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Enablers to supply chain performance on the basis of digitization technologies

Himanshu Gupta (Management Studies, Indian Institute of Technology (Indian School of Mines), Dhanbad, India)
Sarangdhar Kumar (Management Studies, Indian Institute of Technology (Indian School of Mines), Dhanbad, India)
Simonov Kusi-Sarpong (Southampton Business School, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK)
Charbel Jose Chiappetta Jabbour (Lincoln International Business School, University of Lincoln, Lincoln, UK)
Martin Agyemang (New Haudu Business School, Minjiang University, Fuzhou, China)

Industrial Management & Data Systems

ISSN: 0263-5577

Article publication date: 10 November 2020

Issue publication date: 23 September 2021

2936

Abstract

Purpose

The aim of this study is to identify and prioritize a list of key digitization enablers that can improve supply chain management (SCM). SCM is an important driver for organization's competitive advantage. The fierce competition in the market has forced companies to look the past conventional decision-making process, which is based on intuition and previous experience. The swift evolution of information technologies (ITs) and digitization tools has changed the scenario for many industries, including those involved in SCM.

Design/methodology/approach

The Best Worst Method (BWM) has been applied to evaluate, rank and prioritize the key digitization and IT enablers beneficial for the improvement of SC performance. The study also used additive value function to rank the organizations on their SC performance with respect to digitization enablers.

Findings

The total of 25 key enablers have been identified and ranked. The results revealed that “big data/data science skills”, “tracking and localization of products” and “appropriate and feasibility study for aiding the selection and adoption of big data technologies and techniques ” are the top three digitization and IT enablers that organizations need to focus much in order to improve their SC performance. The study also ranked the SC performance of the organizations based on digitization enablers.

Practical implications

The findings of this study will help the organizations to focus on certain digitization technologies in order to improve their SC performance. This study also provides an original framework for organizations to rank the key digitization enablers according to enablers relevant in their context and also to compare their performance with their counterparts.

Originality/value

This study seems to be the first of its kind in which 25 digitization enablers categorized in four main categories are ranked using a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) tool. This study is also first of its kind in ranking the organizations in their SC performance based on weights/ranks of digitization enablers.

Keywords

Citation

Gupta, H., Kumar, S., Kusi-Sarpong, S., Jabbour, C.J.C. and Agyemang, M. (2021), "Enablers to supply chain performance on the basis of digitization technologies", Industrial Management & Data Systems, Vol. 121 No. 9, pp. 1915-1938. https://doi.org/10.1108/IMDS-07-2020-0421

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited

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