E-procurement misses the mark for manufacturers

NEWS Manufacturers are failing to use Internet technologies properly for their procurement needs, even though they are often used to complex supplier relationships. This is one of the findings of research commissioned by MRO.com, an e-procurement company. The company claims that financial services firms are more likely than manufacturers to be embracing e-procurement. Paul Rose, MRO.com director of business development and alliances, said: "There's a great deal of interest out there, but while there's a lot of media hype about e-procurement, people don't know much about it. I'm surprised how un-tuned in to developments manufacturing is." Although the rise of e-procurement seems inevitable - separate research from Datamonitor forecasts revenues will total $7.9bn globally between 1998 and 2004 - not all European markets are moving at the same speed. MRO.com's research showed 42 per cent of German manufacturers are using the Internet for some form of purchasing of equipment or services, while figures for the UK, Sweden and Italy stand at 38, 36 and 12 per cent respectively.