No abstract

Supply chain management is a major issue in many industries as firms realize the importance of creating an integrated relationship with their suppliers and customers. Managing the supply chain has become a way of improving competitiveness by reducing uncertainty and enhancing customer service. This paper analyzes various issues important to supply chain management and provides broader awareness of supply chain principles and concepts. The role of planning and coordination in complex integrated systems and information technology to synchronize the supply chain is described in a framework that creates the appropriate structure and installs proper controls in the enterprise and other constituents in the chain.

Purpose Cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) enables an organization to pay for the services they need and removes the need to maintain information technology infrastructure. The purpose of this paper is to empirically test the role of cloud-based ERP services on the performance of an organization. Here, the performance is categorized as supply chain performance and organizational performance that comprises of financial performance and marketing performance. Contingent resource-based view (RBV) theory was used to develop a theoretical framework in which supply base complexity (SBC) acts as a moderating variable on the relationship between cloud ERP and the performance. Design/methodology/approach Contingent RBV theory is used to explain the relationship between all identified variables in this paper. Partial least squares (PLS) based on structural equation modeling (SEM) is used to empirically test our theoretical framework. Findings The PLS-SEM analysis of 154 respondents supports the contingent RBV theory. Six hypotheses – out of the eight hypotheses formulated in this paper – are supported by data. Research limitations/implications Given this study was conducted in India where the potential of cloud ERP has not been fully implemented yet, the results may reflect more of perceived usefulness of this technology. The authors have attempted to understand the effect of SBC as a moderator in the relationship between cloud ERP and organizational performance which may not be the only moderator affecting this relationship among other potential moderators. Originality/value This paper empirically validates the theoretical framework based on the contingent RBV theory as it mitigates the static nature of the resource-based view approach suggested in the seminal article of Barney (1991).

The concept of supply chain is about managing coordinated information and material flows, plant operations, and logistics. It provides flexibility and agility in responding to consumer demand shifts without cost overlays in resource utilization. The fundamental premise of this philosophy is; synchronization among multiple autonomous business entities represented in it. That is, improved coordination within and between various supply-chain members. Increased coordination can lead to reduction in lead times and costs, alignment of interdependent decision-making processes, and improvement in the overall performance of each member as well as the supply chain. Describes architecture to create the appropriate structure, install proper controls, and implement principles of optimization to synchronize the supply chain. A supply-chain model based on a collaborative system approach is illustrated utilizing the example of the textile industry.

Benchmarking is an important tool to emulate existing best practices in the industry at large and for achieving continuous improvements in business operations. Numerous examples of successful benchmarking are available in the professional literature and corporations have successfully used it to attain world class manufacturing/service stature. This paper, in particular, studies the differences and the similarities in the various prevalent benchmarking approaches followed by some successful corporations. An important objective of this study is to identify factors which enhance the effectiveness of benchmarking.