The impact of E-procurement on Supply Chain resilience in beverage companies in Harare

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of e-procurement and its constructs sourcing-tendering and e-ordering on supply chain resilience in beverage companies in Harare. Beverages companies’ challenges, include rising inflation, currency volatility, depressed production of goods and services, increasing competition, and global supply chain disruptions culminating in a complex and unpredictable operating environment for beverage manufacturers and distributors. Most studies on e-procurement and supply chain resilience, have focused on companies in the global north, resulting in scant and limited knowledge on the subject relevant to companies in the global south and to Zimbabwe in particular. This study, therefore, was conducted to fill this gap. The study followed a quantitative research approach. The target population consisted of all beverage companies in Harare. To measure the study constructs, the survey material was designed in the form of a structured questionnaire. Participants were asked to complete three four sections of the test instruments, namely, e-procurement section-sourcing section, e tendering section e-sourcing section and supply chain resilience. A total of 160 questionnaires was distributed to managers involved in supply chain in the beverage companies and all 160 were used for data analysis. The confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed to establish scale accuracy. All measures conformed to acceptable model fit and composite reliability (CR) and revealed that the scales used in this study are reliable. The reliability results confirmed that all constructs reached the generally agreed upon minimum scale range for Cronbach’s alpha of 0.70. Finally, the structural model was tested and all three hypotheses were supported. Validity in this study was achieved. The principal finding of this study reveals that e-procurement,e-sourcing,e-tendering and e ordering have a positive and significant impact on supply chain resilience. The results conclusively demonstrated the need for embracing e-procurement as tool to bolster beverage companies in the face of the ever rising challenges to supply chain resilience. This research has contributed to literature by providing additional information on how to improving supply chain resilience in the face of ever increasing supply chain disruptions.