First way is to use Internet as a communication-distribution channel for the purpose of improvement customer and/or wide public relationships what, at the end, will result in improved business image and increased sales. On the other hand, Internet can be used as an instrument for supplier relationship improvement, i.e. it can be used for supply chain efficiency enhancement. Despite the fact that in recent literature Internet usage as a tool for promotional and sales purposes is more often described, importance of Internet usage for purchasing purposes, both for goods and services, is growing. Moreover, this mode of Internet usage generates much higher values of transactions than usage for the purpose of promotion and sales. Available indicators show that South Eastern European (SEE) region is the leading region in Europe according to growth of Internet usage among population. In the forthcoming period it can be expected that the highest growth rates of Internet usage for business purposes will be reached in the area of goods and/or services procurement done by domestic companies. Thus, it is necessary to examine present modalities of Internet usage for procurement purposes and to describe their benefits and limitations. Also, it is necessary to systematically review classification of e-procurement systems. The purpose of the papers is duplex: (1) the insight into economic importance on macro and micro level will be given, and (2) systematic overview of e-procurement modalities will be elaborated.