Impact of digital procurement on economic resilience of enterprises during COVID-19

Abstract

The main objective of this paper was to determine whether digital procurement positively affected the economic resilience of firms in the manufacturing industry during the COVID-19 pandemic. Hence, qualitative research was conducted in Czech industrial enterprises by means of a questionnaire survey in 2021. Based on the research question, 3 hypotheses were formed, which focused on the impact that investing in digital procurement had on the economic resilience of enterprises in selected industries. The parametric two sample one-factor ANOVA and Pearson's Chi-squared test were used to test the hypotheses. The findings rejected the association between investment in digital procurement and the economic performance of the firm during the pandemic. They also failed to confirm the association between digital purchasing and economic resilience of businesses during the pandemic. Another important result was also that digitization of purchasing did not have a greater impact on the economic resilience of firms in the manufacturing industry compared to firms in the construction and agriculture sectors. The research results can be practically implemented in determining the expected benefits of digitizing procurement. The research implications are limited by the fact that it only investigates companies from the manufacturing industry in the Czech Republic and focuses exclusively on the period of the COVID-19 pandemic.