Drivers of Supply Chain Innovation

PROCUREMENT
AND SUPPLY
CHAIN
MANAGEMENT

Letter to Editor
Yash
Address
City, State, Zip
Email ID/Contact No.
Date
The Editor
Procurement and Supply Australasia
City, State, Zip
Dear Editor,
Supply chain innovation has been one of the recent trends in the industry and managing
an efficient supply chain structure helps and organization to do well in the competitive
market. Innovation through technology is the new revolutionary drift being observed by
the market. The article published on a similar context on the Procurement and Supply’s
official website for dimensions and drivers of innovation are under observation in this
report. The article titled ‘What are the drivers of Supply Chain Innovation?’ published on
July 17, 2019 by PROKURIA is one of the most effective and impactful articles,
highlighting the key drivers of change, calling the need for upscaling the management
principles in the stream.
The article states the fundamental factors to run a well-to-do business. Cost-
effectiveness is considered to be an important business parameter, but the primary
objective of business is stated to be creating customers of service offering. The process
highlights the positioning and targeting to be the attributes for developing customer
base and retaining existing ones. The ability to creating market value through market
penetration, by utilizing the innovation and its techniques is one of the most successful
methods (Oke & Prajogo, 2013). The primary direction shared by the article, that
explains the importance of innovative strategizing for expanding consumer base is a
strong thesis, and I completely stand by the statement.
Page 1 of 8
Supply Chain

Technology has always excited human interest in any product or services. As we moved
towards automation and the internet, the demand for alternative to manual tasks
through automation surfaced. Slowly and gradually, technological innovation has had a
breakthrough, to an extent that most of the operations in the supply chain are now
closely collaborated with the technological upscaled innovations. Innovations brought
transparency, precision, shorter delivery cycles, options and preference settings to
customers, cost efficiency and speed in the service sector, which has helped in
developing a new customer base (Rimiene & Bernatonyte, 2013). Therefore, the
primary objective of innovation is strengthening the supply chain and to act as a key
driving force. The article refers to various drivers, considering that people, both
employees and consumers, should be the major driving force behind innovation, yet
supporting internet and technological interventions to enhance supply chain mechanism
are all acclaimed motivators for a good supply chain management, to which I strongly
agree.
Consumer trend drifts almost every day, with alternatives and service offerings from
various contenders in the market. A study by Kim, Thomas, Paul, & Brown (2015)
reflects that collaboration between people and knowledge acquisition, of consumer
meta-data, are often the key indicators of innovation in the supply chain. But it was
Ageron (2013), with others, who designed a study merging theoretical concepts of
technological, process, product, and marketing capabilities as performance
measurement methods as supply chain innovation drivers. The driver mentioned in the
article, that relates consumers and people to be the primary forces in supply chain
innovation, is justified with enhanced literature review where recurrently the
collaboration between people has played a major role in driving the need for innovation.
Another crucial driver in supply chain innovation, as covered in the article is technology.
Extensive usage of technical gadgets, high-quality performance, reliability, and
transparency are the key achievements attained from the internet of things. The article
mentions the reluctance of usage of drones in everyday life, as service innovation
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Supply Chain