The impact of electronic commerce on the supply chain

Citation

Mora-Monge, C.A. (2010), "The impact of electronic commerce on the supply chain", Benchmarking: An International Journal, Vol. 17 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/bij.2010.13117daa.001

The impact of electronic commerce on the supply chain

Article Type: Guest editorial From: Benchmarking: An International Journal, Volume 17, Issue 4

About the Guest Editor Carlo A. Mora-Monge is an Associate Professor of Information Systems in the Department of Accounting and Information Systems, College of Business, New Mexico State University. He holds a Bachelor’s degree from the Instituto Tecnologico de Costa Rica and Master’s and PhD degrees from The University of Toledo. His current research interests span technology management, electronic commerce and supply chain management. His research appears in journals such as the International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, International Journal of Integrated Supply Management, Benchmarking: An International Journal, among others. Before joining the academia, Dr Mora-Monge collaborated with several organizations including General Motors, Schneider, and Siemens.

The current weakening economy conditions are forcing companies across the world to reinvent their relations with customers and suppliers alike by adding more value to these interactions while at the same time lowering costs. Recent news show that many firms are moving towards integrated global business models, increasing the complexities of a supply chain (Blanchard, 2008).

To overcome these challenges, companies are concentrating their efforts on information technology (IT) to optimize their supply chains, as evidenced by recent studies that indicate that B2B e-commerce transactions are expected to reach $12.4 trillion worldwide in 2012 (IDC Research, 2007). Examples of such technologies include RFID, CRM, supply chain visibility, e-procurement, electronic markets, etc.

Thus, it is imperative to broaden our knowledge on the impact on these technologies on the supply chain, and determine whether they improve the performance of the supply chain in general and the firm in particular. To this end, the purpose of this special issue is to bring together recent studies on the impact of electronic commerce on the supply chain. The special issue presents a diverse variety of papers including theory building, case studies, and empirical research.

The special issue starts with a theoretical paper on the adoption of e-procurement technologies by Arash Azadegan and Jeffrey Teich. The authors provide a theory based conceptual framework that helps understanding when and how benchmarking applies to e-procurement adoption based on established innovation theories. The authors then use framework to develop propositions on the adoption of two distinct types of e-procurement technologies, namely EDI and online auctions.

Continuing on the subject of e-procurement, the second paper, by Federico Caniato, Ruggero Golini, Davide Luzzini, and Stefano Ronchi, tackles the identification of maturity stages for e-procurement adoption by conceptualizing and developing a theoretical framework. To evaluate their framework, the authors study the purchasing operations of 13 Italian companies spanning several industries. Their findings indicate three levels of e-procurement adoption including basic, intermediate, and advanced. These levels are dependent on a number of factors, including technological, organizational objectives, and the interaction between them. Their findings provide interesting insights to managers trying to position their companies into a maturity stage while coherent the technological and organizational choices of the company.

Gioconda Quesada, Marvin E. González, James Mueller, and Rene Mueller posit a model to investigate relationships between e-procurement technology usage, procurement practices and procurement performance. This model was developed from previous research and the authors tested it using a sample of 368 procurement specialists in the USA. The contributions of this paper are mainly threefold. First, it develops reliable measures for e-procurement use that can be used to benchmark the situation of a company and its impact on procurement practices. Second, the findings of the empirical study indicate that both procurement practices and e-procurement technology usage have a positive relationship on procurement performance. Third, the study also finds that despite a somewhat adoption rate of e-procurement technologies among the companies surveyed, suggesting companies should pay more attention to the usage of e-procurement technologies as a means for continuously improving their information gathering, supplier contact, contracting and intelligence and analysis practices.

The fourth paper, by Paul Hong, Oahn Tran, and Kihyun Park, empirically examines the impacts of supplier- and customer-oriented electronic communication technologies on supply chain integration and manufacturing competitive capabilities. Based on the resourced-based view theory, the authors develop a model which is then tested using a sample of 711 firms (IMSS IV) spanning over 20 countries. The findings show the importance of applying two specific electronic communication technologies (namely EDI and internet-based communication) for both supplier and customer integration. The paper also highlights the positive impact of supplier integration and customer integration on manufacturing competitive capabilities. Results also suggest patterns among manufacturing firms around the world in regards to supply chain integration, indicating that effective supply chain integration requires integration of suppliers and customers through the selective uses of electronic communication technologies.

Paul C. Hong, David D. Dobrzykowski, and Mark A. Vonderembse examine the use of specific supply chain ITs for e-commerce, e-procurement, and enterprise resource planning (ERP), when implementing lean practices to achieve mass customization (MC) performance. In particular, the study investigates how these technologies might be deployed in produce and service industries. Using a secondary data source to test the proposed model (IMSS IV), findings suggest that lean practices can reasonably predict MC performance, and e-commerce and e-procurement reasonably predict MC performance. Results also suggest that e-commerce use is a better predictor of performance than e-procurement or ERP for service focused manufacturers. E-commerce and e-procurement appear to be reasonable predictors of MC performance in product focused manufacturers, while ERP is not. The authors then highlight a number of “best practices” related to lean practices, e-commerce, e-procurement, and ERP emerge among high MC performers.

As supply chains become more complex, having not only to deal to a worldwide supplier base, but also with multi-tiered networks of suppliers, visibility has become a critical topic. In order to gain some insights on this subject, the sixth paper, by Maria Caridi, Luca Crippa, Alessandro Perego, Andrea Sianesi, and Angela Tumino, provides a structured and quantitative approach to assess the visibility that a company has of its supply chain. Supply chain visibility is analyzed in the paper in terms of both the quantity and the quality (e.g. accuracy and speed) of the information flowing between the supply chain leader and the suppliers at different tiers. The proposed methodology is then tested using seven case studies. The proposed visibility index is a significant contribution to research and provides a useful tool to evaluate whether a firm has the possibility to build competitive advantages that exploit unique resources beyond the boundaries of the company. Also, the findings prove that the visibility measure might be also useful to practitioners to benchmark among different companies, among different supply chains, and within the same company, or to compare a supply chain’s visibility level before and after the implementation of technological and/or organizational changes.

Finally, Alessandro Perego and Alessandro Salgaro discuss an interesting quantitative assessment of the benefits obtainable by using information and communication technologies (ICT) to integrate the order-to-payment process. Using an activity base costing approach, a model is developed and used to analyze the Italian home appliances industry. The results indicate that when comparing a paper based versus electronic integrated order-to-payment scenarios, the potential savings amount to about 80 percent of the costs; benefits shared for the most part equally between retailer and the manufacturer. Results show that most of the benefits come from the reduction in the management costs of non-conformity issues, highlighting the importance of using ICT’s to improve the order-to-payment process.

I would like to sincerely thank all the anonymous referees who helped in this process and greatly improved the quality of the articles presented in this special issue. Also, the Guest Editor would like to acknowledge the guidance, suggestions and support from the Editor-in-Chief, Dr Angappa Gunasekaran. Finally, I sincerely hope that the papers selected for the special issue of BIJ can serve as valuable resources for practitioners and academicians alike who are interested in electronic commerce and supply chain management.

Carlo A. Mora-MongeGuest Editor