» Driving Visibility, Velocity and Versatility: The Role of Mobile Technologies in Supply Chain Management

Umar Ruhi and Ofir Turel

DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University, Canada


Published in: Volume 4 Issue 3 November 2005.

Over the last decade, researchers and practitioners have recommended a myriad of information and communication technologies to operationalize the notion of a virtual enterprise. Among the business process transformations enabled through these new technologies, companies are using wireline and wireless technologies in redefining their interactions with suppliers, customers, and business partners. It is hoped that this move towards a truly collaborative supply chain environment will help the firm achieve sustainable competitive advantage in the marketplace. Towards that end, supply chain planners are emphasizing the need for information exchange anytime,anywhere as a compelling driver for organizations to adopt mobile technologies in their intra and inter-organizational business practices. This paper discusses the applications of mobile technologies in various areas of supply chain management, and the potential benefits along the dimensions of reduced replenishment times, and transactions and billing cycles. Among other applications, we highlight the role of these technologies in improving processes such as inventory management, product identification, mobile procurement, package tracking, and sales force and field service. To substantiate the basis for adopting mobile technologies for supply chain management, different market drivers for mobile applications are exemplified and applied to the three macro level processes of supplier relationship management, internal supply chain management, and customer relationship management. Several types of legacy, third generation (3G) and emerging mobile services and applications are discussed, and a resulting taxonomy of bearer technologies is presented to explicate their use in upstream and downstream supply chain processes.

Keywords: inter-organizational relationships, inter-organizational information systems, mobile commerce, mobile supply chain management, wireless technologies, taxonomy.

Online: Link to Article Abstract on Publisher's Website