Abstract :
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Over the past decade, an important focus of
researchers has been on supply chain management (SCM),
as many organizations believe that effective SCM is the key
to building and sustaining competitive advantage for their
products/services. To manage the supply chain, companies
need to adopt an SCM strategy (SCMS) and implement
appropriate SCM practices. However, different SCM
strategies and practices require support from appropriate
information technology (IT) applications and their usage.
To effectively manage the supply chain, there is therefore a
need for aligning these applications and their usage with
the supply chain strategy and practices of the firm. While
the literature on IT-business alignment has mainly focused
on various aspects of the alignment between information
systems strategy and business strategy, it is largely deficient
in offering an understanding of how specific supply chain
strategies should be aligned with relevant IS strategies.
Similarly, prior studies on SCM have developed
considerable detail on supply chain strategies, without
enunciating the implications of these strategies for the use
of IT. Additionally, many studies have examined the
importance of implementing SCM practices and their
impact on supply chain and firm performance without
identifying the corresponding Information systems usage
that might be required for executing those practices in a
more effective manner. Thus, there is need to studies that
can explore the relation between SCM and the usage of IT.
This study is an attempt to study and understand the
phenomenon by which IT has been used for integration
purposes in the supply chain context and to examine how
Information Systems Integration significantly affect the
performance of supply chain management.
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