The Role of Electronic Procurement in Enhancing Responsiveness of Procurement Management: An Empirical Study on Selected Mining Companies in Ghana

The emergence of electronic procurement system has revolutionized the discipline of procurement management. To date, however, very little research has been carried on this subject at the Ghana mining industry. This paper examines the level of adoption and role of e-procurement in enhancing responsiveness of procurement management at the mining industry, Ghana. Purposive random sampling was employed to select 26 respondents from 13 large scale mining companies on which structured questionnaires were administered and analyzed using linear regression. The rate of e-procurement adoption appears low at the Ghana mining sector, which the study has unveiled. Quantitatively 24% (R=0.24) part of the companies’ procurement process is being enhanced by eprocurement systems, yet resulting in efficiency and effectiveness in their procurement management. The companies’ pilot e-procurement systems with manual system to get procurement executed though much into the orthodox manual system relatively. It is then recommended that the mining companies intensify usage of eprocurement systems to get the optimum impact on procurement management responsiveness.

several procurement functions are still carried out in the traditional manual system (Abdi, 2009). Though the pace for the implementation is still very slow in Ghana, the Public Procurement Authority has made many strides in the initiation of e-procurement evidenced by April, 2019 lunch by the government. Addison (2017) results indicate that Ghanaian public sector is well informed of the e-procurement process, though the patronage is low. Public sector's e-procurement seems to have gain enormous attention among which is discussed in the empirical to unveil the quest for the present study. Adams (2014) assessed potential of electronic procurement at the public sector, Ghana. The aim was to explore challenges in manual procurement system, investigate prospects in the E-procurement and implementation challenges using structured questionnaire on public agencies within Accra Metropolis. E-procurement was identified with challenges among which is technology related yet the system helps in cutting cost across the procurement process. Focus of the study was on public entities which have almost become the sole area of interest in most contemporal studies.

Empirical Studies
Noor et al (2013) also examined the role of e-procurement strategy in enhancing procurement performance in Kenya state corporations as a descriptive research design. They saw E-procurement useful for its cost reduction ability on Kenya state corporations. They found that E-procurement technology and other advanced technologies are essentially freeing procurement professionals to become true supply managers at the enterprise, adding to the role of procurement shifting from reducing cost to creating supply value for companies (Noor et al 2013). They collected data through questionnaire and analyzed quantitatively using descriptive statistics and inferential analysis. Among e-procurement roles captured in the study includes enhancement in customer service level, auditability and compliance, inventory optimization, and buyer supplier collaboration. In a first instance, the study was carried on Kenya public agencies hence signals a probable difference in outcome if similar study should be carried on a different environment or sector. This serves as a gap on the study. Further gap was the lack of operational direction to determining enhancement in procurement performance. Kalakota and Robinson, (2001) states that the benefits of e-procurement fall in two major categories viz. efficiency and effectiveness (see section 2.1.3). It is believed that the suggestions of the later scholars give concise parameters to have operationalized procurement performance enhancement in such a quantitative study of Noor et al, (2013).
At the Lisbon summit in 2000, it was decided that EU should pay special attention to e-procurement. It was emphasized that "The emergence of the new Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) offer promising opportunities as regards the efficiency, transparency and opening-up of public procurement" (European Commission, 2000). E-Procurement on the public sector has even been on political agenda in EU for a while There is a growing interest over e-procurement at the public sector. Few literatures exist on the phenomenon at the private sector, especially the Mining industry. Drawing on the reviews above, the present study focuses on Ghana mining industry to examine two major objectives: a] level of e-procurement adoption at the mining industry and b] role of e-procurement to enhancing responsiveness of the companies procurement Management.

Significance of the study
Driven by the increasing trend toward purchasing inputs and other raw materials from outside the organization, implementing electronic procurement (e-procurement) has become a significant tactic in most companies' ebusiness strategies, Deloitte Consulting,( 2001) has stated. Therefore this study will not only be an eye opener to mining companies but also other private corporations, researchers and students on the key contribution of eprocurement to procurement management.

Literature Review 2.1 Defining E-procurement
Parida and Parida (2005) define e-procurement as a technology solution that facilitates corporate buying using the Internet. Essentially an Internet/Intranet based purchasing application or hosted service that streamlines buying, trading partners, maximizes trade efficiency across the entire supply chain, and provides strategic e-commerce capabilities in Internet time; Gimenez and Lourenço (2004) said E-procurement is a process which supports the procurement and sourcing activities via Internet technologies and enables an efficient negotiation between buyers and suppliers; Turban and King (2006) sees it as Electronic acquisition of goods and services in a firm; The automation of the procurement processes so that the sourcing, vendor selection, procurement processes, shipment status tracking and payments can be made in an online environment (Bhaskar 2005). According to European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (2015), E-procurement (i.e. electronic procurement, also known as supplier exchange) is a business-to-business or business-to-consumer or business -to-government purchase and sale of supplies, work and services through the internet as well as other information and networking systems, such as electronic data interchange and enterprise resource planning (ERP). Corsi (2006) defined e-procurement as the use of electronic methods over the internet to conduct procurement functions: identification of requirement, tendering process, payment and contract management. Scholars have defined E-procurement differently for some time now. That notwithstanding none denies the fact that it's an internet based interaction between a firm and a supplier

Methodology
A descriptive research design was used in this study. The target population of this study comprises of Procurement and ICT managers across all the 23-large scale mining companies in Ghana comprising of a total of 46 respondents from which 13 companies were selected on the basis of convenience. In essence, 26 top managers were sampled for this study. Thus E-procurement strategy and its application are relevant at this level prompting the choice of their departments. Primary data was collected using a questionnaire covering the level of adoption and role of Eprocurement in enhancing the mining companies' procurement management. Quantitative data was analyzed by employing regression test using statistical package for social science (SPSS) version 20. .007 a. Predictors:(Constant), e-procurement adoption b. Dependent variable: PM responsiveness According to table 2, 24% rate of responsiveness in procurement management (PM) can be explained by the linear relationship between the predictor and the criterion variable i.e. e-procurement adoption and PM responsiveness. E-procurement contributes but little to effectiveness and efficiency in companies PM at the mining industry today. Seventy-six percent of responsive rate in the firms' PM cannot be aligned to e-procurement adoption justifies with significant P-value 0.007 < α=0.05; hence, there is enough statistical evidence to establish

Conclusion
Procurement has traditionally involved slow manual procedures and even slower systematic processes for handling procurement transactions (Hawking et al., 2004). This is gearing firms' endorsement with e-procurement today. Literature identified a number of benefits arising from the introduction of e-procurement yet the adoption rate appears low at the Ghana mining industry. 24% (R 2 =0.24) of the procurement process is facilitated by eprocurement, resulting in little efficiency and effectiveness in the procurement management of the Mining companies. E-procurement is contributing to speed and accuracy going through procurement process at the mining industry though with low adoption rate. It is recommended that the companies intensify usage of the e-procurement systems so as to optimize its benefit on procurement Management. This paper covered only 13 of 23 large scale mining firms in Ghana. Posterity studies can increase the sample size and perhaps incorporate small scale mining and other mining support firms to confirm this finding. Moreover, Scholars may afford testing the finding of this study on other industries or carry similar study in other countries in effort to contributing to theoretical understanding of the phenomenon at the mining sector.