Current E‑Procurement Platforms (2020–2025): A Systematic Review of Architectures, Capabilities, and Implementation Outcomes

The evolution of e-procurement has moved beyond isolated digitisation projects to comprehensive, platform-based suites that bundle together e-tendering and sourcing, procure-to-pay (P2P), contract-lifecycle management (CLM), automated accounts payable, supplier-risk and sustainability tools, and advanced analytics. Extending the 2020 systematic review that mapped the barriers to public-sector adoption through the Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) framework, this paper consolidates research published after 2020 to describe today’s platform ecosystem and to assess whether emerging capabilities—cloud-native hosting, mobile interfaces, API-first integration, and especially artificial intelligence (AI)-have removed longstanding obstacles or simply transformed them. Following PRISMA-2020, we detail our protocol, search strategy, screening, quality appraisal, and data-extraction methods, capturing both quantitative and qualitative evidence on system functionalities, integration approaches, performance outcomes (shorter cycle times, higher compliance, greater transparency, enhanced supplier enablement, and more robust sustainability reporting), and persistent challenges (integration debt, skill gaps, governance alignment, and regulatory constraints). The synthesis shows a strong consensus that the quality of integration and data stewardship are still the pivotal factors for unlocking value; AI-driven features are becoming more common but are assessed unevenly; and differences between public and private sector governance and implementation speed remain pronounced. We finish by outlining a research agenda that calls for rigorous comparative studies, clearer AI governance frameworks, better cross-platform interoperability, and reliable ESG data pipelines.