Adoption and Use of E-Government Services: A Case Study on E-Procurement in Malaysia

The edge of the Information Age, where information has become the cutting edge of global competition, has thrust the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) into the fore front of the national socio-economic development. ICT has been recognized as a strategic enabling tool to support the growth of the economy as well as enhance the quality of life of the population. The public sector in Malaysia is going through period of rapid change. The government’s leading role in spearheading the surge forward into the information age has compelled the public sector to lead the way. The Government launched the Electronic Government (e-Government) initiative to reinvent itself to lead the country into the Information Age. Implementation of Electronic Procurement (e-Procurement or locally known as e-Perolehan) is regarded as one of the major milestones in government’s effort to reduce corruption thus enhancing accountability and transparency of government procurement. There are six procurement modules being implemented since 1999. The aim of the government is to make all the suppliers and federal government agencies become electronic procurement enabled users by the year 2010. This paper looks at some of empirical findings from the survey conducted regarding the government suppliers readiness in adopting and using the eProcurement system. The general findings show that the suppliers have positive perception about information technology and the use of Internet to do their business transactions; hence they are ready to use the e-Procurement system. Even though there are some positive development of e-Procurement in terms of the acceptance and usage, there are also many problems and challenges faced by both the buyer community i.e. government, and seller community i.e. suppliers. The paper provides some recommendations to improve the current practice to encourage more suppliers to grab the opportunity and benefit fully from the e-Procurement initiative in Malaysia.