1.1 Background and Motivation
In the Internet-driven business environment today, companies are given a cutting-edge capability advantage to increase their business value. They can use the Internet to reach new markets across the world through new channels of business as buying and selling can now be done on Internet. If properly managed, the Internet capabilities can empower companies to gain global visibility across their network of trading partners and help them act quickly to rapidly changing customer demands captured over the Internet (Lee & Whang, 2001). As a result, companies are constantly striving to be on the leading edge of internet-based technologies in order to remain competitive.
With the hyper growth of Internet, market globalization and product proliferation that resulted in the increasing complexity of supply chain networks in recent years, companies must work on tighter coordination and collaboration among their supply chain partners. This practice is often called “supply chain integration”. In fact, companies are growing more dependent on collaborative business processes where effective flow of information internally and externally is a crucial success factor (McLaren, Head, & Yuan, 2002). It is therefore clear that the use of information technology (IT) and emerging e-business applications are gaining a pivotal role in the new era of supply chain integration.
Despite all the hype and some success stories, the process of implementing e-business in supply chain integration has proved difficult in practice. This is due to a clear lack of understanding of the actual benefits that can be obtained and what information needs to be shared, especially how companies should re-align their business processes when new technology is implemented (Barratt, 2004).
Therefore, it is vitally important to understand the value of e-business to supply chain integration. Theoretically, the benefits one company could gain if it is properly employed might range from cost reductions and operational efficiencies that come from a more synchronized and coordinated workflow, also increased market share and revenue. However, the impact of IT and e-business applications in supply chain
Some demonstrate instant results that can contribute to revenue generation.
Meanwhile, others end up creating a gap between the investment and expected result.
Empirical evidence on the actual benefits of e-business in supply chain integration also appear to be less clear (Cagliano, Caniato, & Spina, 2003).
It can thus be seen that understanding how e-business impacts the processes within a supply chain is of great importance for most companies. The impacts it brings can be described along the eight business processes that need to be managed and integrated, involving both cross-functional and cross-enterprise processes. Only then can companies be able to fully capture the role of these emerging technologies in supply chain integration and leverage it to enhance their processes.
There is a lack of knowledge about how to translate e-business concepts and technologies into successful supply chain integration practice. This study aims to improve the understanding of the potential role of e-business in enhancing supply chain integration. The result of this study will not only have important theoretical contributions for the emerging e-business field, but also generate valuable practical guidelines to supply chain practitioners.
1.2 Problem Statement and Research Objective
In the increasingly complex business environment of the 21st century, managing a more integrated systems and processes in the supply chain network requires supportive information and technology. Companies are growing more aware of the need to implement e-business technologies in order to streamline their business processes through integrating their supply chain network. Researchers have recognized the trend of e-business concepts and technologies, but the empirical evidence regarding the real impact and benefits brought by e-business is still lacking.
Moreover, the nature of e-business in supply chain integration varies since the key methods used to integrate and manage process links among supply chain partners may differ according to the internal structure of the company, relationship within the supply chain network and economic conditions in the marketplace.
The primary objective of this proposed study is to gain more comprehensive understanding of the potential role of e-business as an important variable to drive and enhance supply chain integration. The findings of this study will shed further light on these research questions:
a. What are the factors that drive the need for supply chain integration in a company today?
b. How does e-business help the company achieve supply chain integration?
c. Does e-business give the company a competitive edge in the supply network?
In order to reach these objectives, the researcher has explored a variety of methods in qualitative research. These include in-depth interviews with a Taiwanese company from the Information Technology service sector that offers e-business technologies and services to enterprises in Taiwan. The researcher seeks to investigate and evaluate the main objective of the enterprises to invest in e-business technologies, the challenges faced during implementation phases, and the major impacts of e-business applications on their supply chain performance through success stories from the company’s business customers.
1.3 Research Process
This thesis begins with identifying relevant problems and developing precise research questions and objectives. In order to gain an in-depth understanding of the research topic, this thesis explores mixed methods research for data collection. Preliminary literature reviews related to the research problem are conducted early in the research process. Interview method is also chosen, in which detailed insights are required from the participants for investigation of the study. The set of data will be analyzed based on the existing theories and research streams, to provide theoretical and practical results needed to answer the research questions. Finally, the results will be followed by recommendations for future research. The research process is presented in Figure 1-1 below:
Figure 1-1 Research Process Define research problem and objective
Conduct qualitative content analysis Review the literature
Design interview questions
Conduct an interview
Organize interview data
Interpret and present results
1.4 Structure of the Study
The thesis consists of six parts. Chapter 1 provides an introduction to the relationship between e-business and supply chain integration, and also the idea of the study. A review of the literature or basic theories related to e-business and supply chain integration is presented in Chapter 2. Chapter 3 describes the main method that the researcher used to achieve the purpose of the study, including data collection through an interview or a research in secondary sources. Chapter 4 details the analysis of general environment, key events and trends within the selected industry.
The empirical part of the study is presented in Chapter 5. This chapter explains a detailed background analysis of the case company, the key elements to its successful implementation of e-business and supply chain integration, the challenges it faced throughout the process, also how the new supply chain strategy changes its business model.
Finally, Chapter 6 summarizes the key findings and conclusions of the study. This chapter interprets results from Chapter 5, showing the theoretical and practical contribution of the study. Limitations of the study are discussed in this section. Here the researcher also offers suggestions for future research.