Flexibility Framework for Assessing Supplier Selection

Abstract

Abstract-This paper focuses on the electronic procurement marketplace and the selection of suppliers, aided by flexibility factors. By judiciously employing decision flexibility and the associated dynamic control amongst autonomous EPM nodes, improvements are possible. Empirical data for this study was collected from pharmaceutical organization in UK using a discrete choice interview and analyzed using grounded theory techniques. The importance of flexibility was highlighted and prioritized with respect to supplier selection.Index Terms-Electronic procurement marketplace (EPM), flexibility factors, supplier's selection. I. INTRODUCTIONThe changes of Web-based procurement marketplaces (Electronic procurement Marketplace-EPM) has altered different aspects of life; how businesses run with continuous changes, how organizations interact with their suppliers, and how people get use to Web evolution. Recently, rapid changes in business requirements and environments on the web-based marketplaces have put massive pressure on organizations to keep up and be more responsive and flexible. Moreover, the flow of failure in some EPM's and the success of others have led business managers to question the relative merits of each EPM. Flexibility in emerging organizational networks is also a concern [7] especially in a case of selecting suppliers. Organizations discover that it is essential to adopt EPM in order to achieve effectiveness and efficiency, with the majority of firms and suppliers being satisfied with its performance [19]. One such transformation is to consider of flexibility factors to remain competitive in a network environment. EPM's require to deliberate fundamental changes in technical, organizational, environmental and strategic in order to be responsive and flexible to the changes. From technical point of view, EPM's are faced with number of number of changes in hardware and software applications that need to be synchronized as Vizared (2001) stated. From an organizational perspective, flexibility can be applied at a number of internally or externally levels, for example to the variety of actual and potential procedures in order to increase the control capability of the management and improve the controllability of the organization and environment. Considerably, the ability or inability of management to predict new events happening in their organizational environments could be resulted in unbalancing between flow of orders and products [23]. Conceivably, ability in identifying the changes in business strategy of the organization could be creating a new product and market combination, using market power to deter entry and control competitors, or engaging in political activities to counteract trade regulation [8]. From these flexibility perspectives, it could also be critical when applying new technologies (including platform or process changes to EPMs being utilized) and renewing products or services [1], [8].Consequently, being able to identify and analyze flexibility challenges influencing supplier's selection ...

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