Advances in Economics and Business 2(2): 85-91, 2014 http://www.hrpub.org DOI: 10.13189/aeb.2014.020204 The Adoption of Electronic Procurement in Turkey F.Özge Baruönü Latif Faculty Of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Dogus University, İstanbul, Turkey Corresponding Author: barunzge@yahoo.com Copyright © 2014 Horizon Research Publishing All rights reserved. Abstract Internet Technologies have increased the effectiveness of the businesses in several ways. One example of these is E-procurement, which fulfills one of the most crucial functions of businesses, ‘purchasing’, on the internet by means of bringing the buyers and suppliers together on a network, have been used widely in the world in the last decade. In this chapter the concept of ‘e-procurement’, history of e-procurement, its operations, its advantages and disadvantages are discussed and the firm “E-Tedarik” which is an example of e-procurement systems in Turkey is examined as a case study. Keywords E-purchasing, B2B, E-procurement, Marketplace, Electronic Procurement in Turkey 1.The Concept of “E-procurement” Electronic commerce can be classified into two main groups which are called as Business to Business (B2B) and Business to Customers (B2C). They are defined by Noyce [1] as, Business-to-consumer (B2C): the sale of goods, services and content to individuals. Business-to-business (B2B): the buying and selling of goods, services and content among businesses. In B2B transactions, purchasing has been seen as an administrative and operational activity for a long time and it has been defined as follow as buying the right goods or services, in the right quantity, at the right time and price and from the right source [2]. Over the last decades, purchasing has become a more strategic activity for businesses and it is defined as “the behavior of an organization towards its suppliers [3]. Van Weele [4] defines the purchasing process as “management of the company’s external resources, maintaining the company’s primary and support activities is secured at the best conditions”. Information technology (IT) has been used to exchange of goods, services and information between organizations. When the interorganizational information systems (IOIS) were introduced, electronic markets have emerged for corporate purchasing activities [5]. In the era of pre-Internet, electronic data interchange (EDI) was the most common method which is applied for managing the purchasing processes in businesses. However, the cost of implementing and maintaining EDI was so high and only large-sized companies could afford to use it [6]. After the innovation of Internet, with the becoming widespread of lower-cost public network and the development of Web-based tools, most traditional e-purchasing methods turned into Web-based e-procurement. Being a broader scope than ‘purchasing’, procurement requires strategic activities such as sourcing, negotiating, coordinating, comparing, evaluating, and maintaining. According to Tai et al. [7] “Procurement is more than putting purchasing decisions online, its functions also include linking suppliers and buyers into the purchasing network and rethinking of inter-organizational processes driven by transactions”. In other words, e-procurement means the integration of technological tools into traditional paper based method in procurement operations [8]. Internet-based e-procurement systems and business-to-business (B2B) electronic marketplaces differ from proprietary IOIS in the sense of their requirement. They are open systems that enable firms to reach and transact with suppliers and buyers in virtual markets without investments in a specific systems while IOIS is involving EDI. Figure 1 displays three IT-enabled procurement mechanisms [5] Figure 1. IT Enabled Procurement Mechanisms