Abstract:
The term procurement has been become a very crucial in contemporary world.
Procurement is the act of making the right product or service available to the right
person at the right time at the right price in the right place. Procurement
implications can impact on the overall cost of carrying out the decision in any
organization. In this globalized world, almost all the processes are being becoming
digitalized while manual systems are disappearing. In this context, procurement
systems have also been digitalized in most of the countries in the world. The eprocurement practices have been acquired such a popularity just because of the
benefits of it. In this context this study has been conducted to identify the level of eprocurement usage in public procurement in Sri Lanka. Accordingly, this study has
been conducted as a case study with reference to the Sabaragamuwa University of
Sri Lanka. The purpose of this study is to investigate the level of e-procurement
usage in public procurement in Sri Lanka. This study is relating to the exploratory
qualitative case study design. Primary data for this research has been collected
through in-depth interviews followed a semi structured questionnaire and
observation method. Sample size was 20 including Procurement officers,
administrative officers related to the procurement in the university, Project
Coordinators and Activity Coordinators of the projects within the Sabaragamuwa
University of Sri Lanka. Data has been collected using convenience sampling
method. Gathered data have been analysed using Within-case Analysis.
Accordingly, it has been provided detailed description of the selected case and then
it has been elaborated the several themes within the case. As the main findings of
this study, it was revealed that the level of usage of e-procurement practices is low
at Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka. Further, recommendations for
increasing the level of e-procurement practices and the way of increasing the
efficiency while eliminating delays using e-procurement practices has also been
provided in each stage of procurement based on the recommendations provided by
the respondents.
