(Jan. 29, 2001) Mike Parker is Chief Operating Officer for Coda-Financials, Inc. He has spent 8 years with CODA, joining as a Senior Consultant in The UK and managing CODA's UK Consulting operations prior to joining CODA in the United States in 1998. In this interview, Parker highlights the advantages, trends and long-term effect of e-procurement.

	Introduction
Companies large and small are jumping onto the e-procurement bandwagon. Most report savings in time, paper and postage. But few are enjoying the really large savings that come from creating a true end-to-end e-procurement system ...

	Question 1
First off, what is e-procurement and why are companies turning to it?

	Question 2
Why not simply order products and services over the Internet and leave it at that? Wouldn’t that still save you quite a bit?

	Question 3
This sounds like something for large companies. What about e-procurement for smaller companies?

	Question 4
Can you give us a sense of how the handling of a purchase order differs if you tie the process into your back-office financial and if you don’t?

	Question 5
What specifically do you lose if you don’t tie your systems together?

	Question 6
What are the advantages for suppliers?

	Question 7
What are the latest trends?

	Question 8
Is e-procurement resulting in staff reduction in purchasing departments?

	Question 9
And finally, what is the likely long-term impact of e-procurement?

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