How Internet-Enabled Supply Chain Management Affects Large Businesses and SMEs - Dissertation Example

How Internet-Enabled Supply Chain Management Affects Large Businesses and SMEs

Supply Chain Management (SCM) involves the partnerships of suppliers, manufacturers, retailers, and customers. These entities ensure that businesses operate smoothly and follow a general pattern that achieves targets such as delivering goods and services to end-users. The emergence and incorporation of internet capabilities to SCMs is an innovation known as e-SCM and has significantly affected the way SCMs now operate. This study conducted a thorough review of literature on these topics as well as explored how theories and practices are applied in real companies. It also studied the case of two companies, a large computer company, and a small-scaled family-owned company. Both companies have modified their SCM from the traditional form, doing away with independent retailers and dealing with customers directly for their sales. Both companies have also adopted e-SCM. Each company is analyzed and compared to the other to see how e-SCM has affected their businesses.

Over the years, businesses have developed various strategies to improve the efficacy of the processes involved from the procurement of raw materials all the way down to the delivery to customers. It takes much time and several processes and within the whole period in between, there can be a world of possibilities that can happen that suppliers, manufacturers, and business owners should be aware of and ready for. Nowadays, with the significant benefit that the internet provides, integration, communication, and convenience have come with speed and efficiency, and transparency in supply chains.

Traditional supply chain management has always treated the manufacturer and the suppliers as distinct entities who work on their own terms and operating principles. On the other hand, the internet and other communication technologies have brought greater levels of coordination and transparency possible in the supply chain ecosystem in a much easier manner (Boyer and Hult, 2005). Systems like internet-enabled supply chains (e-SCM) help to streamline communication, enhance collaboration and coordination at the operational, tactical, and strategic levels (Liu et al. 2010).