Construction Industry in Kuwait – An Analysis on E-Procurement Adoption With Respect to Supplier’s Perspective

Information technology (IT) has been widely applied in many industrial sectors in order to increase their profit, competitiveness, and to reduce unnecessary costs. In line with the Global Scenario, the procurement concept is also moving ahead from traditional manual paper-based to electronically-based due to improvement in the Internet. Electronic procurement (e procurement) has been widely adopted in various industrial sectors across the Globe, and as such various aspects of its adoption has been researched. Construction material procurement is one of the most important sections in the construction project life cycle. The possibilities afforded by E- Procurement are evident, but the level of implementation and penetration was not as expected within the construction industry compared to other industrial sectors. The potential benefits for construction are suggested by the E- Procurement accomplishments in other industries. Yet the adoption of e- procurement in the Construction Industry is not as widespread, especially in Kuwait and other GCC countries in Middle East Region, and accordingly there has been limited research into the factors affecting the adoption of e- procurement, within this context. Consequently, this study, which has been undertaken with quantitative survey questionnaires on supplier’s dimensions, aims to add to current published literature, and in particular provide an understanding of the relationship between the factors identified which have affected adoption of e-procurement for Construction Industry and Material Suppliers in Kuwait