Title: Role of IT in SCM environment

Authors: Ch.V.V.S.N.V. Prasad, Kannan Govindan, D.M. Kulkarni

Addresses: Management Group, Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, Goa Campus, Goa, India. ' Department of Business and Economics, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, DK-5230 Odense, Denmark. ' Mechanical Engineering Group, Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, Goa Campus, Goa, India

Abstract: Information technology (IT) plays a major role in improving organisational competitiveness in the 21st century global market. Supply chain management (SCM) is the 21st century global operations strategy for organisational competitiveness. IT is considered the backbone for achieving integration across and beyond the enterprise. SCM and IT are two areas of research, which have attracted a lot of attention in academic and practitioner|s camps over the last decades. The discussion related to the deployment of IT and electronic commerce in SCM has fostered a discussion about IT enabled supply chains. This paper investigates the influence of different IT technologies in managing supply chain. A study observed that integration, standardisation, information sharing and visibility, customer service, and process improvement are the characteristics of IT enablers in SCM environment. While standardisation and integration of internal business processes enabled by IT provides the backbone for supply chain integration, lack of trust between supply chain partners, inadequate integration of internal business processes and information, lack of IT sophistication amongst the other supply chain partners are some of the factors that limit the potential of IT technologies.

Keywords: supply chain management; SCM; information technology; IT enablers; supply chain integration, standardisation; information sharing; visibility; customer service; process improvement.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBPSCM.2010.034471

International Journal of Business Performance and Supply Chain Modelling, 2010 Vol.2 No.1, pp.81 - 94

Published online: 05 Aug 2010 *

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