The impact of E-procurement implementation on performance of ship management companies (case study of IRISL)

The rapid growth of competition in the market and the consequent changes in economic conditions impose organizations and firms to implement new technologies to stay competitive. Those firms which have not implemented technology at the proper time are at the risk of losing customers or suppliers [6]. Transportation industry in general and maritime transportation industry in particular are not exception in this regard. Operation in a very competitive market is the character of maritime transportation industry and the main driving factor toward implementing of technology in maritime transportation industry is continuous pressure for reducing overheads, costs and increasing efficiency and security [5]. Customers, partners, agents, collaborators, shippers, port operators, suppliers and service agencies are involved in the ship transport industry supply chain, and one of the major requirements in such a supply chain in which all concerned parties are scattered all over the world, is the high speed transferring of data between them. In order to achieve competitive advantage over the rivals, the e-commerce and e-business with their attributes are focal points for ship owners and other stakeholders [14]. In maritime transportation procurement process plays an essential role. Ships usually purchase a large quantity of supplies for maintaining daily operations. The procurement process in maritime industry should be organized in a way that enables efficient transfer of goods and services into vessels. Today, a major goal of a maritime´s supply chain management is to apply information technology to their procurement systems efficiently and cost effectively. Moving away from traditional and paper based offline purchase processing to online procurement enables shipping lines to gain better procurement practices in terms of cost efficiency [14].