in the supply chain for indirect goods (Neef, 2001). A third phase of development in e-procurement has also been observable with the integration of electronic markets (e- markets) in the supply chain since the end of the 1990s (Poirier and Bauer, 2000). These e-markets evolved alongside the early system vendors like Ariba, Commerce One or SAP and support the outsourcing of operational procurement functions, offering tools for auctions and requests for quotations. However, the following evolution of e-markets has led to a substantial consolidation and many now focus on outsourced solutions for catalogs and auctions.
To summarize, these three development stages form the basis for the term e-procurement in this paper. According to (Dolmetsch et al., 2000), e-procurement deals with the management of supply chains in the procurement of indirect goods that is based on Internet information systems and also e-markets.