A cross discipline comparison of rankings for e-procurement drivers and barriers within UK construction organisations

A defined set of drivers and barriers to construction e-procurement has been identified by Eadie et al (2010). These were ranked from a Quantity Surveyor’s perspective. In a similar study, Eadie et al (2007) ranked drivers and barriers to e-procurement from a construction contractor’s perspective for the Northern Ireland public sector. The current study provides a cross discipline comparison of drivers and barriers to construction e-procurement encompassing the views of quantity surveyors, public sector clients, architects and engineers establishing the level of uptake by different disciplines. A telephone survey of 775 organisations mapped the current practice of e-procurement in construction within the United Kingdom. This telephone survey was followed by a web-based questionnaire survey. The web-based survey gauged the ranking of drivers and barriers to e-procurement of organisations that have implemented e-procurement for construction related activities. The web-based survey produced a ranking for each driver and barrier across the construction industry. The overall ranking for all types of construction organisations (across disciplines) identified “Prevention of Tampering with Documents - changes to documents”, followed by “Confidentiality of Information - unauthorised viewing” as the most important barriers for UK construction organisations. The two most important drivers identified are “Process, Transaction and Administration Cost Savings” and “Convenience of archiving completed work”. The complete set of rankings will provide an insight in to the effect of different drivers and barriers to construction e-procurement while identifying their relative importance in e-procurement related strategic investment decision making.