Procurement in Property and Construction - A review of practises under taken by a medium size contractor in Ireland

3B Contracting Limited is a privately owned building and civil engineering firm on the east coast of Ireland. The company works predominately within the east Leinster region. The company falls into the category of being a small to medium size contracting company. The procurement function is carried out by a number of small departments. Procurement is a key function for securing value for money and ensuring the successful continuation of the company. Most projects tendered are done so using the traditional method of design-bid-build and as a result the subsequent sub-contract packages are secured in a similar manner. All plant and materials are procured by the purchasing department. Currently the existing strategy lacks a cohesive strategic approach whereby different departments carry out separate elements of the procurement function and the function can be handled differently by different individuals due to the lack of procedural guidance. The main reason for this lack of cohesion is due to the procurement function not being centralised. The proposals contained within this document have arisen due to the need for a centralised procurement function which would provide a collaborative, cohesive and consistent approach to procurement within the firm. This would be aided by the introduction of a sub-contractor and supplier database including a performance related review mechanism. The competitive nature of the construction industry in Ireland highlights the need for a firm procurement strategy. 3B have opportunities to improve competitiveness by researching existing and emerging client based procurement routes. This familiarity will help to make 3B less risk adverse. Another area which will aid the company in gaining a competitive edge is to formulate a more formal strategy for sustainable procurement. New government driven initiatives will also be of benefit in this regard. Such a strategy would benefit the company and its profile which in turn would be of great importance in developing a competitive advantage over its competitors

The Buck Stops There: The Impact of Perceived Accountability and Control on the Intention to Delegate to Software Agents

Software agents with the ability to recommend actions, aid decision-making, and actually make decisions are becoming increasingly common. In many situations, users now choose whether or not to delegate tasks to these agents. While some research has examined software agents, relatively little is known about the factors that influence the intention to delegate decisions to them. An experiment was used to examine the influence of perceived accountability, extent of control, and trust in the agent on the intention to delegate a travel arrangement decision. Users were more likely to delegate to agents that gave them greater control by requiring them to approve the agent’s recommendation before the decision was completed than to agents that performed the task autonomously without intervention after it was delegated. Contrary to expectations, intention to delegate increased as perceived accountability increased. Participants may perceive delegation as a means to shift blame from themselves to the agent and thus mitigate risk resulting from potential negative decision outcomes

E-PROCUREMENT: CONCEITOS, MODELOS E FATORES CRÍTICOS DE SUCESSO

Este trabalho é uma revisão bibliográfica sobre o tema e-procurement. A pesquisa foi motivada pela importância crescente da atividade de compras para as empresas e pelo aumento do uso da tecnologia da informação na cadeia de suprimentos. O objetivo foi compreender as práticas de e-procurement nas empresas, identificando os modelos existentes, as vantagens, benefícios, fatores críticos para a implementação e dificuldades de seu uso. As principais referencias bibliográficas utilizadas foram artigos publicados na Web of Science. Ao fim deste trabalho foi possível chegar a conclusões importantes a respeito do tema, entre elas estão a função estratégica do e-procurement, uma vez que modifica a maneira como as empresas se inserem na cadeia de suprimentos; o foco atual da tecnologia em compras de materiais indiretos, e uma série de benefícios não financeiros

How Should Public Procurement Law Deal With FinTech?

FinTech -- along with the blockchain, other distributed ledger, smart contract, and tokenization usually assumed to accompany it -- could change the way governments procure goods and services. Procurement authorities and procurement law can play a vital role in the development of FinTech. They can help build the FinTech platforms and ecosystems that help them engage in public procurement. They should not try to procure such FinTech outright. At the national level, regulators should not just leave FinTech rulemaking up to financial regulators. Contracting authorities should not just develop or use their own selected FinTech applications willy-nilly. They should contribute to overall changes in procurement law - which extend far beyond simple supervisory or regulatory technologies (RegTech/SupTech). Governments should get serious about the Agreement on Government Procurement and similar treaties - by creating a new authority to help develop the law needed to put FinTech-enabled procurement platforms in place. China’s own world-leading FinTech and cross-border public procurements do not always contribute to a global level playing field. Any FinTech applications facilitating public procurement should thus encourage compliance with the procurement law legal principles the international community has developed over decades

The Adoption of e-Procurement in the Indonesian Public Sector

The adoption of electronic procurement (e-procurement) can provide strategic, operational and tactical benefits. Within Indonesia there has been a paucity of research that has examined how the benefits that can materialize from e-procurement can be obtained. This research determines the underlying variables that influence the successful adoption within the public sector. The identified variables are used to develop a benefits realisation management framework that can be used to support change management and organisational learning