The Supply Chain Management (SCM) Guide to Accounting Officers and Accounting Authorities developed by the National Treasury (2004) highlights several frameworks, one of which is the SCM framework to address issues related to public procurement in all spheres of government in South Africa. While there is no exclusive framework termed public procurement framework, the researcher is of the view that the existing SCM framework provides an overview of how the procurement is administered in South Africa. Figure 1 provides an overview of the procurement process in the South African public sector. The prescribed flow of government procurement currently in South Africa involves demand management, acquisition management, logistics management, disposal and supply chain performance management with the objective of providing high-quality services to the citizens (National Treasury 2017).

According to Manyathi, Burger and Moritmer (2021:4), procurement of goods and services is required to assist the government departments to achieve their constitutional mandates. In agreement, Mathiba (2020:648) highlights that procurement in public service is characterised by the entire process of buying goods and services to achieve government objectives. Fourie and Malan (2020:3) argue that the origins of public procurement in South Africa are linked to the responsibilities of the state’s obligation to provide services to its people through all spheres of government. The current system of procurement in South Africa is a product of reformation in the public industry which was aimed at addressing socioeconomic imbalances that were created by the apartheid government (Thobakgale & Makgopo 2018:41).

The system was created with five key principles to address namely ‘value for money, open and effective competition, ethics and fair dealings, accountability and reporting and equity’ (National Treasury 2006). According to Mathiba (2020:649), these principles are mutually interdependent. Therefore, if one is broken, all are negatively affected. Notwithstanding its relevance at the time of creation, the researcher posits that the current fast-paced administration requires agility and the governments’ ability to adapt to the transformation in the business world to enhance their processes and deliver services to their citizenry. Thus, digitalisation is critical for public procurement in the South African government.

In the South African context, demand management is a cross-functional part of the procurement process where the procurement planning is conducted (Mojaki & Chukwuere 2021:14). It is during this phase that buying entities determine the sourcing methods, analyse the market, budget for procurement and determine the buying approach (National Treasury 2017). Acquisition is the element in which the market is approached by the departments with a request for a bid or quotation (RFB/RFQ) depending on the budget threshold. Logistics in the public procurement context in South Africa refers to an element where purchase orders are generated and sent to the successful bidders. It further incorporates stores and inventory management. A growing number of governments across the globe have enthusiastically embraced digital procurement designs and invested financial resources in them (Bhagwan & Evans 2022:2). Therefore, South African government as a developing economy has to consider available technology capabilities to keep up with the rest of the world.

According to Bhagwan and Evans (2022:2), the technological environment on a global scale is thriving, and Industry 4.0 is facilitating this transformation. For that reason, Mafungwa and Ngcobo (2019:10) advise that organisations and governmental bodies must contemplate how digital innovation will perturb not only the functioning of their respective businesses, but also the entirety of their procurement value proposition to service providers, consumers and internal stakeholders. Mabinane and Edoun (2022:1391) highlight that the disruption of technology on governments across the globe has forced them to introduce concepts such as Government-to-Government (G2G), Government-to-Business, Government-to-Citizens attempting to remain relevant and responsive to technological evolution. Thus, Industry 4.0 is a revolution that can be perceived as a solution to the service delivery challenges that are facing the South African government (Thani 2020:81).

Molepo and Jahed (2022:232) have conceded that there has not been much of a revolution regarding public procurement in South Africa owing to concerns around cyber security. However, Fourie and Malan (2020:4) posit that because of its nature, public procurement is likely to impact other industries. Therefore, transformation is needed in governance structures, policy paradigms and service delivery needs to conform to Industry 4.0 standards. To address the objective of this study, the following sections review literature on the application of Industry 4.0 technology on public procurement and their significance specifically to the South African context.

To keep up with a complex corporate environment, agility and resilience are needed to build risk mitigation capabilities and flexibility to respond rapidly to challenges (Ben-Daya, Hassini & Bahroun 2019:4719). According to Rodriguez et al. (2021:122), companies evaluated the prospects for development in Industry 4.0, particularly in terms of productivity, flexibility and efficiency, and concluded that Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) technologies allow them to implement many creative applications in organisational business models. This has been happening in both the developed and developing economies in the Western world. For example, developing economies such as South Korea, Indonesia, the United Kingdom (UK), Japan, China, Germany, Malaysia and France to mention a few, have developed models on the application of technology to boost their resilience in business operations.

According to Yang, Kim and Yin (2021:2), the South Korean government developed a Flagship Project Support Program (FPSP) to assist its small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in technology fields. This model assisted South Korea in curbing barriers to entry to the markets. On the other hand, Rodrigues et al. (2021:131) reveal that the Malaysian government adopted Industry 4.0 initiatives thereby implementing automation in their processes and creating smart manufacturing for businesses. In Indonesia, the government adopted Industry 4.0 technologies and created a citizen-based intelligence model, which sought to promote sustainable development that will reduce poverty and lay the foundation for the coming generation (Anggusti & Siallagan 2018:3).

In South Africa, Mukwawaya, Emwamu and Mdakane (2018:1590) argue that the application of technology in public procurement will require a refocus from a traditional sense of Industry 3.0. Therefore, the government needs to plan and provide a suitable platform for the advancement of Industry 4.0 technologies in the procurement landscape. To emphasise more on the application of Industry 4.0 technologies on procurement, Jahani et al. (2021:2) argue that Industry 4.0 technologies facilitate the process of purchasing as a useful means. That is, it connects all the stakeholders in the value chain and allows a quick and robust collaboration and coordination beyond organisational limits. For the South African public sector, this implies that the collaboration will go as far as stakeholder engagement regarding required goods and services to the ultimate service delivery. SBI (2021:11) posits that the implementation of Industry 4.0 technologies may augment prospects for data collection and analysis, thereby facilitating the development of more precise and efficacious approaches to alleviating poverty.

In today’s dynamic and competitive business climate, digitalisation through Industry 4.0 technologies has become a global phenomenon affecting several parts of life. These technologies have become significant for the public sector procurement on a global scale as well. South Africa as a developing economy is equally affected by the significance of Industry 4.0 technologies. Globally, Ageron et al. (2020:133) highlight that Industry 4.0 technologies have assisted companies that have adopted them to gain a competitive advantage over others. In agreement, Chamba, Chari and Zhou (2023:352) highlight that opportunities that result from the adoption and use of Industry 4.0 by numerous public and private organisations include leapfrogging efficiency through efficient communication, storage of large volumes of data, processing of big data and transmission of enormous volumes of data to multiple locations. These concepts are critical to the South African procurement process as efficient communication and data processing are significant to the planning phase (National Treasury 2017). The significance of Industry 4.0 technologies to South African Procurement processes, is informed by the need to respond rapidly to service delivery needs. Industry 4.0 technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud computing offer ideal solutions to address the challenges that face the South African procurement landscape. According to Chamba et al. (2023:352), Industry 4.0 technologies have brought a significant change to businesses globally; for the South African government and its procurement process, the adoption of these technologies will lead to sustainable economic development which will come as a result of cost efficiency, improved service delivery, competitiveness among entrepreneurs and creation of innovative jobs in various sectors. Mukwawaya et al. (2018:1590) have suggested that in South Africa harnessing Industry 4.0 technologies will address the economic challenges that the country faces by creating competitiveness among companies which will lead improvement of efficiency.

Ethical approval to conduct this study was obtained from the North-West University Senate Committee for Research Ethics (No. NWU-00656/24/A4).

According to Kiger and Varpio (2020:3–5), this step involves becoming familiar with the entire data set. This step is necessary for research to be able to identify suitable information that is relevant to the research objectives (Byrne 2022:1398). This study relied on secondary data extracted from journal articles between 2019 and 2024, and procurement legislation enacted by the South African government since the reformation of public procurement in 1996. The familiarisation was done on data collected from Scopus, Sabinet and Web of Science databases. On these databases, a literature search was carried out with the keywords ‘Industry 4.0’, ‘Procurement’, ‘Public sector’ and ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’. The search was limited to the period between 2019 and 2024 based on the researcher’s view that Industry 4.0 is an evolving concept and literature should be within the last 5 years to reveal the most recent insights. The preliminary search conducted from the databases is presented in Table 1. This step was critical for this study to present a review of literature that is related and relevant to South African public sector procurement. The literature surveyed focussed on the procurement set-up in the public sector in South Africa, and thereafter the revolution of Industry 4.0 technologies with its prospects and benefits was taken into consideration.

The total number of papers retrieved was 121. After removing the duplicates, a total of 49 papers were used to address the research objectives of this study. Also, the study analysed SCM framework to provide context to the topic and bring alignment to the final report.

This is an analytic step in the process that helps to shape data at a granular, explicit level (Kiger & Varpio 2020:5). In this step, the researchers begin to take notes on probable data items of significance, linking between data items and other preliminary intentions (Byrne 2022:1399). In other words, the idea of this step is to generate codes and not themes. This step systematically observed the description of the manifestation of Industry 4.0 and public procurement content. Coding was done manually, and to provide context, the research highlighted the keywords from which the codes were extracted (Table 2).

According to Braun and Clarke (2006), the third step encompasses scrutiny of the coded and collated data extracts to look for probable themes of broader significance. Kiger and Varpio (2020:6) highlight that themes are constructed by the researcher through analysing, combining, comparing and even graphically mapping how codes relate to one another. Table 3 depicts the construction of themes from the codes in relation to each other. This grouping considered the procurement set-up in South Africa’s public sector context.

Braun and Clarke (2006) describe this step as a two-level systematic process. In the first level of analysis, the researcher looks at coded data placed within each theme to ensure proper fit. At this point, data extracts can be re-sorted and themes modified to better reflect and capture coded data (Kiger & Varpio 2020:6). For example, themes can be added, combined, divided or even discarded. During this step, the researchers reviewed the themes and e-Inform and e-Design were linked together as they addressed the same issues. The second level uses the same set of themes to determine if they fit meaningfully within the data set (Byrne 2022:1404). On this level, the researchers combined and created the linkage between the codes and themes as they fitted together meaningfully. Therefore, some of the codes and themes were grouped as they addressed the same functions as shown in Table 4.

According to Braun and Clarke (2006), once the thematic map has been refined, the researcher has to create a definition and narrative description. Further, there must be an explanation of why the themes are important to the broader study objective (Byrne 2020:1405). However, during this stage the researcher deemed it fit to provide clarity on the themes at the last step that deals with producing a report. This approach was deemed fit as it provides clarity on themes and addresses the intentions of the study more robustly.

This final step involves writing up the final analysis and description of findings (Braun & Clarke 2006). Moreover, Peel (2020:8) describes this stage as a presentation of a detailed picture of the analysed data. It is for that reason that the researcher indicated at Step 5 that the description of themes will be done in this step. Therefore, the final report moves beyond a mere description of codes and themes but also interlaces a narrative that provides a clear, concise and rational account of the interpretation of data.

The following sections provide a detailed description and analysis of the themes.

To gain a deeper understanding of the elements of public procurement presented in Figure 2, the researchers aligned them to what the government intends to do in terms of its processes aligned to all legislative requirements. Furthermore, the researchers readjusted these elements to meet the objectives that the government hopes to achieve through the SCM framework indicated in Figure 1. The procurement process starts with planning which in South African terms is referred to as demand management. Over the years, demand management has been neglected and reduced to compiling and submitting the procurement plan to the National Treasury and then reporting on its implementation quarterly. However, data-driven decision-making which will be made possible by e-inform will play a critical role in the process.

According to various scholars (Addo 2019; Fadhlillah & Juwono 2021; Sonavale & Londhe 2019), e-inform and e-design will not only address the planning phase but also disseminate information across every step in the entire value chain to assist the participants in making informed decisions. Thus, e-inform is not only critical for government planning, but it will also assist service providers in designing their e-catalogues for their products and service offerings. According to Madzimure, Mafini and Dhurup (2020:1), embracing technological initiatives in government procurement will allow small businesses to compete with larger enterprises for goods and services that are required by the government. The e-design allows both the supplier and the purchaser to design their product offering and requirements respectively on the digital platforms (Madzimure 2020:3). These elements, according to Addo (2019:54), will assist the government in facilitating specification drafting, determining the right sourcing method, drafting contractual agreements, and generation and authorisation of payment requisitions. In agreement, Mafungwa and Ngcobo (2019:11) propose a digital procurement enabler that will incorporate forecasting in demand, capacity planning, and collaborative optimisation in procurement. This can be achieved through e-inform suggested by Addo (2019:54), as it populates information that is crucial for procurement planning and service level agreement (SLA) drafting. It can be concluded that e-design and e-inform will gather crucial information at every stage of the process thereby creating seamless integration to design procurement plans and SLAs.

Furthermore, the suppliers can set up their products or list their services through e-catalogue (McLennan & Prakash 2022). While this might be the case, Hudrasyah et al. (2019:16) highlighted that an e-catalogue is ideal for direct purchasing in public procurement. Thus, in the South African context, it can be used for small amount purchases known as petty cash procurement. According to Mahat et al. (2022:347), these systems in government will not only allow contracting authorities to electronically purchase goods or services; they will further allow suppliers to display their products on the web.

A study conducted by Fadhlillah and Juwono (2021:122) suggested two applications for digital procurement which are e-tendering and e-purchasing. Correspondingly, Mpehle and Mudogwa (2020:3) propose an e-catalogue to form part of the digital procurement systems. On the other hand, the study conducted by Addo (2019:54) suggests the key elements of digital procurement to include among others e-sourcing, e-tendering, e-reverse auction, e-ordering and web-based enterprise resource planning (ERP). Likewise, Sonavale and Londhe (2019:4) highlight that the seamless integration of e-reverse auction and e-tendering will yield positive results such as maintaining transparency, fairness and elimination of possible collusion between suppliers. Boafo Ahudey and Darteh (2020:242) also agree that e-tendering, e-supplier relations management, e-requisition, e-tender evaluation and e-supplier selection are significant to public procurement and should be applied.

It is suggested that e-reverse auction must be one of the key elements that Industry 4.0 must form as part of digital public procurement. According to De la Harpe (2012), an e-reverse auction is a topic that gained momentum in the mid-2000s and it became a trend in public procurement. Unlike a traditional auction that comprises one supplier and multiple purchasers, in an e-reverse auction, the process involves one purchaser and multiple suppliers (BHEL 2021). Bajpai and Malviya (2023:354) explain in a nutshell that a reverse auction is a type of auction in which the distinctive tasks of a purchaser and a supplier are exchanged. Thus, the purchaser specifies their needs, and suppliers progressively bid. The lowest bidder wins the right to supply. Therefore, such reverse auctions are often conducted electronically. However, in a reverse auction where the ultimate target is the lowest price, the researchers argue that the lowest price is not a balanced achievement as it does not align with the best quality of goods or services. Hence, the National Treasury (2017) emphasises competitive prices instead of low prices. To that effect, the research concurs with the notion of e-sourcing to determine the procurement approach. In the context of the South African government, the National Treasury (2017) divides this procedure into two categories (Request for Proposal [RFP] and Request for Quote [RFQ]). In line with the e-tendering and e-purchasing suggested, Sonavale and Londhe (2021:6) suggest that an e-reverse auction, e-sourcing in the context of this study, must address two categories namely, open bid and closed bid. This will align well with the intention of the National Treasury process as indicated. Lastly, setting up specifications will be made possible by e-design (Madzimure 2020:2).

The next element in the procurement process will be e-evaluation. According to Ageron et al. (2020:135), evaluation includes strategic, financial and non-financial measures and metrics to determine productivity and efficiency. The evaluation stage in public procurement is the most critical one, in that it is where most corruption occurs (Lukhele, Botha & Mbanga 2022:53). To counter that challenge, Mpehle and Mudogwa (2020:7) highlight that e-verification of supplier information will curb possible collusion among suppliers and promote a sound public procurement system that will force officials to be fair. Lukhele et al. (2022:64) suggested that officials award contracts to service providers who do not have the capacity to deliver. Therefore, to guard against this act, the verification will analyse the performance history of a service provider before the adjudication and award to assist decision makers with relevant information in awards.

The contract management in the procurement process is one other critical aspect that has been overlooked. According to Babirye, Tait and Oosthuizen (2022:2), contract compliance is a significant role player in strategic management in that it addresses non-compliance, procurement delays and late payments to suppliers. Further, Babirye et al. (2022:3) highlight that this compliance must be characterised by ‘accountability, transparency, fairness, equity’, and compliance with the legislation. These principles are consistent with the legislative provisions that govern South African public procurement (Mathiba 2020:649; Molepo & Jahed 2022:234). The introduction of technology in contract management will address challenges such as unethical and peddling in the contract phase of the procurement (Baghel, Dwivedi & Singh 2023:74). Also, the real-time monitoring offered by IoT assists in enhancing traceability allowing predictive maintenance and replenishment (Khan, et al. 2023:6). Thus, it will eliminate instances of defaulting on contracts by alerting both the buying entity and the service provider when there is a need for maintenance or replenishment of inventory items. Furthermore, Althabatah et al. (2023:27) highlight that smart contracts are considered to be enablers of transparency and secure transactions in the procurement process. According to a study conducted by Baghel, Dwivedi and Singh (2023:74) on leveraging IoT to detect fraud in credit card transactions, it was revealed that IoT can detect fraudulent activities by incorporating various components and processes. This can be used to detect fraudulent activities during contract implementation within public procurement.