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Top1. Introduction
Fast technology developments and vibrant market dynamics have altered the enterprise landscape as also fundamentally transformed prevailing business models. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) applications and deployment has unlocked the gates for enterprises to compete in any marketplace. Enterprises of all hues and sizes are exposed to the present-day challenges of bigger competition, pricing pressures and globalization.
ICT tools are excellent enablers of business processes. ICT tools and applications in various supply chain processes have delivered a competitive edge for all enterprises. This is in terms of effective access to timely and actionable information as also communication, collaboration and dialogue with various stakeholders. Supply chains have been rendered more transparent, visible, resilient, adaptable and pro-active in decision-making as a result of ICT deployment. And this benefit has percolated to their partners and suppliers, who are connected to the enterprise through an extranet. An inclusive attempt to outline the wide impact of ICT in Supply Chain Management (SCM) is in the definition of functional roles of ICT (Van Hoek et al. 2005) as transaction implementation, partnership and decision support.
The impact of ICT application in SCM is described as enabling information obtainability and visibility; proactive decision-making and enabling communication & co-operation with various stakeholders (Dong et al, 2009). The literature also points out other benefits like improvements in workflow, savings, operational efficiency, customer-interface, innovation & differentiation of products or services (de Barros et al, 2015). There have been investigations on the impact of ICT on SCM from a resource-based view. One granular approach is to divide ICT-based resources into ICT advances and ICT alignment. ICT advancement is the usage of cutting-edge tools and technologies while ICT alignment reflects the integration of the enterprise with its suppliers and partners enabled through these ICT tools (Wu, 2006). A recent study highlights the role of digital transformation in a co-creation strategy to develop products wherein the customer is in the loop in every step of the product development process (Mihardjo et al, 2020).
The magnitude of annual global supply chain losses is huge. Cargo theft has resulted in loss of $ 23 billion dollars as per BSI in 2015. 3 out 4 companies have seen disruptions in their supply chains in 2015. Supply chain disruptions resulted in closure of almost 65% of 900 Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants in Great Britain (Ferrantino and Koten, 2019). Considering the fact that annual global supply chain losses run into billions of dollars, use of ICT tools may not be able to predict natural disasters or terrorist attacks, but can definitely reduce cargo theft, transportation delays, losses and several other disruptions in the supply chain. The ICT advantage for SCM holds immense potential and savings for industry, be it large enterprises or Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME). This becomes all the more relevant considering the fact that annual global supply chain losses run into billions of dollars. Interestingly trending things in SCM such as VMI, POS, circular supply chain and collaborative replenishment are inherently linked to ICT deployment.