Free «Internet Technologies and Supply Chain Management» Essay Sample

In the current business environment, organizations have to deal with global competition in order to remain in business. In order to remain competitive, they have to embrace new strategies that are technologically inclined. Internet based supply chain management has been recognized as the best solution that supports collaboration in the supply Chain as the basis for maintaining market share and gaining competitive advantage. This paper will highlight the advantages of using the internet rather than traditional methods in supply chain management.

As compared to traditional methods, the internet provides companies with affordable, more accessible communication and technologies infrastructures that speed up the flow of information in supply chains (Simchi-Levi et al., 2008). The internet enables organizations to conduct business-to-business transactions because it enables companies to capture the market data more easily and send it up the supply chain faster than traditional methods. This can be attributed to the fact that the internet is a highly integrated communication tool for manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, consumers and other key alliance partners in the supply chain. Sherer (2005) argues that traditional methods hinder the sharing of information among manufacturers, suppliers, distributors and end users due to their centralized nature. This means that managers, technical workers, professional staff and engineers within these supply chain management entities are the lone custodians of the corporate knowledge base. The use of the internet blurs this traditional boundary because it offers the above entities of supply chain management a platform on which to share knowledge and information across time-boundaries, cultural-boundaries, and space-boundaries (Sherer, 2005)

Contrary to traditional methods that subjected customers to cumbersome and long processed before they could make a sale, the internet makes things easy for the customers because it allows them to purchase goods and services via a company’s website. It is apparent that the internet improved the efficiency and effectiveness of supply chain management.