Digital Technologies and Supply Chain Management: Historic, Current, and Future Perspectives

Introduction

Several aspects of global life have been impacted by the arrival of digitization in today's fast-paced, unpredictable, and intensely competitive global economy. According to statistics, over ninety percent of internet users have conducted online purchases, and forty percent of firms have used sophisticated technology for big data analytics. In addition, by 2020, 26 billion “things” will be capable of connecting to the “Internet of things” (Hung, 2017). In order to improve customer satisfaction, it would be necessary to address the problems associated with DSC installation, optimization, and development, as well as the need for new management strategies. Although these challenges have been widely addressed by practitioners and are being explored by a growing number of firms (such as DHL and DB), the phenomenon of DSC is still in its infancy in the academic world, and its potential is largely unknown (Büyüközkan & Göçer, 2018). Small enterprises and large organizations depend on supply chain management systems, which describe each stage of the manufacturing process, from the procurement of raw materials to the shipment of completed items to clients. The operations functionality should be optimized for speed and efficiency as part of a well-organized supply chain management system. Supply chain management is more than a technique to save costs or increase productivity inside an organization. Modern supply change management goes beyond these principles by combining a company's activities to improve customer service and boost revenues.

Little research has directly addressed DSC, and the information is still dispersed throughout other domains. Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data (BD), Cloud Computing (CC), and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) are just a few of the DSC technological drivers that have been the subject of earlier research. In particular, Majeed and Rupasinghe (2017) studied how IoT may support Industry 4.0 and DSC by simplifying supply chain planning, management, and coordination. Preindl et al. (2020) investigated the impact of Industry 4.0 and digital transformation on supply chain-wide cooperation and decision-making. Moreover, Makris et al. (2019) have investigated how multinational firms in five distinct industries may profit from the transition to Supply Chain 4.0. BD and predictive analytics have increased supply chain visibility, robustness, resilience, and organizational performance. The use of cloud computing inside the supply chain is another topic that has received little theoretical or practical investigation, despite its similarity to the digital technologies outlined above. (Gunasekaran et al., 2017). Few empirical studies on this issue have been undertaken, but those that have tended to focus on the characteristics that led to the broad adoption of cloud computing (Manuel Maqueira et al., 2019; Wu et al., 2013) and the implications of cloud computing on the supply chain (Teuteberg, 2015). Cloud computing facilitates the expansion of supply networks and enhances the efficacy and flexibility of supply chain activities (Giannakis et al., 2019; Teuteberg, 2015).

The emergence of the digital age has drastically transformed the business in recent decades. These processes were difficult, sluggish, disorganized, and filled with physical labor twenty years ago. In the past, the delivery may take up to a month, but now it can be completed in a couple of hours. In the present era of automated systems and immediate communication, supply chain management is in high demand owing to the ease and efficacy it provides to the administration of a firm. This book and this chapter are particularly helpful in understanding the following questions; how is digital transformation linked to developing a company's supply chain management strategies? What impact will disruptive technologies have on the operations and activities of the supply chain? Will they resemble what we already see, or will they be drastically different? Do managers need new knowledge of SCM, or can they get by with the current one? What game-changing technologies are driving these organizational revolutions? Who is my primary adversary in the increasingly digitalized economy? What impact will the digital transformation have on the skills desired by businesses, the job, and the nature of work?

Figure 1.

Containers and Ships at a busy port Source: Homeland security Digital library (hsdl.org)