Identifying Digital Supply Chain Capabilities

Abstract

In the global manufacturing sector, the ever-increasing digital transformation of Supply Chains (SCs) has become imperative, leading to building new digital and analytical capabilities to achieve SC competitiveness. However, building these new capabilities to integrate end-to-end Digital Supply Chains (DSCs) is a major challenge. There is a need to develop a SCM holistic view that facilitates the understanding of the fundamentals behind successful strategic alignment, information sharing, and collaborative decision-making across supply chains and networks. This paper examines key enabling digital and smart technologies transforming supply chains and networks through an explorative review of the scientific literature, identifying emerging DSC capabilities and technology adoption challenges that supply chains and networks face to achieve their digital transformation. Furthermore, this paper concludes that digital strategic alignment must be practised among DSC partners. The findings contribute to understanding how digital and analytical capabilities are built for DSC competitiveness – with implications for SCM theory and practice.