Electronic commerce usage in business‐to‐business purchasing

As the Clinton administration recently released its plan for developing world‐wide information superhighways and making electronic communications a national priority, a growing number of firms have shown increased interest in electronic commerce (EC) as an effective business‐to‐business purchasing tool. A high level of interest in EC is piqued by its ability to reduce order cycle time, paperwork, order processing error, and procurement cost. Realizing such managerial benefits, buying firms need to reassess their current business‐to‐business purchasing strategy which, in most cases, still relies on traditional paper‐based transactions. To identify strategic variables that influence the successful implementation of EC and then help evaluate the strategic importance of EC to business‐to‐business purchasing, this paper reports the findings of an empirical study of US purchasing organizations.