Effects of Supply Chain Strategies on Business Performance

Abstract

Supply chain is a network that consists of manufacturers, suppliers, customers, logistics and distribution systems, and the relationships between them. It includes processes from the manufacturer to the end-users. Supply chain management helps make decisions on which product will be produced, when the proper timing for the manufacturing should be, when it will be sold, and which material will be stocked in what quantity. In this paper, we investigate the supply chain management strategies and their possible effects on the business performance for an industrial cluster region in Izmir/Turkey. Four main supply chain management strategies of supplier integration (SI), customer integration (CI), internal integration (II), and information-communication technologies (ICT) are examined to determine the possible effects on business performance. Note that survey data are collected from the managers and lead engineers of each company within the investigated industrial cluster. Structural equation modelling (SEM) method is applied to collected data set via IBM Amos software. Findings indicate that the information-communication technologies have the most dominant impact on the operational performance.