The Impact of Information Technology on Supply Chain Management
Loading...
Date
2023-09-20
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Uganda Christian University
Abstract
Supply Chain Management (SCM) has been noted as an increasingly important management field
to help enterprises improve supply chain operations (Graham2013). The exponential growth of
Information Technology (IT) in Supply Chain Management (SCM) is playing critical role in opti-
mizing decisions of the supply chain network flow for achieving organizational competitiveness,
improving higher service level, lowering inventory, supply chain costs and reducing electronic
risks (Graham2013). In recent years, the development of the applications of IT in SCM has been
seen by many parties and it is observed that innovations enabled by IT are creating new ways for
firms to manage supply chain relationships (Waters 2009). The use of IT has received significant
attention in the supply chain context, which involves the flows of material, information, and fi-
nance in a network consisting of customers, suppliers, manufacturers, and distributors (Lee 2014).
However, the relationship between the two notions in term of the roles of IT in SCM remains still
as an area that requires more researches. Therefore, this study assessed the impact of information
technology (IT) on the SCM at century bottling company. The study also sought to investigate
various IT applications used in supply chain operations. The nature of the research was descriptive
and analytical. This involved quantifying data, tabulating findings and understanding treatment of
information on respectively. The sample size is composed of 52 respondent from IT department,
marketing, logistics, finance department and procurement department. Data was obtained from the
field using questionnaires and later analyzed using SPSS. Findings show that IT has improved the
processes of transactions across the various functions and also it is integrated in such a way that
information flows along the various functions between procurement, logistics and marketing
(TechFunne, 2020). The various technologies used have reduced costs of operations in the supply
chain and a lot of savings have been achieved (Williamson 2015). It is also noted that lead time
for orders have reduced due to effective sharing of information. There has an improved customer
services where both internal and external customers are happy in due to faster response from the
supply chain as supported by (Lim and Palvia 2011). The study recommends that manufacturing
organizations should implement IT in their supply chain operations to improve efficiencies. Fur-
thermore, the study recommends manufacturing firms in Uganda to incorporate all the information
technology (IT) components into the system Evans et al. (1993) and this will enable the organiza-
tion to improve the overall supply chain performance.
Description
This is a dissertation.