Revisit supply chain management: evolution, definition and benefits

Abstract

Nowadays, changes to business models such as lowering production costs, delivering ever-increasing customer value, higher product quality, flexibility and superior and the pervasive impact of information technology are increasingly creating massive challenges for businesses to survive. These challenges stress the importance of managing cross-boundary relationships between business partners. Therefore, many companies have begun to identify that today competition occurs between supply chain networks rather than individual firms. For gaining a competitive advantage, supply chain management (SCM) is an effective tool for manufacturing to survive. The purpose of this paper is to revisit the SCM evolution, definition and benefits of SCM. The SCM field has evolved rapidly. Previously, SCM focused on internal integration but now focuses on supplier, customer and information integration to reach optimal levels of performance. Besides, the lack of an overarching SCM definition may affect the development and adoption of SCM theory. Without a single consensus SCM definition, researchers are unable to further develop the theory and practice. Therefore, an encompassing and inclusive definition of SCM is of paramount importance to help scholars and practitioners, such as supply chain executives to develop sound SCM strategies. Though there is a great deal of literature obtainable on the potential benefits of SCM, however, Malaysian manufacturing firms underestimate the potential benefits of SCM. Therefore, this review provides insight to researchers and practitioners to have better understanding towards implementation of an effective and efficient SCM.