Drivers and Barriers to Public Sector E-procurement within Northern Ireland’s Construction Industry

With the increasing use of the internet, E-Procurement and E-Tendering can offer viable alternatives to traditional paper-based processes. Despite the many benefits, and theorising about its pitfalls, little work has been carried out in the UK regarding the importance of the drivers and barriers related to this technology. This study examines the drivers and barriers for E-procurement in construction within Northern Ireland. Drivers and barriers have been ranked using a selection of 70 contractors who have expressed interest in tendering for Roads Service Northern Ireland (RSNI) contracts. RSNI is the agency in Northern Ireland responsible for roads and is one of the major construction clients. The results of this study have been compared with studies of a similar nature carried out in Australia and America in general goods and services eprocurement. Findings in this Northern Ireland study show that the two highest ranked drivers by the contractors were improving communication and reduced administration costs, while the two most important barriers were security of transactions and the uncertainty surrounding the legal issues of e-procurement. Therefore in Northern Ireland the results could be broadly categorised as costing and management issues for the main drivers while legal and technical issues are cited as the main barriers.