The impact of procurement process automation on the procurement entity’s internal customers service delivery: a case of citam

Though, the opportunities for improvement as a result of procurement automation seem abound, 60% of information technology application in procurement initiatives do not deliver the expected results. One such area greatly affected, in many procurement entities, is customer service. Thus, customer service delivery, in many procurement entities, remains a great challenge. For few, if any, consider procurement as a service function, and emphasize into procurement automation is often focused on the cost efficiency rather than service delivery. This study, therefore, examined the impact of procurement automation on procurement entities’ internal customer service delivery, adopting a case study design with a single-case descriptive approach targeting 43 customers using purposive sampling and thereafter the resultant selected divisions used as study clusters (second-stage cluster sampling). A 30% sample size was selected with descriptive statistics and statistical test: Pearson’s (r) and chi-square being used. The study findings indicate that procurement automation positively impacts the procurement entities’ customer service delivery according to 69.8% of the respondents, and there is a significant relationship (with r values ranging from 0.118 to 0.313) between procurement automation and procurement entities’ customer service delivery. Consequently, procurement automation can be viewed as an enabler of the procurement entities’ internal customer service delivery. Hence, procurement automation initiatives must focus, also, on ensuring procurement entities’ provide a high customer service levels.