Research Proposal: Impact of Digitalized Supply Chain Innovation

This research proposal investigates the impact of digitalized supply chain management on financial performance. It begins with an introduction and research background, emphasizing the importance of digitalization in modern business to improve efficiency and financial growth. The proposal outlines the research problem, rationale, and a comprehensive literature review discussing the role of technology, including big data analytics, drones, mobile applications, and cloud computing, in transforming supply chain processes. The research aims to explore the concept of digitalized supply chain management, discover its impact on financial performance, and recommend strategies for improvement. The methodology includes a qualitative research design, inductive approach, and data collection through secondary sources, with content analysis used for data analysis. Ethical considerations are addressed, and the expected outcome is an understanding of how digitalization influences company operations and financial results. The proposal concludes with a timescale/research planning section, providing a structured approach to the research process.

Research proposal
Digitalized Supply Chain Innovation in Supply Chain
6/24/2019

Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Research background.......................................................................................................................2
Research Problem and Rationale.....................................................................................................2
Literature Review............................................................................................................................3
Research aim and objectives............................................................................................................5
Research Question.......................................................................................................................5
Research Methodology....................................................................................................................6
Research design...........................................................................................................................6
Research strategy.........................................................................................................................6
Research approaches....................................................................................................................7
Data Collection Method...............................................................................................................7
Data analysis................................................................................................................................7
Ethical Consideration...................................................................................................................8
Expected outcome............................................................................................................................8
Timescale/research planning...........................................................................................................9
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................10
References......................................................................................................................................11

Introduction
Research title: Evaluate the impact of digitalized supply chain management on financial
performance.
Research background
In the current business era, it is imperative for the firm to imply the digitalization for
managing the supply chain process of the organization. This is mandatory for organization to
increase their existing knowledge towards research issue. The digitalization could eliminate the
manual issue of the firm. It is illustrated that digitalization could be effective in getting reliable
outcome. Moreover, it is examined that the digitalization in the supply chain process is effective
for making smooth process of the business, which will be effective in obtaining validity and
reliability of research result. In the current era, the world trade has been increased due to the
enhancement of new technology. It is illustrated that best understanding towards the
digitalization could increase the efficiency of employee that affected to the overall productivity
of the organization. The finance is imperative part of any business and each business has desire
to get higher financial growth. The digitalization has increased the possibilities of the firm to
improve their financial condition and supported to get favourable result.
Research Problem and Rationale
The purpose of the following work is to evaluate the impact of digitalized supply chain
management on financial performance. . The context of supply chain is taken to analyse the
improvisation of the supply chain as undertaken by the companies to ensure the consumer

responsiveness. Some of the major multinational companies that have a renowned set of supply
chain and logistic practices are the Amazon, Amazon, Alibaba, BMW, Lufthansa, and DHL
among others. The digital processes that are increasingly being used by the above-mentioned
companies are the E-freight, E payment systems, digital mobility lab, drones for deliveries of the
goods, robotics for handling of the goods, and the other new apps. Thus, the researcher is
interested in assessing the quantitative and qualitative aspects of the digitalisation in the supply
chain and logistics.
Literature Review
This is an obvious fact that the technology has been playing a key role in the shrinkage of
the cost and time of various business processes, including the supply chain and the logistics
department.
In the words of (Yoo, Lyytinen, Boland & Berente, 2010), the concept of digitalisation is
referred to as the revolution of socio-technical structures of the organisations, that were earlier
facilitated by non-digital artefacts. Further, these are inclusive of the change in the relationships
that are majorly driven by the digitized artefacts. It has been stated in the work of (Farahani,
Meier & Wilke, 2017) that the new technology has created a disruption in the market by
disordering the use of the traditional supply chain techniques and the management of the same.
According to (Pflaum, Bodendorf, Prockl & Chen, 2017) there will be consistent renovations in
the supply chain management due to advancements in the products like mobile phones, wireless
devices, big data analytics, scanners, drones, cloud computing and others.
Some of the chief technology enablers that have changed the face of the global supply
chain management are discussed as follows. The first key enabler is the big data analytics. The

technique aids in the reduction of the order-to-delivery cycle times, and thereby leads to the
improvement in the supply chain efficiency and the customer relationships. (Tan, Carrillo, &
Cheng, 2015) have stated in their work that data analytics greatly influence the supply chain by
gathering the data about the customer demands from the messages, videos, tweets, updates, click
streams, images uploaded on the social networks, readings from sensors and other online
sources. The second key driver in supply chain is the use of the drones in the delivery of goods.
The chief benefit of the use of the drones is the ease and speed in capturing data in the aerial
view as against the humans performing the same with the aid of the hand held devices. This is
followed by the use of the mobile applications and cloud computing technologies. The mobile
applications lead to the advancements in the bar code scanning, mobile payments, faster map
routing, and generation of real-time information. In the words, the use of mobile technologies aid
in the growth of the revenue for the entities by reduction in the inventory (Cagliano, Marco &
Rafele, 2017). The cloud computing services are either provided in the form of the hardware and
systems software, or over the internet. The major value addition in the supply chain management
through the cloud computing can be stated to be efficient harmonization of supply chain
management with IT structure of an entity. This further leads to the reduction in the cost,
efficiency of access of the information and scalability in the supply chain processes.
The major benefits reaped from the digitalization of the supply chain procedures can be
elaborated as follows. The first core capability and the major driving force behind the
digitalization of the supply chain processes is the enhanced collaboration. The organisations are
increasingly collaborating with each other for effective utilisation of data analytics (Kache &
Seuring, 2017). For instance, it must be noted that automobile manufacturers namely the
DaimlerChrysler, Volvo and BMW have entered into a collaborating arrangement where the

integrated product life cycles are supported. The said collaboration activities not only lead to the
cost cutting, but also leads to the high-capacity utilization of digital manufacturing. Further, yet
another major benefit can be listed to be the improved coordination in context of the different
logistic activities such as that of marketing, manufacturing, operations, logistics, purchasing,
inventory, and the procurement. Thus, in the words of digitalization in the supply chain leads to
the avoidance of the dysfunctional operational performance (Hugos, 2018). The yet another
benefit can be stated to be improved integration in the form of information sharing, improved
balance between the supply and demand and an overall reduction of the cost leading to
operational excellence (Büyüközkan & Göçer, 2018).
Research aim and objectives
The aim of the research is to understand the impact of digitalized supply chain
management on financial performance. The researcher proposed the objectives that assist in
achieving the aim of research.
 Explore the concept of Digitalized Supply Chain management
 Discover the impact of digitalized supply chain management on financial performance.
 Recommended that strategies for improving the practices of digitalized supply chain
management for improving the financial performance.
Research Question
Q1. What do you understand by Digitalized Supply Chain management?
Q2. What is the impact of digitalized supply chain management on financial performance?

Q3. Which strategies are used for improving the practices of digitalized supply chain
management for improving the financial performance?
Research Methodology
Researcher uses research methodology in order to gather the related information so that
they can fulfil the objective of the research (Pozzebon, 2017). In the final research, the researcher
will make use of different types of research method for the final research.
Research design
The research design is one of the major components of research methodology that is
essential to get the reliable as well as accurate information. For conducting the appropriate
research, the researcher will make use of the Qualitative research method rather than quantitative
and mixed research method (Lewis, 2015). Qualitative research method has been selected by the
researcher, as this will contribute effectively in accomplishing the aim of research that is impact
of digitalized supply chain management on financial performance. This method will make
facilitates to the investigator to get the data from the exiting sources and get the content about the
study concern. This study require theoretical information hence this method will be more suitable
as compared to other method.
Research strategy
The strategy of the research is essential for the researcher to be considered as it offers the
step by step plan of the action that include the direction of the different efforts and thoughts
enabling researcher to conduct the research in the systematic manner and also on schedule that
will lead to results in accurate manner. Further, the researcher will conduct the review of

literature in which they include diverse opinions of the other researcher related to the digitalized
in supply chain management with the fact that technology is contributing to this research
(MacCarthy, Blome, Olhager, Srai, & Zhao, 2016). It has been found that the research strategy
will effective contribute in improving the validity as well as reliability of the details that is
accumulated by researcher.
Research approaches
In the research, many kinds of approaches has been considered by the investigator on the basis of
research matter. But, generally two kinds of methods has been practised by most of the
researcher named as inductive and deductive approach. In this, the inductive approach will be
suitable as it facilitated to develop the theory by considering the existing sources. This will be
more suitable to get the conceptual data as compared to the other method.
Data Collection Method
The collection of the data includes the method through which the researcher of the
company will get the reliable and accurate data based on the concerned research. The data can be
collected by the research through secondary tool due to getting the non-numerical information
towards the impact of digitalized supply chain management on financial performance. In
gathering, the data related to the digitalized supply chain innovation in the supply chain will
make the researcher to use secondary research method. This method of accumulating the in-
depth data includes the wide range of resources that are textbooks, academic journals, websites,
and many others (Mackey and Gass, 2015). In these sources, there will be valid, augmenting, as
well as agreed points presented by the research through which the researcher will understand the
topic effectively (Saks & Allsop, 2012).

Data analysis
The information that is accumulated by the researcher for this research topic is required
to analyse further which will be done by the research with the use of the effective method of data
analysis. For this research, the researcher will make use of the content analysis method that is
major used for analysing the content that includes different facts as well as figures (Silverman,
2016). The reason due to which the researcher will select this topic because they know the fact
that digitalized supply chain innovation within the supply chain of different companies across the
world does not include much of the numeric or financial analysis. This tool will enable to the
scholar to evaluate the impact of digitalized supply chain management on financial performance.
Further, the researcher will majorly focuses on the summative content analysis to analyse the
gather details.
Ethical Consideration
Researcher ensures to meet the entire obligation related to the ethics of research while
conducting the final research as it gets link with the techniques as well as the strategies that are
majorly used by the researcher in order to reduce or eliminate the chance of the problem linked
to the ethics. The researcher will avoid the plagiarism issues as they gather the details from the
authentic sources and thus references reflect the authenticity of same (Pozzebon, 2017).
Expected outcome
The research expected outcome will include understanding of the digitalisation that is
widely used by the company today for managing their supply chain effectively and the way
technology has brought the changes in the supply chain management (Büyüközkan & Göçer,
2018). Further, it will be determined in the research that digitalised supply chain management

creates the impact on the working as well as one the operations of the company that will affected
to the overall financial performance of firm. This impact on the companies can be positive as
well as negative depending on the nature of business.
Timescale/research planning
The below given is the timescale planning which reflects the time taken to conduct the every
activity by the researcher.
Activities which will be implemented during the
research
Time is taken to complete the
activities (in weeks)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Choosing the feasible research concern
Forming aim and objectives of the research
Literature review
Collecting data through secondary method
Data analysis by considering the content analysis
Findings and final report

Conclusion
From the above research, this can be concluded that this proposal include details as well
as information which will be further analysed by the researcher while preparing the final report
that is based on evaluating the impact of digitalized supply chain management on financial
performance. The aim and objectives of the research will be attained by the researcher while
preparing the final report with the effective use of the research methodology. In this, the
qualitative method will be selected with the inductive approach due to obtaining the theoretical
information towards the research.

References
Büyüközkan, G., & Göçer, F. (2018). Digital supply chain: literature review and a proposed
framework for future research. Computers in Industry, 97, 157-177.
Cagliano, A. C., Marco, A. D. & Rafele, C. ( 2017). E-grocery supply chain management
enabled by mobile tools, Business Process Management Journal, 23, 47-70.
Farahani, P., Meier, C. & Wilke, J. (2017). Digital Supply Chain Management Agenda for the
Automotive Supplier Industry, in: Shaping the Digital Enterprise, 157- 172.
Hugos, M. H. (2018). Essentials of supply chain management. UK: John Wiley & Sons.
Kache, F. & Seuring, S. (2017). Challenges and opportunities of digital information at the
intersection of Big Data Analytics and supply chain management, International Journal of
Operations & Production Management, 37, 10-36.
Lewis, S. (2015). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five
approaches. Health promotion practice, 16(4), pp.473-475.
MacCarthy, B. L., Blome, C., Olhager, J., Srai, J. S., & Zhao, X. (2016). Supply chain
evolution–theory, concepts and science. International Journal of Operations &
Production Management, 36(12), 1696-1718.
Mackey, A. and Gass, S.M. (2015). Second language research: Methodology and design. New
York: Routledge.
Pflaum, A., Bodendorf, F., Prockl, G. & Chen, H. (2017). Introduction to The Digital Supply
Chain of the Future: Technologies, Applications and Business Models Minitrack,

Proceedings Of The 50Th Hawaii International Conference On System Sciences. doi:
10.24251/hicss.2017.505
Pozzebon, M. (2017). Beyond positivistic qualitative research. Revista de Administração de
Empresas, 57(4), 415.
Saks, M. & Allsop, J. eds. (2012). Researching health: Qualitative, quantitative and mixed
methods. California: Sage.
Silverman, D. ed. (2016). Qualitative research. California: Sage.
Tan, Y., Carrillo, J., & Cheng, H. (2015). The Agency Model for Digital Goods. Decision
Sciences, 47(4), 628-660. doi: 10.1111/deci.12173
Yoo, Y., Lyytinen, K. J., Boland, R. J., & Berente, N. (2010). The Next Wave of Digital
Innovation: Opportunities and Challenges: A Report on the Research Workshop 'Digital
Challenges in Innovation Research’. SSRN Electronic Journal. doi:
10.2139/ssrn.1622170